Category: KevinMD

When we coach, we change the lives of our children

For the past six months, I’ve spent my free time becoming a certified life coach. I’m a hospitalist, but a little more than a year ago, I was introduced to life coaching. I love the changes it has produced in my life – particularly how it’s chang…

It’s time to go all in on climate action

I can’t sleep, or maybe it’s that I got up too early. It’s 3 a.m. and a good 1 to 2 hours before I usually get up. California is literally burning. We have no rain in sight. Colorado is burning as well, although they may have snow soon. Do you remember…

So you want to be a doctor? Here are 10 myths debunked.

I’m glad you’re looking at a career in medicine. I hope you will be happy with your choice forever. To help you out, these are a few myths I wish somebody told me about when I was in your shoes. 1. You’ll be rich. You likely won&#8217…

What is an informed decision in the context of an addiction?

Ironically, his fingers looked like cigarette butts. They were black and chalky at the tips and then tan through his knuckles to his hands. A couple was capped by long yellow fingernails, shooting out like stalks of hay, bending in different directions…

What will medicine look like in a post-COVID world?

We all have understood by now that life has been changed irrevocably by COVID-19. As physicians, while we navigate the rapidly changing waters of testing, prevention, and acute treatment, we are now becoming increasingly cognizant of the long-term effe…

Anesthesia touches nearly every area of medicine [PODCAST]

“I suppose those of us between zero and ninety-three are blessed in our own way as well. We are here, swirling in a jumble of the inconsequential and consequential. We’ve enjoyed some of the world’s beauty and reserve the potential to experience …

Reflecting on the challenges of patient advocacy

The third week of September is Mitochondrial Disease Awareness Week: a time to fundraise, light up buildings in green, and hold events that highlight mitochondrial disease research and awareness. My family has never heard of mitochondrial disease until…

It only takes a moment of laughter to alleviate a crappy situation

One day recently, while working as a nursing assistant, I heard a shrill, gravely cry for help pierce the air in the hallway of the long-term memory care facility where I work. I sprinted to the room where the pleading call was coming from, and in the …

A CEO with the keys to the kingdom. And the pharmacy.

1986. I graduated from LPN to RN. And I was immediately offered a new job. Manager of a six-bed ER. This hospital had three surgical suites — 50 inpatient beds and 2 L&D suites. This was a private Catholic hospital run by the nuns. The computer sys…

How do you know which doctors are essential?

This is a time of change and uncertainty in medicine. Being a resident right now during the pandemic of 2020 is even more unpredictable, especially in a field that is not necessarily directly on the frontlines, so to speak. Two years ago, I was choosin…