Medical Education

Students, residents, and educators writing on KevinMD about how physicians are made: medical school, the match, residency, duty hours, supervision, assessment, mistreatment, and the path from student to practicing physician. Many contributors write while still in training, and many write anonymously. For a maintained record of what students and physicians have said about medical school since 2004, see Medical school: what students and physicians say, in their own words. For what residents and attendings have said about residency itself, see Residency: what residents and attendings say, in their own words.

What clinical support staff notice that charts never show

Maria Alemu

Medical Education

September 20, 2026

As I draped the ultrasound table and laid out the sterile speculum, I noticed my patient’s shoulders were locked near her ears. Her chart noted a history of failed fertility cycles, but her vitals on the intake sheet were perfectly normal.

It would have been easy to finish setting up the tray, check the box, and fetch the physician. Instead, I paused and asked, “How are you holding up today?”

She exhaled …

Learning empathy in medical school took my father’s cancer

Sneha Dabadi

Medical Education

September 19, 2026

It was the month of February; there was a different excitement and joy in my family as we were planning my little brother’s Bratabanda. It was special not only because we had a special occasion but also because it was the very first function organized by my family. On the Bratabanda day, we were all very busy, and the party was about to end; my father’s school friend group joined. …

Monetize clinical expertise without becoming an influencer

Justin Allan Montgomery, MSN-FNP

Medical Education

September 14, 2026

Every nurse, pharmacist, PA, and physical therapist in the country has to complete continuing education (CE) hours to keep their license. Those courses don’t write themselves, and accreditation rules mean they can’t be written by just anyone. They have to come from a clinician with the credentials to back up what’s being taught.

That’s a standing demand for physician expertise. Most physicians have no idea they qualify.

The obvious thing first: Your …

Medical infographics now look right without being right

Shaan R. Mody

Medical Education

August 30, 2026

I recently found myself doing something almost every medical student has done before a presentation: searching online for a diagram that could explain a complex concept more clearly than words alone.

What surprised me was not the number of infographics available. It was how difficult it had become to determine who created them, where the information came from, or whether the content had been reviewed by anyone with medical expertise.

In the …

Clinical uncertainty is missing from medical training

Lohithasree Bode

Medical Education

August 29, 2026

“It still haunts me whether I prolonged his suffering or saved his life.”

The physician whispered those words, as if he had been carrying that sentence inside him for decades. I expected uncertainty in medicine. What I never imagined, though, was how long and how memorably physicians carried it.

Like many students, I came to medicine with the belief that progress meant getting closer to certainty. Having seen organ trafficking firsthand, I …

Why nearly every pre-med now takes a gap year

Claudia Rodriguez

Medical Education

August 24, 2026

An increasing number of pre-med students in the U.S. are electing to take a gap year, but is this the best option for them? More importantly, is it best for the medical field as a whole?

Many students believe taking a gap year improves their admission chances. While compounding variables prevent conclusive proof that a gap year directly helps, the extra time is understandably attractive, as it allows students to improve …

Why blaming doctors makes patients less safe

Shaan R. Mody

Medical Education

August 23, 2026

“People aren’t the problem. The problem is the problem.” I heard that sentence for the first time sitting in a circle of student desks in a restorative and transformative justice class two years ago. I didn’t know then that I was about to spend the rest of my medical training inside an institution that had reached the exact same conclusion decades earlier, and then largely failed to live by it.

In …

NCLEX failure rates expose gaps in nursing education

Debra Lewis, RN & Richard A. Lawhern, PhD

Medical Education

August 23, 2026

As a health care educator and patient advocate on the one hand, and a retired nurse on the other, the authors regularly correspond with doctors, nurses, and nurse practitioners. Richard Lawhern is a nationally recognized subject matter expert on pain management. Debra Lewis is a retired nurse who shares stories here of some of the nurses who were referred to her for tutoring after graduating from nursing school but failing …

A stroke survivor’s case for disability in medical training

Hamna Irfan, RT

Medical Education

August 21, 2026

As a radiology technician and a stroke survivor, my professional journey has been deeply shaped by my personal experiences. In clinical education, we often focus on technical proficiency, but we rarely discuss the structural and social barriers faced by health care professionals with disabilities. This reflection is not a piece of research, but a call to re-evaluate our approach to inclusion in medical training.

When I was just six years old, …

Why residency programs should cap Step 2 CK scores

Deepak Gupta, MD and Sarwan Kumar, MD

Medical Education

August 20, 2026

Every application cycle, graduate medical education (GME) program directors face a familiar question when screening applications submitted through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS): Where should the numerical filters be set?

