Jacob is just past 30 by a year or two. He is, as I like to describe him, a little boy trapped inside a man’s body and very much mentally ill. He started off with fetal alcohol syndrome, which means his mother drank heavily when she was pregnant….
Category: KevinMD
3 reasons why smart doctors fail big exams
OK, quick — word association time. I say “doctor,” and you think what? “Smart,” right? And it’s true. Doctors are smart. But before you buy into the myth that every doctor has breezed through school and could fall out of bed with a #2 pencil and crush …
The key to being an attending physician
When I graduated from residency, I was too worried about killing my first few patients to examine the meaning of being an attending physician. An early patient, a 97-year-old retired doc, brought it to my attention. “Being an attending physician means …
The myth of resilience in preventing burnout
With 44% of physicians self-reporting burnout in the 2019 Medscape National Physician Burnout, Depression & Suicide Report, most will agree the profession is in crisis. Of the 29 specialties included, all had at least 1 in 4 members reporting burno…
What to do when chronic illness is a source of embarrassment
Embarrassment is a feeling of awkward self-consciousness or shame. It manifests as a sense of discomfort or even foolishness around others. Feeling embarrassed is emotionally painful because it means you feel uncomfortable with yourself. The problem wi…
What to do when chronic illness is a source of embarrassment
Embarrassment is a feeling of awkward self-consciousness or shame. It manifests as a sense of discomfort or even foolishness around others. Feeling embarrassed is emotionally painful because it means you feel uncomfortable with yourself. The problem wi…
What to do when chronic illness is a source of embarrassment
Embarrassment is a feeling of awkward self-consciousness or shame. It manifests as a sense of discomfort or even foolishness around others. Feeling embarrassed is emotionally painful because it means you feel uncomfortable with yourself. The problem wi…
A neurosurgeon asks: Is your child’s backpack hurting her spine?
Running late for school in the morning. Again. You yell upstairs to your daughter, “Hurry up.” While she’s slipping on her sneakers and hustling out the door, you grab her backpack from the chair in the dining room. “Wow,” you think. “That’s heavy.” Ev…
How cartoons can alleviate medical stress
Comical cartoons about medicine and doctors help to alleviate patient fears, make doctors laugh, nurses think, and everyone else involved in the medical field ponder the value of comics. I have been involved in creating medical cartoons for 40+ years a…
Voice to text solutions could turn EHR-burdened medical professionals into doctors again
Just imagine the following: your assistant invites in Ms. Nichols, who has a migraine, a bad cough, and feels nauseated. You sit down, start talking about the symptoms, see her throat, measure her temperature, pulse rate, inquire more about the headach…
