Category: KevinMD

Why doctors can’t take sick days

I learn all manner of interesting things from the information sheets posted on the walls of the employee bathrooms at my hospital. I learn, for example, about upcoming CME offerings for advance practice providers, how many seconds one has to scrub the hub of a central line, and what the new process is when nurses […]

100 percent satisfaction doesn’t work in our health system

“I want answers!” My mother was upset over the care for her ill husband. Previously able to converse normally, he was now incoherent and disoriented. The recent recipient of a bone marrow transplant to treat his advanced leukemia, he probably experienced a brain infection because of the immune suppression therapy needed to accept the marrow. […]

What physicians need to make a telehealth program stand out

When I became a physician years ago, the idea of telehealth had barely taken hold among doctors or patients. Today, as we bask in the passage of the CHRONIC Care Act of 2017, we’re seeing dozens of use cases in stroke, emergent care, psychiatry and more that underscore telehealth’s potential. Consumers are becoming increasingly digitally […]

Challenging gender bias in the house of medicine

A guest column by the American Medical Association, exclusive to KevinMD.com. Since the 1970s, women have been carving out an increasingly large role in medicine, and the profession is becoming more representative of our society. September is Women in Medicine Month, a great time to acknowledge the changing face of medicine, but also to note that female […]

A patient waits. And waits.

I sit before you and others like you, in silence, anxious about what I might be told. You deliver a litany of questions to my countenance as I sit in a chair beside you. Your attention is diverted to the cold and detached computer screen where my responses are entered without you ever noticing the […]

A physician with congenital heart disease

Everyone always jokes with doctors, “What happens if you get sick?” Some of us laugh off the question. The busy schedule of health care often means our own health comes last. However, what happens when it’s a chronic disease that requires treatment? Then the answer to this question is a little different. I am a […]

Doctor, when is your next vacation?

Life is short. We always hear that phrase but really don’t know what it truly means. What I mean is that life doesn’t feel short; we complain of our days being too long, or weeks too busy and dragged out. The only thing that feels too short in my life are weekends. There comes a […]

Looking for the silver lining at supervised injection facilities

The Hippocratic Oath, as presumably most of us know, is the oath taken by physicians promising to uphold ethical standards in treating their patients. The four pillars of medical ethics primarily stem for this oath: autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. The world we see now is socially different compared to what it was when Hippocrates […]

Opioid cheating is a billion-dollar industry

If you search for “how to pass a urine drug test” on the internet, you will get several million results. As physicians, we see and manage the national opioid crisis every day. We see the impacts of this in our practices and our lives. The crisis frankly shows no signs of abating or becoming a […]

Happy National Grateful Patient Day!

One day I found out that it was National Limerick Day. I didn’t even know there was a National Limerick Day. I investigated other “days” and found out that September 7th was National Grateful Patient Day. So, this grateful patient will start her post with a limerick: There was a patient in a flimsy gown, […]