Category: KevinMD

The power of empathy: a tale of two prostate biopsies

I’m sitting in a windowless room in the hospital’s urology department waiting for my second prostate biopsy, feeling surprisingly calm and relaxed. It’s a surveillance biopsy. Two years ago, the first one revealed “a few scatter…

Going beyond the usual advice for eating healthy [PODCAST]

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes! Join Francisco M. Torres, an interventional physiatrist. As the author of Dr. T’s Drop the Fat Diet: 12 Steps to Leaner You Forever, Dr. Torres shares invaluable findings …

Surviving my nephrectomy nightmare: the night I’ll never forget

My first post-op night after my nephrectomy was a mix of fantastical and almost devastating. I woke up in the PACU after my surgery, extremely confused and disoriented. I felt like I was trapped inside a video game, desperately trying to escape. Upon e…

Doctors speak out against toxic work conditions

I’m in a global private physician Facebook group, and I learn a great deal about health care, both good and bad, from other doctors. Because it is private, doctors share a lot of personal practice issues as well as challenging cases from which we…

Large language models in health care [PODCAST]

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes! We delve into the intersection of large language models (LLMs) and health care with David Lareau, a health care executive. Since the debut of ChatGPT, the health care sect…

Why immigrant physicians struggle to bring their aging parents to the U.S.

In the United States (U.S.), immigrating physicians typically fall into three categories: those working temporarily on nonimmigrant visas, those permanently residing on immigrant visas, and those who have become U.S. citizens through naturalization. Wh…

What does it mean to be a great doctor?

Like most existential questions, the answer to this question really depends on who you ask. A patient may have one answer, and a physician a completely different response. Ask ten people, and you’re likely to get ten different replies. What does …

Building expertise through collaboration [PODCAST]

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes! Join emergency physicians Resa E. Lewiss and Adaira Landry as they delve into the power of collaboration in developing subject matter expertise. Discover how their monthly…

Where do they come up with all those goofy names for prescription drugs, anyway?

An excerpt from Pills, Shills, and the Psychiatry Wars: Musings from the Drug Safety & Healthcare News Blog. I was spreading pine straw around the bushes in my yard in Atlanta, Georgia, when I started thinking about … you guessed it! The goof…

How medical training indoctrinates toxic beliefs in physicians

There’s a great irony that exists within medicine. We are taught to critically examine all scientific evidence; however, there are a series of beliefs we learn about the profession as a whole that we’re meant to accept without question. Ess…