Category: KevinMD

A physician got a DUI. The physician health program didn’t help.

A physician health program, PHP, is a state agency that is responsible for advocating, treatment referral and physician monitoring, residents and medical students who have substance abuse disorders, psychiatric disorders and/ or boundary issues. There …

Medicare for all advocates are in for a rude awakening

Migrating to the U.S. as an international medical graduate, I was shocked by the health care culture of excess. Initially, it felt good to order a CT scan on everyone who had a fall or cardiac enzymes on anybody who had atypical chest pain. I felt powe…

Acting as supreme commander is not leadership

Your medical training has failed you. When it comes to leadership, acting as the supreme commander — large and in charge — is not solving your problem. You are racing from patient to patient, running as fast as you can to keep up. You see your income f…

Taking food and drink away from doctors and nurses is just cruel

It’s hard to explain what we do. And so maybe, it’s hard for others to sympathize with our situations. I mean, physicians, mid-levels, and nurses in emergency departments are tied to computers in often cramped work-spaces, even as they are required to …

A letter to a cancer patient in palliative care

I heard about you a few times before I ever met you in person. It was my first day on the palliative care service — a week that felt like a relaxing break from the sixteen-hour days I was used to on surgery. Many people don’t know what palliative…

breast cancer

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Is there a link between readmission and a hospital’s non-profit status?

It was the middle of winter in downtown Chicago in 1995, and I was sitting across from an apologetic alcoholic holding a slimy NG tube. Mr. Smith, an emaciated man in his sixties, had been on my service for three days with acute pancreatitis, and this …

Negotiating lower drug prices in America: The tradeoffs are worth it.

Negotiating lower drug prices in America could possibly stifle pharmacological innovation. But it would reduce health care cost for most Americans — and that should be all that matters. If the United States began to regulate drug prices, medications wo…

The climbing rates of maternal mortality in Black women

To put it simply, I’m scared by news headlines and conversations about the climbing rates of maternal mortality among Black women. I’m not surprised, however. As an internist, I regularly marvel at the advances that have been made in Western medicine, …

The gender imbalance in nursing

The gender imbalance in nursing, our nation’s largest profession, is a slow-to-change and complex problem steeped in stereotypes, economics, unconscious bias, power, and privilege in health care and society. Along with other diversity gaps in the nursi…