Category: KevinMD

The civilian casualties of being a doctor

As an ER doctor, I often meet people on the worst day of their lives. I’m the guy who gets to tell you your mom is dead. I’m the one who works the futile code on your four-year-old, while your screams cut right through everyone in the room. I find your…

The complex expectations of patients toward their physicians

When my father reached his mid-80s, an accelerating accumulation of physical and mental functioning issues persuaded him to switch to a primary care physician in a concierge medical practice. Although the doctor’s pedigree proclaimed his competence, he…

How to deal with politics in the workplace

This article is sponsored by Careers by KevinMD.com. Daily headlines in newspapers and on websites across the nation and around the Internet seem to inspire and anger, and it’s only natural that politics is a topic on everyone’s mind. We&#8…

MKSAP: 64-year-old man seen after an intraoperative liver biopsy

Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 64-year-old man is evaluated in follow-up after recent abnormal findings on intraoperative liver biopsy. Two days ago he underwent right co…

Slow thinking and machine learning in medicine

Recently, several high-profile institutions have called attention to the issue of inclusion and equity when artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms are applied in medicine. Leaders from the law, medicine, social sciences and computer sciences are speak…

8 tips to land the residency of your dreams

After countless hours of hard work and three demanding years of medical school, it’s now time to face the spotlight! If your interview invites have started rolling in and you are feeling intimidated by the thought, follow these tips to land your first …

You can measure the pulse of a hospital by its coffee shop

I think you can tell a lot about how things are going in a hospital based on the amount of consumption of coffee by its employees. Visit the Starbucks, Au Bon Pain, Roasterie, Einstein Brothers, or whatever coffee shop inhabits square footage in your h…

Doctors are pawns of the health care system

Doctors and other caretakers are the pawns of the health care system. We provide the services that allow hospitals and medical groups to bring in big revenue.  Unless we are contracting directly with insurers, doctors will never realize the true financ…

Physicians are trapped between patient satisfaction and unnecessary prescribing

I don’t mean to pick on McDonald’s. Insert any other large retail business where customer satisfaction massively trumps every other consideration of the relationship between employee and customer. Telemedicine companies have exploded the past few years…

The carefully crafted way of how health misinformation spreads

Effective clickbait doesn’t just happen. It’s carefully crafted. Take this wildly misleading article from CNN: Not exercising worse for your health than smoking, diabetes, and heart disease, study reveals. It’s one example — among many generated daily …