KevinMD.com

November 12, 2026Nov 12, 2026

I'm sick of seeing this cartoon in my Apple News feed. You know the one. A bright red artery lined with yellow globs of cholesterol, with a few red blood cells squeezing through what's left of the opening. It looks…

I’m sick of seeing this cartoon in my Apple News feed.

You know the one. A bright red artery lined with yellow globs of cholesterol, with a few red blood cells squeezing through what’s left of the opening. It looks like someone poured bacon grease down the kitchen sink.

There it was again this week, accompanying a November 6 article about cholesterol and dementia in BBC Science Focus magazine. Really? It’s …

Conditions and diseases

Why your calf muscles are called a second heart

Wei Zhang, MD, PhD

November 12, 2026Nov 12, 2026

The evolution of walking on two feet freed our hands, but it also created a challenge for our circulation. Located far from the heart, the calf muscles help push blood upward against gravity. Vascular specialists sometimes call the calf muscle pump a “second heart.” Yet despite using these muscles thousands of times a day, most of us pay little attention to them until something goes wrong. I did, too. Even …

Health technology

How to use AI without losing your clinical judgment

Harvey Castro, MD, MBA

November 12, 2026Nov 12, 2026

In emergency medicine, sequence is half the job. Airway before breathing. Check the glucose before you call it a stroke. I've come to believe AI at the bedside needs the same kind of ordering rule, and mine is short: Commit…

In emergency medicine, sequence is half the job. Airway before breathing. Check the glucose before you call it a stroke. I’ve come to believe AI at the bedside needs the same kind of ordering rule, and mine is short: Commit before you consult.

Write your own assessment and plan first. Then open the AI. Then account for every difference between the two.

That sounds like common sense. The research suggests skipping it …

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Physician voices

Why women in medicine can’t follow a blueprint built for men

Dawn Sears, MD

November 12, 2026Nov 12, 2026

Ladies, we have been building our careers based off of a blueprint never meant for us. We were told we could have a fulfilling lifelong career in medicine, just like physicians have been doing for a millennium. This blueprint was designed for a different gender. I offer you the alternative “pink-print” for women in medicine; it may have more glitter, glam, and possibilities than was previously expected in this noble …

Health policy

Hospital staff retention depends on friendship, not just pay

Gerald Kuo

November 12, 2026Nov 12, 2026

In November 2026, headlines about Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's public apology for infidelity turned a private relationship into an international conversation. The separate corporate investigation has its own questions, and allegations must not be mistaken for conclusions. But I found…

In November 2026, headlines about Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s public apology for infidelity turned a private relationship into an international conversation. The separate corporate investigation has its own questions, and allegations must not be mistaken for conclusions. But I found myself thinking about something smaller and more familiar: the conversations that happen in a hospital break room when the doors are closed and a shift is finally quiet.

I can imagine …

Physician voices

What practicing medicine with limited resources taught me

Dr. Farouk Jjingo

November 12, 2026Nov 12, 2026

Medicine teaches us to look for answers. We are trained to order the appropriate investigation, obtain the necessary imaging, consult the relevant specialist, and use the available evidence to reach a diagnosis and treatment plan. But what happens when some…

As a young physician practicing in Uganda, I have learned that resource limitations do not eliminate the need for good clinical decision-making. They make it …

Health technology

How to judge the clinical utility of a new lab test

Jamie Platt, PhD

November 12, 2026Nov 12, 2026

Far too many laboratory tests are accurate, reproducible, and supported by strong research, yet never reach the patients who could benefit from them. Why? Because demonstrating that a test works is only the beginning. Making it useful in the real…

Far too many laboratory tests are accurate, reproducible, and supported by strong research, yet never reach the patients who could benefit from them.

Why? Because demonstrating that a test works is only the beginning. Making it useful in the real world requires solving a different set of problems. I’m a molecular biologist who has spent my 25-year career bringing laboratory tests to clinical use.

The one lesson that has stayed with me …

Health policy

Wisdom teeth removal with Medicaid can mean a 3-hour drive

Keerthi Prasanna Chennuri, DMD

November 12, 2026Nov 12, 2026

As a general dentist who recently began practicing in Illinois, I care for Medicaid patients and perform third molar extractions. Some of the most meaningful moments in this work happen before the procedure begins, when patients explain what it took…

Some patients have told me they previously had to travel three hours to have their wisdom teeth removed because they could not find …

Drugs and prescribing

A specialty pharmacy refill stalls. Who tells the doctor?

Tiffiny Black, DM, MBA, MPA

November 12, 2026Nov 12, 2026

Imagine a patient with rheumatoid arthritis calling her pharmacy liaison on Thursday. She usually receives a 30-day supply of her medication by mail. Her last shipment contained less. She has enough through Sunday. The liaison checks the refill status and…

The liaison checks the refill status and sends the coverage question to a patient support advocate. She tells the advocate when the patient needs her next dose. Monday.

