KevinMD.com

Here I am, 17 years out of my fellowship training, and I’m just getting some of the most important training of my medical career. I continue to believe that my medical school, residency, and fellowship training were all outstanding. However, either I missed something in the course catalogue, or like for most medical students, residents, and fellows, there were some glaring omissions in the course offerings. Here are some of the courses ...

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Physicians in general are a pretty intelligent group of professionals. However, we sometimes make the mistake of thinking that we must also know a lot about almost everything because we know a lot about one particular thing. However, given the exploding pace of advancing knowledge, that idea is hubristic. But it isn't just science and technology where we fall short. During the COVID pandemic, one of the things most contentious has ...

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"To understand how to create good shifts irrespective of external factors, I turned to the ancient philosophy of Stoicism. One of its core tenets is that we must focus on what is within our control. Epictetus said: 'Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are ...

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To get to my primary care clinic in Richmond, VA, my patients and I must walk past the Confederacy's White House. Our emergency room sits in its shadow. Each day, I walk past the three-story white building surrounded by my hospital on three sides. Renamed the American Civil War Museum, it is now repurposed to sterilize hospital staff masks. The faded letters of a long-removed sign on the front read ...

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I’ll cut straight to the point: Collecting 5-star Google and Yelp reviews straight out of fellowship generated over $225,000 in new revenue from online patient referrals.  And I have the data to prove it. I joined my partner as a hand fellowship graduate four years ago. He already had a very busy practice with over 100 new patient visits a month, on average, and my arrival allowed him to cut down ...

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"Please wait.  The meeting host will let you in soon." I am in the virtual waiting room for my weekly therapy session, the little waiting room box dragged to the side of my screen as I respond to clinical messages.  I put off stretching to reply to an email, remaining in the chair I’ve been sitting in all morning hosting my own virtual visits for patients. I hate my chair; I hate ...

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Don’t let images deceive you. You may think you see everything in my picture after getting the vaccine, but you don’t. Let me take you behind the scenes of my life this past year. As I can only imagine what being behind the scenes of your life has been like for you. What you don’t see in the picture is my yearlong of agony, tears, hard decisions, and losses, like all ...

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I received my COVID vaccine on December 21st before starting an ER shift; sitting in the cold, plastic chair in a hallway-turned-vaccine-clinic, I tipped my head back to blink tears into submission as I reflected on making it this far in the pandemic without contracting COVID.  Four days later, after three twelve-hour shifts, I tested positive for COVID.

The COVID vaccine did not cause my positive result; getting exposed ...

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"Touted by some as a 'great equalizer,' the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the forefront long-standing disparities in access to health for Black, Latinx, immigrant, and low-income communities. While we are all in this fight together, some are bearing the burden more than others. Studies have shown that Blacks in the ...

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I had a dream last night. I dreamt that my father wasn’t dead. It was jumbled in so many ways. But I was able to talk to him in my “sleep.” I watched This is Us before bed. The episode where Randall questions whether William lied to him about his mother’s death. William saw her die, but she was revived after he ran away with Randall. Somehow, that made my mind wander ...

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I have been a general pediatrician for over a decade.  I chose pediatrics because I saw the children as our future.  The only way to make the future bigger and brighter is to give them the best.  So with all of my academic accolades through high school, college and medical school, I knowingly chose the lowest paying field in medicine.  I love my patients, but a pandemic has ...

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The Wall Street Journal’s decision to publish an attack on Dr. Jill Biden’s right to be called “doctor” has appropriately unleashed a firestorm. According to Joseph Epstein, the editorial’s author, Biden should drop the title because she isn’t what people often think of when they hear the word “doctor,” namely a physician. For Epstein, ‘Dr. Jill Biden’ sounds and feels fraudulent, not to ...

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When the federal government executed Corey Johnson at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on the 14th of January, 2021, he was COVID-19 positive. He was executed while suffering from a highly contagious respiratory illness that is killing over 4,000 Americans each day. Despite his positive diagnosis for COVID-19 and his risk for infecting those around him with this respiratory illness, Corey Johnson’s execution was not postponed. Who ...

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With COVID-19 vaccines being administered to our front-line health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities, we are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel of this pandemic. Yet, given the time-limited nature of the vaccine's development, we have yet to learn the extent to which vaccinated people can spread the virus. The COVID-19 vaccinations prevent disease, but we know little about if ...

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"Today and for the foreseeable future, COVID-19 is a serious threat, virulent and contagious, not only leading to an impressive display of human vulnerability and arrogance, but also demonstrating how innovative and creative humans can be during a time of crisis. On a daily basis, I am inspired by the outpouring of courage, ...

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For most clinicians, this will sound familiar: I can feel the resentment bubbling up as I sit down to chart on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. I’ve got dozens of charts hanging over me, and if I don’t get them closed, there will be yet another miserable head thrashing with my practice admin. My kids are clamoring for my time, and every fiber of my being is resisting getting these charts done. ...

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I once attended a business coaching workshop for health care professionals. For one of the exercises, we had to draw our “ideal patient.” The instructor told us to be as specific as we could. We were encouraged to set up a full name profile, age, gender, race, and health challenges. Some of us even wrote two-page background stories about how our ideal patients grew up and who they were dating. ...

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It was September 11, 2001. My dad had cheated on my mom again, the building that I worked in at that time had received an anonymous tip that we were a potential target for the terrorist attacks, and my mom, who needed a reprieve from my dad’s crap, was vacationing in Florida and was worried for me and my well-being. Plus, my dad was threatening to kill himself, and I ...

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The roads are dark and empty at 6:15. Passing through downtown, animated reindeer “fly” through the air in lights on the side of a skyscraper. At the end of the truncated commute, I snag a spot on the second floor of the parking garage—typically rare but plentiful today. In the hospital's lobby, I pass the 20-foot tree—topped with a massive star more like a spiky sea creature—that has been up ...

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