Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes! “MRI studies of these patients determined that it was not only the circuitry that was affected by the burnout but also the size of the brain structures. Compared with the controls, pa…
Category: surgery
How to stay off my operating table [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes! “Health isn’t about luck — it’s about intentionality. But even if you’re doing and saying all the right things, you might not be any closer to your goals. I know bec…
The appendix: an ancient organ for the modern age
An excerpt from Tornado of Life: A Doctor’s Journey Through Constraints and Creativity in the ER. Reprinted with permission from The MIT Press. Copyright 2022. The appendix is a body part with an image problem. Derived from the Latin word for …
Just as medicine is rooted in relationships, so too is good advising
“Well, you may think you want to be a surgeon, now that you’re young and think you can do it all, but that will change — once children are in the picture. You’ll see how hard it is to leave them and wish you could be with them a…
Management of acute postoperative pain reveals systemic flaws in health care policy
Medical care in the United States is broken. The pandemic contributed, but we were well along this misdirected journey. There is a pathological push/pull between financial pressures applied by payors and health care systems to decrease costs, thereby g…
I didn’t know her name until it was over
I didn’t know her name until it was over, much too late. What I knew was she was thirteen and that on this winter day, someone in her family had been pulling her behind their car on a sled. No doubt laughing and looking in the rear-view mirror, t…
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…
Ergonomics: How to live pain-free and have a long surgical career
Ergonomics is the study of how humans and machines interact. More specifically, it addresses the interplay between humans and machines through an examination of optimal positioning of equipment and personnel to allow for the most efficient work play an…
A gastric bypass might help some people bypass cancer
In an exciting recent study, researchers found that for adults with obesity, weight loss through bariatric surgery lowered their risk of cancer by 35% and reduced their risk of cancer-related death by 43%. This was true of both gastric bypass and gastr…
2 questions you should ask when choosing a surgeon
If you or a loved one needs surgery, you’re very likely terrified. You also may be shopping around to find a surgeon. Of course, you’ll want the best. (I’ve never heard someone say, “I’d like the most average surgeon I can…
