The Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) should be abolished. This single test — which ranks students by the science they’ve learned before going to medical school — prevents the physician population in the U.S. from looking like the population …
Category: KevinMD
Never let your patients know you’re in a hurry
I was recently working in clinic on a Friday afternoon. I was on my last patient of the day, and it had been a particularly long clinic. I had big plans for the weekend and should have already finished. The gentleman entered the room, sat down, and we …
How hospitals drive up health costs
As voters fume about the high cost of health care, politicians have been targeting two well-deserved villains: pharmaceutical companies, whose prices have risen more than inflation, and insurers, who pay their executives millions in salaries while rais…
This is grief. This is life.
I had a brief, quiet, intense conversation with a friend today. She had just lost another friend, a close one, to a sudden and tragic accident. “How are you doing?” I asked. “OK,” she replied as she turned to go up the hallway. In a second, I knew bett…
The fraught history of the word, “teratology”
The field of teratology (also known as dysmorphology) is rapidly growing with daily innovations in prenatal medicine, genetics and preventive care that show its uniquely intersectional nature. But, the term teratology, and its derivatives teratoma and …
Hopefully, learning this physician’s secret will help you
I love my husband. Not in a common way. My emotional reserve was so shallow that by afternoon, anything but solitude felt like an assault. I was obligated and determined to meet the needs of my daughters, and after that, I had nothing left. I love my k…
How does this tech improve patient care?
What if each new feature of your medical record came with a description of how it would improve patient value, not just how to use it? Could a simple checklist help to achieve Annals’ vision of putting patients first by helping to ensure that hea…
Clinical practice guidelines have problems, but they’re not broken
A Health Affairs blog post titled “Fixing Clinical Practice Guidelines” echoed several concerns I’ve discussed previously: practice guidelines are being produced in abundance but often have variable methodological quality, financial c…
Most of what you learned in medical school is wrong. And that’s OK.
“90 percent of what you will learn over the next four years will be wrong in a couple of decades from now.” Speaking to a lecture hall of 120 first-year medical students, our professor’s prophecy seemed to fall on deaf ears. Looking a…
A physician uses where he comes from for constant motivation
Growing up, any opportunity to eat out was truly a luxury. We just didn’t have the money for it. Occasionally on birthdays or a special trip, we would be treated with a big fish sandwich from Burger King, or my personal favorite, a $20 party tray…
