Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!
What happens when a physician searches her own name online and gets redirected to a billionaire-backed corporate clinic she has no connection to? Stephanie Waggel, a physician and …
I Googled my own name and a corporate clinic I’ve never worked at appeared [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!
When was the last time your dentist mentioned that artificial intelligence was scanning your X-rays before you even sat down in the chair? General dentist Sowjanya Gunukula explains how …
AI is already reading your dental X-rays and you probably have no idea [PODCAST]
At the end of a visit, it is common to say: “Call if things get worse.” It sounds supportive. It sounds open-ended. It sounds safe. But what does “worse” mean? More frequent pain? More intense pain? Pain that wakes the patient at night? Pain that interferes with work? Without definition, responsibility shifts quietly.
Modern care depends on patients, not simply to follow instructions, but to understand the treatment plan, to carry …
Shared responsibility in patient care needs boundaries
Chronic disease is rising. Our system is not designed for it. This is not a controversial observation. Across clinical practice, research, and health system leadership, there is growing recognition that the burden of chronic illness is increasing and beginning earlier in life. What is less often acknowledged is that the structure of our health care system has not evolved at the same pace. In clinical settings, this shift is already …
Why our health care system is failing chronic disease patients
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!
What happens when a patient makes a reasonable, informed decision to skip a non-mandatory test and the system simply stops? Patient advocate Aaron S. Rosenberg shares how a routine dental visit became a …
He declined routine X-rays and was denied a dental cleaning [PODCAST]
A patient nods. You explain the diagnosis. You review the plan. You answer questions. You feel like the visit went well.
“Any questions?” you ask.
“No, I am good.”
They leave. And if you are honest, there is a moment, sometimes fleeting, sometimes not, where you wonder: Did they actually understand any of that? As you know, you have to pick up the pace to see another patient. In modern medicine, we measure …
Why patient understanding is the missing metric in medicine
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!
When did volunteering stop being a choice and start being a condition of professionalism? Pediatrician, certified coach, and mindfulness and yoga teacher Jessie Mahoney realized she had donated over 2,000 hours of uncompensated …
She donated 2,000 hours of unpaid labor before she even noticed [PODCAST]
“What is that?” I was sitting in the emergency room during my emergency medicine rotation, chatting with my attending when he had asked me what residency program I was in. I told him I was actually doing two: family medicine and preventive medicine. Family medicine he had heard of, but preventive medicine? Only a confused look. And he is not the only one. In medical school, there was no specialty …
Why the U.S. needs more preventive medicine and public health doctors
This past weekend, I completed the United Airlines NYC Half Marathon, a 13.1-mile course running across the Brooklyn Bridge, through the streets of New York, through Times Square and Central Park, finally finishing upright and with both shoes still on. In the 48 hours since crossing the line, I have reflected deeply on the experience and arrived at one inescapable conclusion: It was still better than going to work. Please …
13.1 reasons running a half marathon beats practicing medicine
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!
What happens when a doctor closes the chart but the patient leaves without understanding what was actually said? Retired surgeon, independent physician, health care consultant, and patient advocate Alan …
His mother-in-law heard “cancer,” went home, and was dead within a year [PODCAST]
Recently, I came across the Charter of the Soignés (“those being cared for”) by French physician and writer Martin Winckler from The School of Caregivers (2019).
This is not a legal document, but an ethical framework. It outlines 10 principles centered on dignity, autonomy, and the humanity of the patient.
The first nine principles focus on what we would hope our patients experience. The recognition that a person is more than a …
Physician autonomy is not separate from patient care
You were told physician-owned hospitals were finished. That the 2010 legislation closing them out of Medicare was permanent. That if you wanted to own something, your options were a direct primary care practice, a concierge model, or a slow negotiation with the health system already employing half your colleagues. The hospital. The thing you actually trained to practice in. That was off the table.
It may not be anymore. But the …
Physician-owned hospitals get a narrow CMS opening
There is a place some patients end up living when they have complex medical illness. It sits somewhere between stable and emergency, and people like me spend a lot of time there. I live with serious medical conditions that keep me mostly homebound and often bedbound. My days revolve around things many people thankfully never have to think about: feeding tubes, medications, blood pressure swings, heart rate problems, and trying …
The hidden struggles of medically complex homebound patients
“When empathy is recognition rather than absorption, it nourishes instead of depletes. It becomes sustainable.” Eva Minkoff shares this thought in our collaborative book, White Coats, Human Hearts, featuring the stories of 11 physicians, two physician spouses, and two patients. Eva has spent her life entrenched in health care, as a chronic patient, physician spouse, and now leadership coach for health care professionals and leaders. Reading those words was an …
How regulating clinical empathy prevents physician burnout
In today’s fast-paced health care environment, many clinicians face overwhelming demands: packed schedules, electronic documentation, administrative pressures, and institutional productivity targets. While these pressures are real, an alarming concern has emerged in clinical practice. Patients increasingly feel that their voices are not being heard. They report that their providers seem distracted, rushed, or focused on screens rather than on the human being sitting in front of them. As a clinician …
Why listening is the core of patient-centered care
I started volunteering on Saturday mornings out of a feeling of restlessness. Having been in primary care for several years, I was looking for something new, to break from routine, and to feel like I was doing real good. Which is how I ended up at our medical student-run free clinic, and have been blessed with an opportunity that has grown into a primary passion of mine. We see mostly …
Why relationship-centered care matters in medicine
Doctor, you see only the faint visible smile
on my exterior, my hand reaches out to shake yours
as you enter the space.
But you cannot see the “me” within,
the fear, the stress, the anxiety
that circulates inside me.
These emotions swirl within,
poking and prodding,
they hang like a weighted chain
about my heart.
I guess one could say
I am an imposter,
a person in disguise.
But couldn’t the same be said of you?
I guess you were trained
to keep your …
The silent patient experience in the exam room
The recent record snowstorm in New England got me all in a deep wintery nostalgia. I contacted my friends back in Boston who have been living there for well over 40 years to get their perspectives, and it brought back memories of living on the East Coast and surviving the seemingly interminable long winters there before I moved to California in the late 1980s. Most prominently in my memory is …
Surviving a hospital blizzard as a physician on call
Calls to declare family physicians the “backbone of health care” are emotionally appealing, but they do not withstand scrutiny. When we examine training pathways, cost structures, insurer incentives, and real-world performance, a different picture emerges, one in which many other clinicians are better trained for the populations they serve and, critically for insurers, far cheaper. This is not an attack on family physicians. It is a call for accuracy in …
Rethinking the role of family physicians vs. specialists
I have practiced medicine for 45 years. In that time I have learned that the biggest threat to a patient is not a missed diagnosis. It is a missed owner. Every patient has a story. Most of them have a complicated one. Multiple doctors, multiple medications, multiple specialists, multiple systems. And in all of that complexity, nobody steps forward and says: I own this patient. I will follow the thread …
Patient ownership is the key to a better health care system
Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.
