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Experts by KevinMD is now the premier physician directory, with speakers

November 15, 2026Nov 15, 2026

Experts by KevinMD is the premier directory of physicians, nurses, and health care leaders who write for KevinMD. It lists hundreds of experts, searchable by name, specialty, and topic, and each listing opens a full professional profile with everything that…

A new speaker directory

The speaker directory lists experts who are available to speak, with their specialty and speaking …

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Medical education

South Asian women in medicine still feel like the exception

Krithika Karthik

November 15, 2026Nov 15, 2026

"Mujhe bauhat dard hai," he said quietly. I was not expecting to be of any help with merely four hours of medical assistant training behind me, and certainly not for my barely passable Hindi. Recently immigrated from India, "Ram" spoke…

“Mujhe bauhat dard hai,” he said quietly.

I was not expecting to be of any help with merely four hours of medical assistant training behind me, and certainly not for my barely passable Hindi. Recently immigrated from India, “Ram” spoke in Hindi and made a simple living as a cab driver in San Diego. On his way home after his last ride of the day, his car was totaled. He was …

Health technology

Who owns the time AI clinical documentation saves?

Gerald Kuo

November 15, 2026Nov 15, 2026

Recent health care technology headlines have celebrated something hospitals desperately need: fewer clicks. Health systems piloting ambient artificial intelligence for nursing documentation describe less back-charting and more time with patients. The technology is promising, though questions remain about patient experience…

Other reporting has described a more unsettling possibility: Artificial intelligence could reshape hospital work through new expectations, monitoring, and productivity pressure. Saving time on documentation does not automatically mean …

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Health technology

AI adoption in health care stalls on trust, not resistance

Harvey Castro, MD, MBA

November 15, 2026Nov 15, 2026

The vendor report says the tool is adopted. If you stand at the desk for a morning, you may see something else. For the first week, people try it. Then, without a meeting or a formal complaint, they go back…

The vendor report says the tool is adopted. If you stand at the desk for a morning, you may see something else.

For the first week, people try it. Then, without a meeting or a formal complaint, they go back to the pathway they already trust. The license is still paid for. The dashboard still looks busy. On the floor, the tool is quietly unused.

I spent about twenty years in the …

Health technology

Interoperability vs. integration: what clinicians need

Marilyn Flood

November 15, 2026Nov 15, 2026

The health care industry has spent years working toward interoperability. What we've accomplished to date represents significant progress, with connected devices, electronic health records, advanced monitoring systems, applications, and data repositories that once operated in isolation now increasingly working together.…

The health care industry has spent years working toward interoperability. What we’ve accomplished to date represents significant progress, with connected devices, electronic health records, advanced monitoring systems, applications, and data repositories that once operated in isolation now increasingly working together.

For clinicians, however, those connections only matter at the bedside if they change what a care provider can see, understand, or act on. Simply moving data from one system to another …

Physician finance

Physician compensation: Your salary is only half the story

Bruno Casanova, MD

November 15, 2026Nov 15, 2026

When doctors get a job offer, the first thing most will do is check the compensation, without considering other factors that are sometimes more important. Whether you are in a salaried, productivity-based, or hybrid model, your income was most probably established using productivity benchmarks and fair market value assessments. They are not the same, but they work together. And it is very important that you understand both.

Large hospitals and medical …

Health technology

AI with human emotions could be humanity’s Trojan horse

Deepak Gupta, MD

November 15, 2026Nov 15, 2026

The 2026 film The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist is an eye-opening melting pot. However, it raises more questions than it answers. Interestingly, it makes humans think, as it asks them to find a solution to a…

Although Yuval Noah Harari has already said it in other words, it needs to be said again. Wolves domesticated humans: By evolving into favorite pets in …

Drugs and prescribing

Relative vs. absolute risk: why doctors still get fooled

Larry Kaskel, MD

November 15, 2026Nov 15, 2026

Before you read any further, take a quick test. Answer honestly. No one is watching. Three new drugs, three trials. Which one would you most like to prescribe? Drug A reduces mortality by one-third. Drug B lowers mortality from 6…

Before you read any further, take a quick test. Answer honestly. No one is watching. Three new drugs, three trials. Which one would you most like to prescribe?

