Category: KevinMD

What’s worse than a doctor getting cancer behind prison walls? Try COVID.

He could hear the football game playing on a radio outside his room, so he knew someone was there, and he knew he was dying.  He screamed and screamed as the paralysis from what he was sure was sepsis took over more and more of his body. No one answere…

I will be a cardiologist with a subspecialty in resilience

I am writing this as I lay in bed, feverish, sweaty, and persistent dry cough. I have been sick with presumed COVID-19 for the past ten days. I have quarantined myself from my wife and two sons, unable to hug or reassure them that everything will be ok…

With voices unified, medical students are heard

When a coalition of medical organizations, led by the American Medical Student Association (AMSA), petitioned in 2001 to cap medical resident work hours, they were turned down by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Despite their r…

The social worker and a patient’s homicidal thoughts

“Howard wants to go to the hospital. He knows he isn’t doing that great. He says he is having homicidal thoughts.” This from my supervisor, Linda. Homicidal thoughts on the part of any client get our attention, especially so with Howa…

How to mitigate risk and foster resilience among vulnerable populations during COVID-19

Over the past two months, health professionals and community advocates have brought to the fore of national attention what has been the lived experience of many within black and brown communities for ages — racism kills. The substrate of structural rac…

How to ride the wave of adoration for health care professionals

Health care is enjoying an abundance of positive attention as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. My question, my challenge, is how can we sustain this love-fest between the public and the health care profession even after we obtain a vaccine or an e…

Take the time now to hear your patients’ stories

I rounded recently on a 100-year-old veteran of the Battle of the Bulge. It was a terrible and costly battle fought in Belgium during the winter of 1945, the coldest and snowiest in memory at that time. The German army made a desperate last stand again…

Remember the real heroes in our COVID war

Every day our governors announce the COVID death toll and highlight a family who lost a member of their family too soon. COVID took a 35-year-old mother. It took a 48-year-old father.   These deaths are tragic.  But a frequent refrain is that this viru…

Why is it hard to find a good dermatologist in a competitive market?

We’ve all heard the phrase, “survival of the fittest.” It suggests that in the competitive, “free market” world, it is the “best” who survives and it’s “the cream” that rises to the top.  But is that true for doctors?  Do patients get better care when …

The mindset of an entrepreneur: Why failure is an option

“Failure was not an option” is a phrase that I’ve heard so many times as entry point conversations with the many burned out physician moms and women in medicine I have coached.  And in many ways, they are right. However, the context from which it is sa…