Even if you have a great health insurance plan, you may be faced with large unexpected medical bills that can significantly impact your finances and may lead to medical debt. High deductible plans, the rising cost of care, and high-cost treatments for …
“We have met the enemy in medical education, and he is us!” My paraphrase of the “philosophy of Pogo” is pertinent to today’s crop of graduating medical students. We have inserted them into the most toxic environment for learning medicine, ever. Dr. Mi…
A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD. Most of us have iconic people in our personal and professional lives – those who are worthy of veneration and inspire and compel us to have higher expectations for ourselves. …
For the last three years, I have been asking my patients at their annual physical visit the following question: “What are your health goals for the coming year?” I follow up with: “What do you need to achieve them,” or “What would get in the way?” Thes…
Health care has been hanging by a thread for some time — in our community and across the nation. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed weaknesses inherent in an underfunded public health system, a monopolized hospital, and a fractured medical supply chain. At …
The Lebanese-born former American oncologist Farid Fata committed one of the most malicious acts of greed by a medical professional in recorded history. Fata spent six years telling otherwise healthy people that they had cancer and needed immediate che…
This year has been the blackest of nights for so many of our friends and neighbors. Daily, I still see the ravages of depression, made worse by the pandemic. It will be some time until we understand the repercussions of postponed cancer screenings. Eve…
Forty-two years ago, when I had finally finished the seven revisions of my first novel, The House of God, my editor said, “Why don’t you add a glossary and a list of The Laws of the House of God.” Writing the Laws, I hardly needed to refer to the text…
In his seminal 1977 Science magazine article, “The Need for a New Medical Model: A Challenge for Biomedicine,” Dr. George Engel outlined the biomedical model’s limitations and proposed a new model, which he termed the biopsychosocial …
In a few weeks, I will be retiring. After 31 years and more than 100,000 patient visits, I will be hanging up my stethoscope. Over the years, there have been tremendous highs but also horrible lows. The latter includes having been victimized by a fr…
