I’ve been practicing internal medicine for over a decade now. I was drawn to this field because of my admiration for Dr. William Osler and the superb physicians I have met who embody his qualities. As an internal medicine physician, I am expected…
Category: Psychiatry
Physicians’ real problem isn’t burnout [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes! “Let’s ask which elements of our system support this and promote and enhance those elements. If anything takes time or focus away from the main principle, let’s remove or replace it. …
The incessant hounding of doctors: A look at the lengthy professional disclosures required of physicians
Can you absolutely and unequivocally answer “no” to all of the following questions: Has your license to practice in any jurisdiction ever been limited, restricted, reduced, suspended, voluntarily surrendered, revoked, denied, or not renewed…
The dangerous language of “crazy”: How stigma and judgment affect patient care
“He’s batshit crazy,” fellow physician Karen eagerly confides while describing another colleague, Kevin, in a private office conversation. I laugh, assuming intended hyperbole. “No. Really. He is,” Karen says. “He…
Maternalism: a better approach to psychiatric care
Patient autonomy, one of the pillars of medical ethics, now shines brightest of the four pillars in modern medicine. While medical ethics was meant to take beneficence, non-maleficence, justice and autonomy in equal consideration, the balance is now of…
Understanding patients’ religious and spiritual beliefs promotes healing
Religious and spiritual experiences have shaped my worldview since I was a teenager. At age 13, I celebrated my bar mitzvah. Later that year, I underwent an appendectomy. A priest asked my mother if he could pray for me prior to the operation. My mothe…
My journey parenting with chronic depression as a physician mom
I remember feeling like I was on an island, and any time I separated from her and put her down, I frantically looked around for her, daydreaming she was lost at sea. When I was pregnant, everything was contained and controlled. Her womb gymnastics, eve…
Reflections from a (former) self-compassion and boundary setting skeptic
Self-compassion does not make you soft. Boundaries do not make you closed off or selfish. I had to repeat this many times before I started to understand how true and how essential self-compassion and boundaries are in our lives. I did not realize how m…
It can happen to you too: Women in medicine also experience domestic abuse
The luridness of it made me feel like the female lead in a bad Lifetime movie. The person whom I trusted most was a monster: an affair with a middle-aged prostitute who verbally abused me, an Ashley Madison account, and countless payments to sex worker…
5 questions C-suite leaders must be willing to ask to address burnout and create thriving health care organizations
Our health care employees are suffering from the after-effects of COVID, the great resignation, stripped-down staffing levels, and the misrepresentation of human clinicians as factory floor machines. When frontline employees and senior managers are dep…
