You’ve got to understand that I don’t like anything being thrown at my face. Seriously. This fear goes back to my childhood in Ontario, Canada, when after school in the winter, the neighborhood kids got together to play hockey. Our back yar…
Category: primary care
How to make primary care rotations more appealing for students [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes! “It is time that every health profession school specifies their criteria for optimal teaching primary care practices and for the training that would optimize their students’ experienc…
How whole-person care can make us better healers
My patient at a pain clinic on a military base in Virginia carried the deep wounds of war on his face. Not physical scars, but a sallow, slack complexion and a hollow-eyed look of exhaustion and defeat. A veteran of the war in Afghanistan, he had long …
How writing a letter on Substack might recharge your life in medicine
“The good life is ever-changing, challenging, devoid of regret, intense, creative, and risky.” -Friedrich Nietzsche One year ago, bruised and battered like any physician practicing in this pandemic, I decided to double down on weariness and…
Why this doctor prefers perfectionist physicians
Your plane is about to take off. Like most folks, you are just a little anxious about flying. It is very rare, but you know a lot of bad things can happen to the machine that carries you at 30,000 feet above sea level. Consider this: Would you rather t…
Smaller practices should participate in clinical research. Here’s how they can.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting shutdown accelerated the adoption of decentralized clinical trials (DCTs). The number of trials with virtual and/or decentralized elements exceeded 1,000 in 2021 for the first time, according to GlobalData. That’…
Narrative medicine develops empathy among physicians
A hallmark of modern medicine involves providing compassionate care through an empathetic doctor-patient relationship. This post describes one powerful technique for developing empathy among medical providers: narrative medicine writing. What is empath…
Fill mid-level positions with unmatched medical graduates
In a crowded primary care clinic in an inner city, Mr. Smith, with pursed lips, was sitting next to his oxygen tank and waiting patiently for his doctor. He gratefully commented on how much the oxygen tank had helped him with his daily activities. Howe…
Immediate, accurate diagnosis is crucial to the future of equitable patient care
As the pandemic-stricken health systems recover from the unprecedented challenges that tested them for preparedness, agility, and health equity, the pandemic undoubtedly also nurtured rapid innovation in telehealth, vaccine manufacturing, and point-of-…
Hope, with a ribbon of uncertainty curling gently around it
A tall, thin, down-glancing man slumped in a chair in the corner of the exam room. His gray-haired wife sat primly next to him. They were here with their adult wheelchair-bound daughter. For the past two decades, the daughter had been under their const…
