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How Becerra and Hilton differ on California health care

Health Policy

June 11, 2026

This article tries to be unbiased and compares Xavier Becerra (Democrat, former U.S. HHS Secretary, California AG, and Congressman) and Steve Hilton (Republican, former Fox News host, British-born American conservative political commentator, author, entrepreneur, and former adviser) contrasting approaches to health care.

Becerra emphasizes government-led expansion of access, protections against federal rollbacks, cost controls via regulation and purchasing power, and a long-term vision for universal coverage. Hilton focuses on reducing government …

Diagnosis shock is the missing piece in patient encounters

Judith A. Swack, PhD

Conditions and Diseases

June 11, 2026

In a recent piece on KevinMD, patient advocate Alan P. Feren explores what he calls “unfinishedness” in medicine: the gap between what clinicians consider a complete visit and what patients actually experience. His observation is both valid and important: Physicians may achieve administrative closure through documentation, diagnoses, and treatment plans, yet patients can leave feeling confused, overwhelmed, or adrift.

However, there is a critical piece missing from this conversation, one …

When a patient attacks you, it changes your life

Timothy Lesaca, MD

Physician

June 11, 2026

I did not intend to visit an emotionally dark place. But now I think I was destined to be there, to maybe find some light.

Recently, I began a literature review of articles on workplace aggression toward mental health clinicians. It was meant to be a routine process. Instead, I became focused on research exploring how workplace violence fundamentally changes people, and how, for some, perceptions of self and others are …

Rural health care delivery is not a coverage problem

Vance Alm, MD

Physician

June 11, 2026

Earl Haskell doesn’t exist. But thousands of patients exactly like him do. They live in counties where the nearest hospital is more than an hour away. Where the local clinic closed years ago. Where a chest pain isn’t just a symptom, it’s a logistical problem. Earl is a composite. His reality is not.

He lives in Loving County, Texas, the least populated county in the United States. On a map, it …

The direct primary care HSA rule did not fix access

Dana Y. Lujan, MBA

Health Policy

June 11, 2026

In a few weeks, the direct care community will celebrate the one-year anniversary of getting what it had been asking for. By the end of the first quarter, before the rule had been in effect for a single full billing cycle, it was already clear that the more consequential effect was not affordability. It was market design. As I wrote in January, when tax-advantaged dollars enter a care model, they …

Conservative care for back pain is not “wait and see”

Patrick Roth, MD

Conditions and Diseases

June 11, 2026

One of the most common things I hear from patients is, “I was told to give it more time.” As a neurosurgeon who has spent more than 30 years treating spine conditions, I’ve seen how often that advice is both appropriate and, at times, misleading.

In many cases, it is the right approach. Most back pain improves. The body has a remarkable ability to heal, and conservative care remains the appropriate …

How to lead a team through uncertainty without breaking trust [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

June 10, 2026

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

Patients know when you are not really present with them, and trust is built or broken in the first few minutes. Jess Bunin, an intensivist, and George Mount, a rheumatologist, co-founders of All Levels Leadership, argue that trust in clinical teams is …

Clinical documentation workflow is not just an AI fix

Sterling Garde

Health Technology

June 10, 2026

There’s a certain kind of work in health care that never quite fits anywhere. It’s not the structured clinical note. It’s not the templated visit. It’s everything else. The documentation that still matters, but doesn’t fit the system built to hold it.

Most documentation systems in health care are built around a simple assumption: that clinical work is structured, discrete, and tied to a defined patient encounter. That works well in …

How patient advocacy in the hospital can prevent a stroke

Ashley Youngdale

Conditions and Diseases

June 10, 2026

As someone who spent years advocating for my medically complex son, I’m often asked how to do it. What advocacy looks like. How to push back. The truth is, advocacy itself isn’t that complicated. At its core, it’s standing up for what you know is right, and refusing to accept an unacceptable status quo. I believe the hard part is taking up space. Challenging people and systems that aren’t used …

The hidden link between childhood trauma and addiction

Ronke Lawal, MBA

Conditions and Diseases

June 10, 2026

There is a particular cruelty in growing up, not the ordinary kind involving responsibility or the poetic loss of innocence. The cruelty is this: A child can survive something they do not yet have the language to name, carry it quietly for decades, and only begin to suffer its full weight once they have developed the cognitive architecture to understand what was done to them. The horror is not concurrent …

