It’s been two and a half years post-pandemic, and I still don’t feel normal. There’s a dark veil hanging over my life. I feel oppressed, unable to practice the way I want, unable to live and think in ways other than this abnormal new …
Category: primary care
We are all responsible for women physicians’ pay discrepancy
A recent JAMA article showed that starting salaries for female physicians were lower than that of their male counterparts in most subspecialties. New physicians are not expected to have many differentiating factors besides gender, yet the starting sala…
The New Zealand health system in crisis: We need to look after our clinicians
I lay on an examination table while a plastic surgeon surveyed my skin to determine if a suspicious mole should be excised. I joked with him that I had once considered plastic surgery as a career. I knew he still worked at the hospital and fired a rhet…
How to improve medication adherence [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. “Automation and technologies can enable adherence, but true change happens when physicians and pharmacists work together in collaborative teams to achieve common goals: Better managed chronic conditions, fewer…
A physician mom’s take on telemedicine [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. “In early 2018 when I started full-time telemedicine, I was quite reluctant about losing the physical hands-on evaluation, especially the palpation, percussion, and auscultation components in the physical exam…
Please stop saying “provider”
When I started my internal medicine practice in 1996, the medical arena was vastly different than it is today. Back then, having an MD after my name actually meant something. A letter from me to an insurance company would get a needed medication covere…
What needs to change in medicine for it to be sustainable? [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. “A prospect seeking a career in medicine must start with their own awareness of boundaries and perfectionism before entering the field. This inner work must be indoctrinated in schools and encouraged through r…
There’s no one to drive your patient home
There’s a particular bit of conversation I hope never to hear when my doctors are discussing surgery or testing. Not the details of the procedure. Not the possible outcome. Not the pain (and let’s be real, we all know “some discomfort…
I’m a physician, not a provider
Your parents likely spent months searching through baby name books, polling the family, and looking through the photo albums of ancestors to pick the perfect name for you. Maybe your parents had to see your face before they could pick the perfect one. …
Health care takes its toll. Look for the moments that remind you why you’re in it.
Completing my second year as an attending during a pandemic has been, well, interesting. It has brought up a variety of emotions. It’s all you’ve dreamt about for the past 7+ years of training, finally making it — the ability to “call…
