For longer than anyone could remember, he was the rural community’s pharmacist. A skilled compounder of prescriptions and conversant in chocolates, greeting card, and how to prevent a trip to the doctor’s office by using an over-the-counter…
Category: KevinMD
The Osteopathic Oath vs. the Hippocratic Oath
It was during the first few weeks of medical school that I realized that I was joining a secret society. Like many physicians, I was called to medicine at a young age. For me, it was Doctor Beverly Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I admired…
Silence in health care is a crisis
I was moved when a family entrusted me to give a eulogy for their beloved. This great privilege highlighted a hallmark of a physician’s service to humanity: “to cure sometimes, alleviate often, but comfort always.” But I was horrified to learn that his…
Join telemedicine’s transformation of the health care delivery model
I came across Dr. Kevin Tolliver’s post, “Beware the Limits of Telemedicine,” and found it to gloss over the benefits of telemedicine and the opportunities that increasing telemedicine uptake can afford to the patient and provider. With thi…
The thorny side of medical marijuana
Patients legally using medical marijuana (cannabis) at home may be stunned if they are admitted to a hospital because many hospitals may prohibit them from using it. In the United States, medical marijuana is legal in 31 states, and research shows that…
A call for accountability in health care
In Dr. Suneel Dhand’s article, “We can do a better job with hospital discharge paperwork,” he advocates for physicians to do a better job at creating discharge instructions that are more appealing and easier for patients to understand. After all, coher…
When will the stigma of mental health end in medicine?
Imagine being a cancer patient afraid of seeing an oncologist because they would likely need to discuss chemotherapy and all the lifestyle changes that it entails. Imagine being a patient with heart failure afraid of seeing the cardiologist because the…
It shouldn’t be this difficult to find shoes for kids with disabilities
My son, Luke, was born 18 months ago with myelomeningocele, the most severe form of spina bifida. Luke and our family have faced many challenges: premature birth at 26 weeks due to complications after in utero surgery for spina bifida; a 171-day stay i…
How can we reduce the no-show rate in primary care?
At a quality and patient safety meeting recently, one of the departments was presenting their annual report on all they have done, reviewing progress that has been made around several quality and patient safety initiatives. One of their project centere…
The many benefits of strengthening the primary care workforce
The United States spends more on health care per capita than any other country in the world — yet health outcomes continue to fall short. In order to close the spending gap with other countries, United States health care policy must focus on reducing c…