Early Alzheimer’s detection is now a treatment decision

Dr. Emer MacSweeney

Conditions and Diseases

June 10, 2026

For decades, an Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis has been viewed as simply a confirmation of a disease, not an opportunity for treatment. Typically, patients or family members would notice subtle changes in memory. Once these symptoms reached the point where concern was raised to a physician, and referrals were made, often leading to months of waiting to see a neurologist, opportunities for even symptomatic treatment were significantly smaller. This diagnosis-to-treatment gap …

Branding a medical practice is not vanity, it is trust

Ashley Gay

Physician Finance

June 10, 2026

Most people find a new doctor by asking their friends and family who they go to. When you’ve got a solid referral or testimonial, a type of pseudo-trust is established.

But when a person does not live in the same area, or doesn’t have a referral from someone they trust, they start searching online. They compare websites, look at photos, read some pages, and possibly see the photos of the waiting …

Beyond 5 percent quit rates: nicotine harm reduction

Julie K. Gunther, MD

Conditions and Diseases

June 10, 2026

In 2021, I was asked, “If a patient is 200 pounds overweight and loses 100 pounds, would you tell them that’s not good enough?” It was a compelling question. In the words of my favorite surgical attending, we don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. We would celebrate that win, and keep going.

The next question stopped me: “Do you have strategies to help smokers make similar incremental change?”

I didn’t. …

5 ways hospitals can reduce medical malpractice claims

Colleen Naglee, MD, JD

Conditions and Diseases

June 10, 2026

I don’t know any physicians who aren’t worried about being sued. It is unfortunately very common in today’s world, with some specialties like neurosurgery and obstetrics disproportionately experiencing higher lawsuits. The fear of litigation is not benign, and health employers need to reduce litigation and better support staff.

Recently there has also been a trend with the so-called “nuclear verdict.” These are very costly jury verdicts that can devastate a physician …

Why AI cybersecurity is now a patient safety issue [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

June 9, 2026

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

Most physicians using AI on patient data have no idea what the real security risks are. Francisco M. Torres, an interventional physiatrist, and Purab Patel, a medical student with a programming background, argue that cybersecurity has become a patient safety issue in …

The 15-provider road to vestibular disorder diagnosis

Bridgett Wallace, DPT, PT

Conditions and Diseases

June 9, 2026

That question came to me, again, at the end of a community webinar I gave recently for individuals living with vestibular disorders. It is the most common question I am asked when I speak to community audiences. It is asked without anger. It is asked the way someone asks a question they have lived with for years.

“Why don’t more health care providers know more about dizziness?”

I owe that question an …

The one question that measures physician integrity

Dr. Saad S. Alshohaib

Physician

June 9, 2026

There comes a night, somewhere near the end of a long career, when a physician sits alone with himself after the corridors have emptied and the pagers have gone quiet. He turns the years over in his mind, the patients who lived and the ones who did not, the diagnoses made in time and the ones missed, the easy hours and the impossible ones, and he discovers that the question …

Xenotransplantation ethics tests our moral frameworks

Chinmeri Nwuba

Conditions and Diseases

June 9, 2026

Xenotransplantation, the transplantation of animal organs, tissues, or cells into humans, has rapidly transitioned from speculative science to a clinical reality. It is driven by advances in genetic engineering, particularly CRISPR-mediated modification of donor animals. On the bright side, the field now offers a plausible solution to one of modern medicine’s most persistent crises: the global shortage of transplantable human organs. Recent milestones, including first-in-human pig heart and kidney xenotransplants, …

3 Air Force leadership lessons from three commanders

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

Physician

June 9, 2026

During my Air Force years, I served under three commanders with three very different personalities. One was methodical and procedural. One was operational and instinctive. One was strategic and future-focused. They disagreed about many things, but they agreed about one: they wanted to retain me. All three wrote it in my Officer Evaluation Reports (OERs).

At the time, I didn’t think much about it. I was young, busy, and focused on …

Narrative medicine is what AI in medicine cannot replace

Muhammad Mohsin Fareed, MD

Physician

June 9, 2026

Something that I had been resisting tacitly for a while, eventually happened last week. As I was supposed to be all ears towards a patient, my concentration drifted towards the screen. The cursor blinked, translating his words into codes the system would accept as symptoms, durations, and checkboxes. When I looked back at him, he ebbed. The story had been interrupted, and I wasn’t sure I could retrieve it.

Modern medicine …

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