Two recent changes have simplified and narrowed that question. USMLE Step 1 is now reported as pass/fail, removing its score variations as a screening variable. USMLE Step 3 scores are rarely available at the time of application, since most applicants …

In 2026, the surgical backlog has a training bottleneck

Danny Goel, MD

Medical Education

August 15, 2026

Every conversation about the surgical backlog focuses on the same fix: more OR time, more staff, more beds. That’s necessary, but it treats the bottleneck as a capacity problem. A second bottleneck nobody’s pricing in is how long it takes to produce a surgeon who can operate independently, and that number is quietly getting longer. Cuts in one place always show up in another, and it’s often education that takes …

Why the physical exam still matters in modern medicine

Abe Libman

Medical Education

August 13, 2026

The moment that changed the trajectory of a 79-year-old female patient’s life did not beep, flash, calculate, or appear in an inbox. It did not come from an algorithm or an abnormal lab value. It began quietly, with my mentor’s hands resting on her abdomen.

Like my peers at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in Harlem, I have spent years learning the language of modern medicine: lab values, imaging findings, differential …

HBCUs built the doctors America cannot afford to lose

Teddy A. Teddy, MD

Medical Education

August 9, 2026

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have served as critical pillars of America’s health care workforce for more than a century. Despite representing only a small fraction of U.S. colleges and universities, HBCUs have produced a disproportionate number of Black physicians, nurses, pharmacists, public health professionals, and biomedical scientists. At a time when the United States faces physician shortages, widening health disparities, and declining access to care in underserved communities, …

How pharmacology mnemonics got me through med school

Matthew Tao

Medical Education

August 7, 2026

It was almost midnight, and I was staring at the word oxybutynin like it had personally wronged me.

I had seen it maybe twenty times that week. Flashcard, missed. Practice question, missed. I knew it treated something with the bladder, I think, and that it blocked some receptor, and past that, my brain just went quiet. Around me, the library was clearing out. I had two hundred more drugs to learn, …

Medical school application barriers fail Native people

Paul Begay

Medical Education

August 7, 2026

Everything medical schools believe about us seems wrong. Medical schools call us “Native American,” but many of us dislike this word. The traditional among us refuse this colonial branding with every fiber of our being. Yet many people believe the media that says “Indian” is offensive and so they call us “Native American.” Ask yourself: Would a Ukrainian mother ever call herself Native Russian? Would a Palestinian man ever call …

Learning medicine with AI before learning to think

Ritika Segireddy

Medical Education

August 1, 2026

Artificial intelligence has been part of conversations about the future of medicine for years. As a medical student, I have heard about its potential in lectures, read about its development in health care, and watched discussions about how it may change the way physicians practice. For a long time, though, it felt like something that would arrive later, after I had already learned how to be a doctor.

Then I saw …

Sex education is for parents, not just kids

Catherine Chen

Medical Education

July 30, 2026

“It’s not just the kids, it’s the parents.”

My sex education came in two forms: an abstinence jingle in middle school, and a sock on a banana in high school. My parents offered a third option: silence. Decades later, not only are individuals’ reproductive rights being stripped away, but reproductive health education in any form is threatened by the federal government at all levels, from elementary schools to medical residencies.

If we …

7 ways to use AI for better health and nutrition

Dr. Siva Navaratnam and Shimazu Yumi, MBA

Medical Education

July 29, 2026

Like many doctors, I was initially skeptical about artificial intelligence (AI). As a retired Australian anesthetist, I had spent decades relying on clinical experience, scientific evidence, and professional judgment. I never imagined that one of the most useful health education tools I would encounter would be a mobile phone.

In 2024, I was living with obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, and gastric reflux. Like many people, I accepted these …

Medical student advocacy begins before you feel ready

American Society of Anesthesiologists

Medical Education

July 29, 2026

One of my favorite quotes is, “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” I did not fully understand the meaning of that statement until I became involved in advocacy and organized medicine during medical school.

Like many medical students, I entered training focused almost entirely on becoming the …

Why so few scientists serve in Congress

Rao M. Uppu, PhD

Medical Education

July 18, 2026

When Neil H. Shubin assumed the presidency of the National Academy of Sciences, he called for the NAS to speak with greater speed and reach at a time when science is increasingly contested in public life.

That call is timely. But even the clearest scientific advice can be ignored when too few people trained in science and medicine take part in making laws and setting national priorities.

Scientific advice is essential. …

Read more…

Why so few scientists serve in Congress