“Why did you wait to schedule this meeting until September, why not July or August?” Candidly, I replied, “I have a family and being on nights, spending those 90 minutes with them a day is very important to me.” It was then, behind cl…
Category: KevinMD
It’s time to acknowledge the developmental behavioral pediatric workforce
There are roughly 15 percent of the nation’s children who suffer from a developmental-behavioral condition or about 1 in 6 children. Unfortunately, many of those children often do not get the help they need. Children with developmental and behavioral c…
The value of personal narratives in addiction treatment and integrated care
I was standing behind my trolley in our local supermarket when, in my wallet, I came across that drawing of a human heart. In the miniature pen-and-ink composition, the heart is suspended between two birds’ wings. At the bottom is a dateline: Opioid Vi…
3 ways your emotional armor is ruining your medical career
There comes a time in a doctor’s medical career when the demands of caring for patients is too much. To survive medicine, doctors put on armor so we can go into the battlefield of medicine and do the work we do. The armor is the walls and barriers we e…
The antidote to multitasking is mindfulness
Mindfulness, my own personal word-of-the-decade, is the polar opposite of multitasking, which is not at all what it sounds like. Despite popular opinion, multitasking does not help you to get a whole bunch of different things done all at once. When you…
Residency and the path to equal parenting
When my husband and I started parenting, our only explicit goal was to keep our son alive and healthy and growing. We read many of the usual books about pregnancy and the early childhood years. We did not read any literature on equal parenting. At t…
Reminding ourselves why we practice medicine
Going to medical school was a dream come true. I was excited; I couldn’t wait. I spent my childhood dreaming about it. It was this amazing fantasy in my head where nothing was impossible, and I would be able to help thousands of people, maybe mil…
Treating depression with ketamine: We need incremental treatment for depression
Recently, the Food and Drug Administration approved a nasal spray version of the drug Ketamine, named Spravato (esketamine), for use as a supplement to oral antidepressants taken by adults living with treatment-resistant depression. The announcement wa…
Practicing medicine in a divided country
We live in a fractured country and opinions are becoming more polarized. It’s getting harder to find common ground as everyone slowly recedes further into their social media or cable news echo chambers. One of the best things about working in health ca…
How to match into dermatology: A medical student shares her success story
I didn’t match dermatology the first time. It was a harrowing experience, and I had a chip on my shoulder until the day I opened my match envelope. The reality is that in the last ten years, dermatology has become the most competitive specialty i…
