Tuesday, getting ready for work. Standing in the shower, it hit me. I couldn’t remember the last time I wanted a drink. I almost got a blob of conditioner in my mouth as I snorted out loud. “Mom, you OK?” “Yeah, baby, I’m great.”…
Category: KevinMD
What charity care patients get big hospital bills
When Ashley Pintos went to the emergency room of St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma, Wash., in 2016, with a sharp pain in her abdomen and no insurance, a representative demanded a $500 deposit before treating her. “She said, ‘Do you have $200?’ I said…
To anyone in medicine: This is why listening matters
Victor Frankl is an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor, who survived three years in the concentration camps of Dachau and Auschwitz. He once told a story about a woman, his patient, who called him in the middle of the night sayi…
Denial and rationalization will not save you from a heart attack
Smoking was cool. And he started smoking at the age of 15. Two packs a day — every day. When he was 32 years old, we had our first-born son. And he decided to quit cold turkey. But the damage was done. Somehow, someway, it would catch up with him in de…
Should health care come with a money-back guarantee?
It may seem odd that a gastroenterologist patronizes fast food establishments several times each week. I’m in one right now as I write this. I eschew the food items –though French fries will forever tempt me – and opt for a large-sized beverage. In tru…
How do you determine that the dream of medicine is worth it?
I’m fascinated by the human body — the intricacies of it, the poetry of it. I am intrigued that a cell can come together with other cells to form tissues, those tissues, organs, and systems. The body is a powerful metaphor for unity: what happens…
Can answers to after hours calls be automated?
At a certain point, we’ve all got to go home. Whether it’s the end of the shift when the factory whistle blows and the assembly line stops rolling for a brief period while new people take our place, or late in the day after the last patient…
It is always a good time to buy real estate
An excerpt from The Doctors Guide to Real Estate Investing for Busy Professionals. I left my 20-year general surgical practice at age 51, only 12 years after buying my first apartment complex. By then, my real estate investments were producing more pas…
Drug ads are a campaign against physician trust
There was a time when drug reps fed us lunch and gave us an endless supply of pens, pads, and even umbrellas all emblazoned with their newest drugs. They explained why their drug was better than their competitors’ and what it would offer to our patient…
The irrational exuberance of early cancer detection
Here’s some good news for a change about cancer: Cancer mortality — the rate of death from cancer — has fallen substantially over the last four decades. There is also, however, some not-so-good news: Cancer incidence — the rate of cancer diagnoses — ha…
