Category: KevinMD

5 ways physician recruiters can improve their relationship with doctors

A career in health care provides an incredible life full of experiences, challenges, and heartbreak, mixed with incredible satisfaction. With the rapidly shifting global economy, health professionals retain a large degree of flexibility and geographic …

Prescription for a healthy heart: pediatric-driven partnerships

For pediatric cardiologists, February, National Heart Month, is a special time. We share health tips in the hospital and talk about heart health with those looking for advice, especially with patients and families impacted by CHD. It’s also a time to l…

Instead of Medicare for all, how about Medicare for more?

Medicare for all is one of the leading campaign issues among the Democratic presidential candidates. Michigan Rep. John Conyers first introduced the idea in Congress in 2003. It went nowhere, but as the one-time party of JFK morphed into something much…

Alex Trebek reminds us to go beyond fear of pancreatic cancer

The news that beloved game show host Alex Trebek has advanced stage pancreatic cancer hit his millions of fans hard this week. His illness has elicited heartbreak and support. As a clinician who treats pancreatic cancer, I anticipated the reaction that…

A paradigm shift in acute pain assessment and management

We have embarked upon a unique strategy to assess and manage pain. “Opioids Rarely Help Bodily Pain” is not a catchy phrase but a mnemonic related to educational learning which serves as the cornerstone of a new acute-pain management paradi…

The commodification of health care is destroying the doctor-patient relationship

My elderly patients miss the days when, in an emergency, they could call their family doctor at home, and they’d be cared for. Retired doctors reminisce about the “good old days” when they were in charge of their own schedules and could prescribe whate…

How self-awareness helps with patient interaction

What is self-awareness? A quick Google search says that it is “conscious knowledge of one’s own character, feelings, motives, and desires.” In other words, my worldview is different than yours. Hypothetically, I am a Republican, and you are a Dem…

A key tip for premedical students: Ask for help

A simple Google search is all you need to do to gauge the difficulty individuals have with asking for help. “How to ask to shadow someone.” 43.1 million results. “How to ask for a letter of recommendation.” 66 million results. “How to ask for help,” 3….

To parents who have lost children: We never forget your children

Her name was Callie (identifying information changed). She was four years old. She loved glitter and princesses and anything sparkly. She was affectionate and silly, and I fell hard for her. She was a patient, my patient, on the pediatric oncology unit…

HIPAA case studies: misguided mistakes and egregious errors

An excerpt from Tweets, Likes,and Liabilities: Online and Electronic Risk to the Healthcare Professional. When it comes to HIPAA violations, there are, sadly, plenty of examples available to serve as cautionary tales. Some seem like innocent mistakes t…