Drug A reduces mortality by one-third.
Drug B lowers mortality from 6 percent to 4 percent.
Drug C raises survival from 94 percent to 96 percent.

If Drug A felt like the winner, congratulations. You’re normal. You’ve also just been fooled, because all three describe exactly …

Conditions and diseases

Burnout vs. moral injury: why the name changes the fix

Cherish Herrera Morris, RN

November 15, 2026Nov 15, 2026

I have been a nurse for about fifteen years, and for a good chunk of that time, I thought being completely dysregulated was just part of the job. Eat when you can. Pee when you can. Cry in the supply…

I have been a nurse for about fifteen years, and for a good chunk of that time, I thought being completely dysregulated was just part of the job.

Eat when you can. Pee when you can. Cry in the supply room if necessary, but pull it together because somebody needs something in room 12. You know. Health care.

We wore exhaustion like a badge of honor. We joked about running on caffeine, …

The Podcast by KevinMD

Doctors can’t prescribe food. Poverty is still their problem. [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

November 14, 2026Nov 14, 2026

A dialysis patient raising her grandchildren lost food benefits, and her doctor could not prescribe food. Sameen Farooq is an internal medicine and palliative care physician at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. This episode is based on his article…

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Health policy

Can collaborative care ease the psychiatrist shortage?

Ravi Singareddy, MD

November 14, 2026Nov 14, 2026

As a psychiatrist who owns a small practice, I know the waitlist arithmetic well, and so does every colleague I talk to. More than 50 million Americans have a behavioral health condition in a given year, and fewer than half of those who need care get it in time. Psychiatrists bring expertise in severe mental illness, complex comorbidity, and prescribing, and there aren’t nearly enough of us, especially in rural …

Physician voices

Which antidepressants during pregnancy are safest?

Timothy Lesaca, MD

November 14, 2026Nov 14, 2026

A patient planning a pregnancy recently asked me which antidepressant is proven to be the safest. It is a completely fair question and one I hear regularly. Yet "proven safe" sets a standard that perinatal pharmacology simply cannot meet. Randomized…

A patient planning a pregnancy recently asked me which antidepressant is proven to be the safest. It is a completely fair question and one I hear regularly. Yet “proven safe” sets a standard that perinatal pharmacology simply cannot meet.

Randomized controlled trials designed to establish antidepressant safety in pregnancy have never been conducted, and they likely never will be. Randomizing pregnant patients with significant depression to a placebo would raise profound …

Conditions and diseases

Why primary care leaves the obesity diagnosis unsaid

Nestor de la Cruz-Muñoz, MD

November 14, 2026Nov 14, 2026

The patient across from me had been seeing the same primary care doctor for nine years. She weighed in the high 300s. She had high blood pressure, prediabetes, and knees that hurt every morning. I asked her what she'd been…

“Nothing,” she said. “He never brought it up.”

She wasn’t angry. She was a little embarrassed, as if she’d been keeping a secret that …

Physician voices

What radiology report writing reveals about the radiologist

Dr. Ramy M. Mansour

November 14, 2026Nov 14, 2026

There's an old joke in radiology: Show me a report, and I'll tell you who wrote it, or at least what kind of radiologist they are. Every specialty has its personalities. But radiologists leave theirs on the page in a…

There’s an old joke in radiology: Show me a report, and I’ll tell you who wrote it, or at least what kind of radiologist they are.

Every specialty has its personalities. But radiologists leave theirs on the page in a way few others do, because the report is the product. The surgeon has the operation; we have the sentence. And sentences, it turns out, have fingerprints.

After years of reading other people’s …

Conditions and diseases

Sleep apnea and chronic pain: the amplifier doctors miss

Kayvan Haddadan, MD

November 14, 2026Nov 14, 2026

Sleep apnea is one of the underdiagnosed sleep disturbances that has a direct relationship with pain, and therefore treating it will help treat the pain. Two main mechanisms link obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) to increased pain: Sleep fragmentation and deprivation:…

Sleep apnea is one of the underdiagnosed sleep disturbances that has a direct relationship with pain, and therefore treating it will help treat the pain.

