My 83-year-old patient had outlived peoples’ expectations on several occasions. Faced with a critical illness three years ago, she underwent emergency surgery and spent several months in the hospital with a series of complications, including sept…
Category: KevinMD
What rushed patient encounters are doing to patients and physicians
Research shows that as many as 50 percent of physicians report some level of burnout that manifests as depression, dissociation, indifference, and even substance use disorders. Medicine has become focused on monetary gains by large corporations, major …
The doctors guide to making a good real estate offer
An excerpt from The Doctors Guide to Real Estate Investing for Busy Professionals. Only make offers on property you think would be good for you to own for 40-plus years. Don’t mistake this statement to mean if you are 70 years old then you shouldn’t bu…
When physicians are complicit
The other day I asked myself why do I focus my attention on immigrants when there are plenty of other underserved and neglected populations. When an opioid crisis surrounds me, why do I speak of a crisis at the border? When structural and overt racis…
Why primary care will soon only treat chronic conditions
In most other human activities, there are two speeds, fast and slow. Usually, one dominates. Think firefighting versus bridge design. Health care spans from one extreme to the other. Think code blue versus diabetes care. Primary care was once a place w…
How the administrative burden contributes to physician burnout
A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com. The administrative burden associated with caring for patients in today’s health care system has emerged as a primary driver of the loss of joy in the practice of medicine a…
Over 2,000 prayers for the dead. This was my hardest.
The day began in Mom’s room with a 10:00 a.m. conference at Upper Valley Medical Center, west of Columbus, Ohio. In attendance were my 93-year-old mother Joanne (now in her third week of hospitalization), her palliative-care nurse Richard, her Ep…
Has health care lost its humanity?
As doctors, most of us went into medicine with a true desire to help other people. What was once a noble profession is now being worn down by outside forces trying to control us. Third-party insurance companies are driven by profits, not by optimal car…
To fight physician burnout, empower nurses
Twenty-five years ago, when I entered medical school, clinical notes were written in paper charts that were filed numerically on shelves. We didn’t have the electronic medical record (EMR), and burnout wasn’t on the radar. In the past few years, this h…
How this physician reset her life
It hasn’t always been this way. For years, I worked at the typical high-achiever pace, like many striving to become a doctor. Upon entering medical school, I set challenging expectations of myself — graduate at the top of my class, study a relentless n…