The advocate calls the insurer. The representative says the mail-order pharmacy …

Physician finance

Medical practice financial management needs a monthly close

Richard Perry, MBA

November 12, 2026Nov 12, 2026

Fall is decision season in physician practices. A senior partner starts talking about retirement. The practice considers adding an associate. Someone raises a second location. The clinical side of these decisions gets careful attention. The financial side often runs on…

That feeling usually comes from the bank balance. The bank balance is not a financial picture. It is a snapshot of one account on one day, and it was …

The Podcast by KevinMD

Why PCOS may start in the brain, not the ovary [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

November 11, 2026Nov 11, 2026

A hormone doctors use to estimate how many eggs remain may also be acting on the brain. Oluyemisi Famuyiwa is a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist. This episode is based on her article "The brain signal that drives polycystic ovary…

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Physician finance

Passive income for physicians is about time, not money

Howard Lau

November 11, 2026Nov 11, 2026

I used to make almost $500,000 a year. And I was broke. Not broke in the way most people mean. The money was there. I was broke in the only currency that actually matters: time. I was a consulting engineer,…

I used to make almost $500,000 a year. And I was broke.

Not broke in the way most people mean. The money was there. I was broke in the only currency that actually matters: time.

I was a consulting engineer, and in my busiest years I worked roughly 4,000 hours. Do the math on that: It’s about 77 hours a week, every week, all year. There were no real vacations, because when …

Physician finance

4 retirement income styles every physician should know

Stanley Liu, MD

November 11, 2026Nov 11, 2026

You know you're supposed to save and invest for retirement throughout your career. But what are you supposed to do with those savings once you're near retirement? Most physicians have no idea, and for good reason: Creating a sustainable retirement…

You know you’re supposed to save and invest for retirement throughout your career. But what are you supposed to do with those savings once you’re near retirement? Most physicians have no idea, and for good reason: Creating a sustainable retirement spending plan is far more complicated than saving for retirement. Planning your retirement finances is one of the most common reasons late-career docs will seek a financial planner.

The problem: A …

Health technology

Mental health chatbots for men need a plan for psychosis

Nicole Drapeau Gillen

November 11, 2026Nov 11, 2026

A recent STAT article describes startups betting that AI chatbots can reach men who won't walk into a therapist's office. The need is real. Men account for as much as 80 percent of suicide deaths, yet they are nearly half…

A recent STAT article describes startups betting that AI chatbots can reach men who won’t walk into a therapist’s office. The need is real. Men account for as much as 80 percent of suicide deaths, yet they are nearly half as likely as women to receive mental health treatment of any kind. A chatbot requires no appointment, no waiting room, and no admission out loud that something is wrong.

But …

Medical education

Why pre-med students with disabilities need mentors too

Madeline Pinches

November 11, 2026Nov 11, 2026

Ask any premedical student and they will tell you that the path to medical school is difficult, which is why we are encouraged to find mentors early. We seek out physicians who can show us what medicine is really like through shadowing and principal investigators who help us grow our skills of scientific inquiry. We even ask our peers and medical students for mentorship, asking questions such as what materials …

Physician finance

Why workplace sabotage in health care is fear, not malice

Dr. Soumya Padala

November 11, 2026Nov 11, 2026

Can we move the line between good and evil? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn concluded that "the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being." It is an idea I have heard Arianna Huffington return to often. Solzhenitsyn…

Can we move the line between good and evil? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn concluded that “the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” It is an idea I have heard Arianna Huffington return to often. Solzhenitsyn also believed that line shifts over a lifetime.

As AI reshapes every role and competition grows sharper, how do we push that line toward good? That line runs through the …

Physician voices

Why I didn’t scold my patient for a blood sugar of 527

Dr. Muhammed Jaffar

November 11, 2026Nov 11, 2026

The referral slip pushed across my desk during the busy afternoon outpatient department read like a quiet emergency: GRBS 527. Metformin 500 stat. Refer to diabetologist. Sitting across from me was a 42-year-old kindergarten teacher, her primary complaints being an…

In a crowded clinic, time is the rarest commodity. When confronted with a blood sugar of 527, the systemic pressure on a doctor …

Conditions and diseases

Chronic pain management needs more than a pain score

Kayvan Haddadan, MD

November 11, 2026Nov 11, 2026

Pain relief is rarely just about lowering a number on a 0-10 scale. It is the practical restoration of daily life: being able to walk the dog without stopping every block, sleep through the night, play with grandchildren, return to work or hobbies, sit through a movie, or simply feel like themselves again. Pain reduction becomes meaningful only when it translates into regained function, energy, sleep, and participation. That is …

Medical education

Should the best students still choose medicine in an AI era?

Dr. Ramy M. Mansour

November 11, 2026Nov 11, 2026

For generations, medicine has attracted the academically highest-achieving students in society, and for good reason. Medicine demands extensive knowledge, scientific reasoning, and the ability to make consequential decisions under uncertainty. But medicine is changing, and radiology offers a useful lens.…

But medicine is changing, and radiology offers a useful lens. Few specialties illustrate the relationship between scientific innovation and clinical practice as clearly. MRI didn’t emerge from clinical radiology; it came from physics, mathematics, and engineering. Modern medical AI draws on …

The Podcast by KevinMD

Doctor or nurse? The hospital assumptions that put patients at risk [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

November 10, 2026Nov 10, 2026

Snap judgments happen all the time in medicine. Sometimes they are funny, and sometimes they put patients at risk. Christine King, a certified registered nurse anesthetist, has seen it from inside the operating room and from her sister's first oncology…

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