Two main mechanisms link obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) to increased pain:

Sleep fragmentation and deprivation: Repeated arousals prevent restorative deep and REM sleep. Poor sleep quality lowers pain thresholds, heightens pain sensitivity, and amplifies existing pain.
Intermittent hypoxia (low oxygen levels): Repeated drops in oxygen trigger inflammation and

…

Health technology

Can AI have empathy? My patient thanked me for its words.

Francisco M. Torres, MD

November 14, 2026Nov 14, 2026

In 2023, researchers writing in JAMA Internal Medicine compared physician and chatbot answers to 195 patient questions posted on a public online forum. Blinded clinicians preferred the chatbot’s answers nearly 80 percent of the time and rated them empathetic almost ten times as often. The study had limits: The physicians were volunteers typing brief replies on Reddit, not clinicians writing to their own patients. Still, the finding unsettles me.

After …

Physician voices

What empathy training did for patients and clinicians

Helen Riess, MD

November 14, 2026Nov 14, 2026

As a psychiatrist, I've spent much of my career asking a question that has practical consequences for anyone who has ever sat on either side of an exam room. Can we teach clinicians to communicate empathy in ways patients can…

As a psychiatrist, I’ve spent much of my career asking a question that has practical consequences for anyone who has ever sat on either side of an exam room. Can we teach clinicians to communicate empathy in ways patients can actually feel? I experienced, firsthand, the pain patients experienced when their concerns were dismissed, misunderstood, or even disparaged, and sought to find a solution. During a medical education fellowship at …

Physician voices

AI hallucinations in medicine are more than made-up facts

Lourdes G. Bahamonde, DO

November 14, 2026Nov 14, 2026

An inference can precede its verification without becoming a fact. An observation can precede its explanation without becoming invalid. Observation ≠ explanation. Inference ≠ fact. Unverified ≠ false. The soybeans smelled like vomit. I had soaked them in water and…

An inference can precede its verification without becoming a fact. An observation can precede its explanation without becoming invalid.

Observation ≠ explanation. Inference ≠ fact. Unverified ≠ false.

The soybeans smelled like vomit. I had soaked them in water and then forgotten about them longer than intended. When I finally uncovered the bowl, a thick pale froth covered the surface. Removing them from the kitchen was the immediate priority, but I needed …

Health technology

How hospital leaders can earn physician trust in AI

Harvey Castro, MD, MBA

November 14, 2026Nov 14, 2026

In 2023, 38 percent of U.S. physicians used AI in their practice. Most weeks since, another tool has arrived: a scribe, a summarizer, a risk score. By early 2026, the American Medical Association (AMA) put physician use at 72 percent,…

Then the AMA asked those physicians a better question than whether they use AI. Its …

Conditions and diseases

Functional decline after hospitalization is not a verdict

Arjun Dutt, DPT, MBA & Pradeepika Samagh, DPT, MBA

November 14, 2026Nov 14, 2026

Medicine knows that a blood pressure reading describes a moment. Yet when an older adult is hospitalized, a snapshot of function can become a verdict. A patient is assessed while infected, sleep-deprived, medicated, dizzy, or delirious. That performance can then…

Medicine knows that a blood pressure reading describes a moment. Yet when an older adult is hospitalized, a snapshot of function can become a verdict.

A patient is assessed while infected, sleep-deprived, medicated, dizzy, or delirious. That performance can then shape assumptions about whether the person can recover or return home. The dangerous leap is from “cannot today” to “will not again.”

Consider a hypothetical scenario familiar to rehabilitation clinicians. Before an …

Conditions and diseases

Dementia prevention: what’s proven and what’s still a hunch

Larry Kaskel, MD

November 14, 2026Nov 14, 2026

When patients tell me they're afraid of getting dementia, I don't hand them a book of crossword puzzles and wish them luck. I ask three questions. What are you willing to do? What risks will you accept? How much not-knowing…

When patients tell me they’re afraid of getting dementia, I don’t hand them a book of crossword puzzles and wish them luck. I ask three questions. What are you willing to do? What risks will you accept? How much not-knowing can you live with?

