Category: KevinMD

A physician who lost his daughter

The day is etched in my memory. The knock at the door. Two detectives and one police officer. I knew the news was bad. We sat at our dinner table, and the dreaded words came: “Your daughter is dead.” “How?” I asked. “She hung herself during the night.”…

For residents unsure about their choice of specialty

About halfway through the internal medicine residency, there comes a time when a resident must decide on what he or she plans to do after three years of training. We may come across a second-year resident saying: What should I do next? Should I become …

10 tips for non-traditional medical school applicants

I would like to offer some words of encouragement to what many call the “non-traditional” students pursuing medicine. The term encompasses people in different aspects in their lives. It may be someone in a different line of work looking at medicine as …

What’s wrong with crisis pregnancy centers?

Perhaps you have already heard of crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs). I see highway billboards for them on most of my long drives throughout the rural midwest. Recently, I received an email from a student interest group offering medical students to tour t…

What happens when your go-to hospital is overcrowded

My local hospital in an affluent suburb of New York City displays its Outstanding Patient Experience Award 2018 and Magnet Recognized status on its website. My experiences tell a different story. This hospital is located approximately five to seven min…

Why is Medicaid reimbursement below sustainability?

Recently, a child was on a waitlist for five months to get into my practice. For this article, I will call him Tiny Tim. Tiny Tim, now five years old, has a skin condition known as eczema or atopic dermatitis. When we first met, virtuously every area o…

A divided house always falls: Why doctors lost control of health care

I recently met an old friend of mine for the evening in New York City. He’s a talented young orthopedic surgeon, who has already, in the short amount of time since finishing residency, experienced so many of the problems our health care system faces. T…

A call for the end of routine opioid use after wisdom tooth removal

We are writing as a parent and a dentist to spread a message to parents and dental health care providers across Canada: there are alternatives to prescribing opioids after wisdom tooth removal. Removing wisdom teeth is considered by many as a rite of p…

The elderly couple who bought vitamins at the grocery store

I recently stopped by our local grocery store after work to pick up a handful of items to bring home. With only four items in hand, I luckily found a short checkout line behind this lovely elderly couple who were almost done and ready to pay. As they s…

Physician income shouldn’t be what determines your level of success

Too many doctors today believe that their income is what determines their level of success. This is a fallacy that is hurting way too many doctors. We hear things like, “Become a specialist so you can make the big bucks,” or “Now that I’m an attending,…