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Dehumanization in medicine: the language of disposition

Physician

May 10, 2026

As a second-year internal medicine resident, I had an unexpected epiphany during my geriatrics rotation, not amid the chaos of a bustling hospital, but within the reflective calm of a rehabilitation facility.

As I walked into the room of a long-term care patient recovering after a stroke, there was a man in front of me who was wheelchair-bound and visibly distressed. His speech was difficult to understand, but as I listened …

Pediatric asthma care demands better proper inhaler use

Piyush Pillarisetti

Conditions

May 10, 2026

Early in my pediatrics rotation, I learned that I should get used to admitting children for asthma exacerbations. And so, during each intake, one question quickly became routine: “Do you use a spacer and mask with your inhaler at home?” More often than not, the answer was a no, often followed by, “What is that?”

That gap in knowledge has significant clinical consequences. Proper inhaler use entails a choreograph of multiple …

Physician burnout is not a failure of resilience

Gus W. Krucke, MD

Physician

May 10, 2026

There comes a point in medicine when knowledge, effort, and goodwill are no longer enough to explain why someone keeps going.

Most people enter medical training with a purpose so obvious it barely needs words. Suffering exists. Skill can help. The work matters.

Then training tests that belief. The test rarely comes as one dramatic moment. It comes through accumulation: criticism without context, responsibility before confidence, long hours, grief carried quietly, and …

How a clinical trial changed the way I see Mother’s Day

Regina Portnoy

Conditions

May 10, 2026

Every year, as Mother’s Day approaches, we see the same messages.
Celebrate your mom. Call her. Hug her. Don’t take her for granted.
And yet, for so many, that hug is no longer possible.
There is a quiet grief that lives inside this day.
Because as long as our parents are alive, a part of us remains a child, protected, grounded, held by something bigger than ourselves.
And when that is gone, something shifts forever.

Years …

What no one tells you about fertility, from a doctor

Oluyemisi Famuyiwa, MD

Conditions

May 10, 2026

An excerpt from The Quest for Fertility.

Prologue: a quiet place of hope

Even in the stillness, life is quietly unfolding.

There’s a small butterfly garden tucked away in Wheaton Regional Park, a place I’ve long considered sacred. It isn’t grand or loud; it doesn’t demand attention. You step into a soft netted enclosure surrounded by blooms so vivid they almost seem unreal. Inside, monarchs and swallowtails drift lazily through the air, …

Why bipolar II is not just a milder version of bipolar I

Ethan Evans, MD

Conditions

May 10, 2026

When I graduated from medical school, I carried an assumption I suspect many of us do: Bipolar II disorder is a “milder” version of bipolar I. After all, mania is dramatic. It is disruptive. It can involve psychosis, hospitalization, legal consequences, and financial devastation. Hypomania, by comparison, seems restrained: more energy, less sleep, no involuntary admission. The hierarchy seemed obvious. Mania is more severe than hypomania. Therefore bipolar I must …

Rebuilding patient trust when medical advice is resisted

Fabrizia Faustinella, MD, PhD

Physician

May 10, 2026

I would like to share with readers a story about a clinical encounter that challenged my ability to build trust amid fear and misunderstanding. As a practicing physician and medical educator, I have long been drawn to the emotional and ethical dimensions of patient care. While the story itself is not unique, it captures a recurring tension in our work, the gap that can emerge between clinical expertise and patient …

Women physicians’ health is paying the price of medicine

Jessie Mahoney, MD

Physician

May 9, 2026

I knew from the beginning that something was wrong in the culture of medicine, but I never believed it would almost kill me. This is not a story about my health. It’s a story about why my health story is not unusual. I hope it becomes a call to action.

I grew up in Berkeley, where speaking up is a developmental milestone. Early in my medical training, I started asking questions. …

Clinician burnout demands better health care governance

Tiffiny Black, DM, MPA, MBA

Conditions

May 9, 2026

Clinician burnout is frequently discussed as a workforce challenge, a morale issue, or a retention concern. It is all of those. It is also something more. Burnout can function as a governance signal. Health care systems operate under sustained complexity: regulatory demands, reimbursement pressures, digital transitions, workforce instability, and constant performance scrutiny. In such environments, strain is not incidental. It is structural.