For the man who watched his father stop recognizing his own children, surrogate endpoints are not an academic debate. He wants to know what to do Monday …

Conditions and diseases

How HPV self-collection could close cervical screening gaps

Samantha Byrnes, PhD, MPH

November 14, 2026Nov 14, 2026

Cervical cancer screening rates have declined over the last 25 years in spite of innovation in vaccines and screening tools. Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccinations are extremely effective at preventing this form of cancer, as almost all cervical cancers are linked to persistent infections of HPV. Equally important in the effort to eliminate this disease are the screening tools used to detect infections and cervical cancer, helping patients receive care …

The Podcast by KevinMD

Doctors are told to push through. For addiction, that can be deadly. [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

November 13, 2026Nov 13, 2026

Medicine rewards pushing through, but for a doctor with an addiction, pushing through can be deadly. Anthony Grandelis is an OB/GYN hospitalist in New York City and a physician in recovery from addiction. This episode is based on his article…

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Physician voices

Turf wars in medicine and the anesthesiologist’s next skill

Amit Jain, MD & Deepak Gupta, MD & Mohamed Ismaeil, MD

November 13, 2026Nov 13, 2026

In this age of artificial intelligence, the relevance of each medical specialty is shifting and uncertain. From here on, medical specialists will have to weigh the relevance of: Training and certification in their own specialties Licensing and credentialing to practice…

In this age of artificial intelligence, the relevance of each medical specialty is shifting and uncertain. From here on, medical specialists will have to weigh the relevance of:

Training and certification in their own specialties
Licensing and credentialing to practice and bill as experts in those specialties
The growing need to learn and practice skills traditionally considered outside their specialties
Adapting as others learn and practice skills traditionally restricted to their specialties

Interestingly, “today” may …

Patient voices

Alan P. Feren, MD, on patient advocacy: a KevinMD subscriber spotlight

Subscriber Spotlight by KevinMD

November 13, 2026Nov 13, 2026

Alan P. Feren, MD, is a retired surgeon, independent physician, health care consultant, and patient advocate with more than 50 years in clinical practice, system leadership, and health care innovation. He has published 18 essays on KevinMD since April 2025,…

…

Conditions and diseases

Polio vaccine history and the paradox of cleaner living

Gary A. Koretzky, MD, PhD

November 13, 2026Nov 13, 2026

An excerpt from Your Immune System: The Amazing Science of Who You Are. Polio is a viral disease of the nervous system. It attacks people of all ages, but children and young adults are disproportionately affected. Like many other viral…

An excerpt from Your Immune System: The Amazing Science of Who You Are.

Polio is a viral disease of the nervous system. It attacks people of all ages, but children and young adults are disproportionately affected. Like many other viral diseases, polio starts with nonspecific symptoms, like headache, fever, sore throat, vomiting, and diarrhea. These symptoms occur as the patient’s innate immune system responds to the viral PAMPs, the pathogen-associated …

Conditions and diseases

Why TMS targets now differ for depression, OCD, and anxiety

Ravi Singareddy, MD

November 13, 2026Nov 13, 20262

For most of its history, psychiatry has treated the brain as a chemical soup, adjusting neurotransmitters and waiting weeks to see whether anything changed. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) represents a different idea: that mental illness lives in specific, dysfunctional circuits, and that those circuits can be targeted directly. Since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) first cleared TMS for treatment-resistant depression in 2008, the field has moved from a fixed …

Physician voices

Medical jargon that means something else to patients

Dr. Gurdev Singh

November 13, 2026Nov 13, 2026

Four words of mine sent a woman into a hospital hallway to find out whether her father was dying. Every one of them was true. I found her there an hour later, phone 6 inches from her face, the search…

Four words of mine sent a woman into a hospital hallway to find out whether her father was dying. Every one of them was true.

I found her there an hour later, phone 6 inches from her face, the search box readable over her shoulder. Shadow on lung. The results were what you would expect. She looked up and said, “You said it was just a shadow.” She was right. I …

The Podcast by KevinMD

How the 764 network pushes kids to self-harm, and the signs doctors miss [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

November 12, 2026Nov 12, 2026

An online network is coercing children into hurting themselves, and the warning signs are easy to miss. Matthew Turner is an emergency medicine physician, and Dana Grueser is a parent advocate. This episode is based on their article "The 764…

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