Category: KevinMD

The joy of a successful blood draw

An excerpt from Are You the F**king Doctor?: Tales from the bleeding edge of medicine. The vein stands up proudly. It’s good to look at; it’s inviting. The tourniquet is satisfyingly tight, the syringe waits like a shark on the bedside table, the new o…

The joy of a successful blood draw

An excerpt from Are You the F**king Doctor?: Tales from the bleeding edge of medicine. The vein stands up proudly. It’s good to look at; it’s inviting. The tourniquet is satisfyingly tight, the syringe waits like a shark on the bedside table, the new o…

Not your grandfather’s (or even your father’s) Veterans Affairs

A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.com. “To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.” – Abraham Lincoln With these words, President Lincoln affirmed the governm…

Make sure your decision to leave medicine is not based on an emotional response

We know the statistics. More than 50 percent of physicians are experiencing burnout at the hands of EMRs, a nonexistent work-life balance and regulatory constraints to name a few. This is causing physicians to leave clinical medicine and find other wor…

Will robots replace doctors?

Among the many recurring topics, this year has been the impact of machine learning in our lives, especially the implications for our future work life. Prophecies range from ubiquitous utopian machine servants to a dystopian ravaging, hollowing out the …

A physician who is afraid of shots

This is not a story about anti-vaxxers. This is a story about primary care. Running a smaller practice, as I do, has inherent rewards and challenges. There is literature on both sides of the Atlantic that patients prefer small practices. Lately, consol…

An ode to residency interview season

I woke this morning at 3:30 a.m. My mouth was dry. I tried to urinate, but something roughly the color of quinoa came out in small quantities. So I assumed I was dehydrated. It could have been the bourbon and scotch before dinner — or the two IPAs at d…

A beloved mentor falls

I walk by the closed double doors and frosty windows of the ICU. You’re lying in there, intubated. It feels weird to go to work now. I can’t see you or talk to you, don’t know the drips, don’t know the plan … and it’s killing me. I, along with ma…

How technology removes the pain point from diabetes management

There is a wealth of information about your health circulating in your blood. For people with diabetes, accessing that information can be a matter of life or death. For nearly 30 years, the prevailing technology for checking the blood sugars of someone…

The stories of rural physicians

This article is sponsored by Careers by KevinMD.com. When George W. “Billy” Campbell, MD, walks down the street, he never knows who — or what — he’s going to encounter. Anything can happen when you’re the doctor at Foothills Fam…