Category: KevinMD

The doctor who avoids answering your questions

Most of us are, to some degree, procrastinators. We avoid or postpone doing unpleasant things. In this sense, physicians who are avoiders are no different from anyone else. For a doctor, however, avoiding things often leads to poor, or at least less th…

Improve mental health by improving how we finance health care

It takes an average of 10 years between symptom onset for mental health conditions to be accurately diagnosed and therefore treated. In addition to general misunderstandings about mental health, the nationwide shortage of mental health providers is one…

Sharing medical records won’t work

A major goal of MIPS is to increase the sharing of information between providers and eliminate so-called data silos. Central to this goal is the implementation of fast health care interoperability resources (FHIR). FHIR allows one EHR to directly query…

The questions people ask medical students

Wow, you’re in medical school? So you are going to be a doctor? What year are you? When are you going to finish? What are you going to go into? You should become a skin doctor, what do they call them again? It doesn’t matter, but they do go…

Talking about opioids can lead to strong emotions

About three years ago, I was chatting about pain with a friend at a social function, and she told me she was taking a prescribed opioid for her chronic pain. I quickly got the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach that comes from discussing and prescribi…

Should we teach novice physicians how to manage emergencies before they face emergencies?

Soon after match day, I became concerned. I knew I was going into emergency medicine. However, I felt unprepared to manage a clinical encounter with limited time and incomplete information. At the time I entered residency, the only published guides ava…

A medical student’s advice for clinical rotations

As a rising fourth-year med student, these are my words of wisdom for all students who are on their clinical rotations. Your mental health is paramount; do not neglect how you are feeling! There is not one med student that I know of who hasn’t felt anx…

A medical student’s advice for clinical rotations

As a rising fourth-year med student, these are my words of wisdom for all students who are on their clinical rotations. Your mental health is paramount; do not neglect how you are feeling! There is not one med student that I know of who hasn’t felt anx…

Why physicians should acknowledge the validity of second opinions

One of the most valuable jobs I held following fellowship was working as a full-time deputy editor at UpToDate. My “territory” was breast, gynecologic, and genitourinary oncology, and I helped launch cancer survivorship and palliative care. I learned t…

Black Man Syndrome: in memory of Bryan Gowdy

He came to the office in search of help as many patients do, but the circumstances that compelled him to seek medical attention were all too similar to me. I’ve seen it time and again. He said that he couldn’t sleep at one visit. At another, his blood …