The governance question is not whether strain exists. It …

Uber’s personal injury lawsuits split doctors and lawyers

Kayvan Haddadan, MD

Physician

May 9, 2026

As a practicing physician who also specializes in caring for patients injured in motor vehicle accidents, I’ve seen firsthand how complex and emotionally charged these situations can be. Over the years, I’ve treated people with devastating, life-changing injuries from crashes, as well as those with subtler but still very real problems like persistent pain, spinal issues, or concussions that develop over time. At the same time, I’ve witnessed the intricate …

Hair loss and the emotional toll: a doctor’s perspective

Dr. Abdulaziz Balwi

Conditions

May 9, 2026

The story that I still can recall is about a patient sitting across from me and apologizing for telling me, “I know that this is not really a health concern for me.” It was neither pain nor a life-threatening illness that brought him to see me. It was just baldness. However, what he was feeling was absolutely real. He discussed the importance of not using mirrors. Not accepting invitations because …

How corporate medicine is eroding truth and patient dignity

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

Physician

May 9, 2026

The first time I received care as a patient in academic medicine, I felt something I did not fully appreciate until years later: safety. Not just clinical safety, but moral safety, the sense that the people caring for me were operating inside a culture that valued truth, transparency, and professional integrity. When I practiced and taught in academic medicine, I was surrounded by colleagues who believed, almost instinctively, that honesty …

Bridging the health equity gap with artificial intelligence

Judith Eguzoikpe, MD, MPH

Policy

May 9, 2026

Let us be honest about what is really happening: Automation is coming for medicine, and equity is still waiting in line. Across hospital systems, medical schools, and conference stages, a profession is holding its breath. The question consuming medicine right now is not about patients. It is about survival. About whether artificial intelligence (AI) will hollow out what took decades to build, whether the clinical judgment earned through sleepless residencies …

No nurse is better than a bad nurse in your child’s home [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

May 8, 2026

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

What happens when the nurses sent to care for your medically fragile child have never even touched the equipment keeping him alive? Patient advocate Ashley Youngdale knows firsthand. As the mother of a …

A touching story of patient gratitude and a dozen eggs

Dr. Damane Zehra

Physician

May 8, 2026

I was in a deep sleep when my phone rang. I looked around; it was still dark. For a moment, I thought it was my alarm, but it was only 5 a.m. It was not the alarm after all. Instead, it was a phone call from an unknown number. I answered it, and to my surprise, it was a patient I had seen in the clinic the previous week. She …

The medical case for teaching kindness in early childhood development

Paul Dranichnikov, MD, PhD

Physician

May 8, 2026

As a physician, I encounter humanity at its most unguarded. I have held trembling hands, delivered devastating news, and witnessed emotions stripped of pretense. In exam rooms and hospital corridors, patterns emerge with unsettling consistency. Under stress, fear, or pain, humans default to self-protection. We become impatient. Defensive. Sometimes cruel. Not because we are irredeemable, but because survival instincts speak loudly when vulnerability is exposed. Kindness, by contrast, does not …

A new approach to treating recurrent urinary tract infections

Jitesh Patel, MD

Conditions

May 8, 2026

She came to me with a manila folder stuffed with urine culture reports. 14 of them, spanning three years. Every one showed a different organism, or the same organism with a longer and longer list of resistances. Her most recent culture, the one that finally prompted her primary care physician to refer her to urology, showed an Escherichia coli (E. coli) resistant to 15 antibiotics. 15. She had been treated …

3 things AI in health care investing cannot evaluate

Harsha Moole, MD

Tech

May 8, 2026

I built an AI-powered system that sources and scouts healthcare startup companies and generates structured investment memos on them in under ten minutes. It pulls data from public filings, clinical trial registries, patent databases, and competitive landscapes. It scores companies across multiple risk dimensions. It produces fifteen-section analyses that would take a human analyst days to assemble.

I use it constantly. And I would never let it make an investment decision.

I …

Your doctor saved your life but won’t return your call [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

May 7, 2026

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

What happens when a physician who spent decades treating patients suddenly finds himself on the other side of the exam table, unable to get a simple answer about his own aneurysm? Jeffrey Junig, …

How medical malpractice cases reveal health care system flaws

Howard Smith, MD

Physician

May 7, 2026

Again, I must discuss two cases of medical malpractice which I feel best demonstrate the quagmire our health care system finds itself in. One is a medical malpractice case against a hospital. It follows that this case also has a merit of only 33.48 percent. Nevertheless, there is a legal strategy that tips the scale by not permitting testimony discussing conditions occurring in another country, where the first 17 …

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