Category: primary care

4 questions that made me become a health coach

I love science. I enjoy studying the human body and its amazing ability to adapt, heal, and restore. I love critical thinking, problem-solving, and forward progress, but the practice of medicine is not a science experiment. In medicine, I manage people…

365 shows later: The Podcast by KevinMD’s most popular episodes

It’s been such an inspiring journey for The Podcast by KevinMD! I started the show one year ago, on June 1, 2020. I didn’t know what to expect, who would want to be on the show, or who would listen. Heck, I didn’t know the first thing…

The mission of medicine: not just a job

The mission of medicine is to heal the sick.  When cure is elusive, it is to relieve distress, and always to comfort.  All of us who became physicians had our reasons, but we had to have a genuine interest and ability in science, and an appreciation of…

A physician’s opinion on second opinions

In medicine, there are those patients that know they have a morbid underlying diagnosis, and no doctor can convince them otherwise. And there are also those that know they are perfectly well and need no treatment, and no doctor can convince them otherw…

How to bring the human side back to medicine

In the book The Insanity of God, the writer had been an American missionary to Somalia during the late 1980s through early ’90s. This was a time when there was no place on earth with greater needs, hardships, suffering, and dying. It truly was he…

Doctors’ dirty little secrets

Doctors have a few dirty little secrets. We have the highest rates of suicide amongst all professions and are in desperate need of mental health reform. For those who don’t know what it’s like to work in this area, it can be difficult to un…

I was a doctor. Could I also be a nurse?

Recently, one of my clinic patients asked me to administer his intramuscular medication injection. I appreciated the vote of confidence but had to tell him he was mistaken in thinking that my skill would surpass that of our nurses’. “Trust me,” I told …

3 reasons why patients are unhappy

When I’m working in the hospital, I always find it interesting talking to patients about their medical history and experiences with outpatient physicians. I recently wrote about our broken primary care system. In fact, I’ll be stronger than that: Our p…

What if this physician had access to real solutions?

What if I had access to real solutions? What if I had resources to provide to a person to help them overcome their problem?  As a primary care provider with over 20 years of experience, I know viscerally that I will never “fix” anyone. I can teach, I c…

Here’s the secret to establishing a great physician reputation

Summer marks a flood of young new attendings hitting hospitals all over the country. There will also be many doctors whose first contract is coming to an end, and they are moving to a new position. Both of these scenarios create an opportunity to make …