KevinMD.com

August 21, 2026Aug 21, 2026

Your hospital recently adopted a new piece of technology. Maybe it was an EHR module. A patient monitoring upgrade. A documentation tool. A new device in the OR. Think about what happened next. Some of your colleagues embraced it. Others…

Your hospital recently adopted a new piece of technology. Maybe it was an EHR module. A patient monitoring upgrade. A documentation tool. A new device in the OR.

Think about what happened next. Some of your colleagues embraced it. Others resisted. The nurses figured out workarounds within a week. The IT department sent three emails about training sessions that nobody attended. Six months later, half the staff is using the new …

Conditions and Diseases

Why addiction treatment needs both medication and therapy

Gary Mitrevolis, MD

August 21, 2026Aug 21, 2026

Addiction medications like methadone and Suboxone are incredible resources for those struggling with addiction. In fact, these medications are so effective that there's been a movement to switch to language that recognizes the merits of medication as its own evidence-based…

Addiction medications like methadone and Suboxone are incredible resources for those struggling with addiction. In fact, these medications are so effective that there’s been a movement to switch to language that recognizes the merits of medication as its own evidence-based treatment rather than a supplement to therapy. For example, major organizations such as the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) now avoid the term “medication-assisted treatment” in favor of …

Physician

Why setting boundaries as a physician feels impossible

Diane W. Shannon, MD, MPH

August 21, 2026Aug 21, 2026

Many of the physicians I work with bring up the issue of boundaries. "I know I need to set better boundaries, but." They see the costs. They are clearly aware of what they need to do but just can't seem…

Many of the physicians I work with bring up the issue of boundaries. “I know I need to set better boundaries, but.” They see the costs. They are clearly aware of what they need to do but just can’t seem to execute. They let patients drive the conversations in the exam room so that they run late and finish notes at midnight. They agree to a schedule change to help …

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Medical Education

A stroke survivor’s case for disability in medical training

Hamna Irfan, RT

August 21, 2026Aug 21, 2026

As a radiology technician and a stroke survivor, my professional journey has been deeply shaped by my personal experiences. In clinical education, we often focus on technical proficiency, but we rarely discuss the structural and social barriers faced by health care professionals with disabilities. This reflection is not a piece of research, but a call to re-evaluate our approach to inclusion in medical training.

When I was just six years old, …

Conditions and Diseases

What a psychiatric diagnosis means is not an explanation

Nebyou Belay, MD

August 21, 2026Aug 21, 2026

When I tell a patient that she has major depressive disorder, something subtle happens in the room. What I mean and what she hears may be two very different things. I may mean that her symptoms meet an established set…

When I tell a patient that she has major depressive disorder, something subtle happens in the room. What I mean and what she hears may be two very different things.

I may mean that her symptoms meet an established set of criteria: depressed mood, loss of interest, changes in sleep or appetite, impaired concentration, and enough distress or dysfunction to cross a diagnostic threshold. She may hear something considerably stronger: The …

Conditions and Diseases

What a medical malpractice verdict reveals about safety

Nicole Kruegel, Esq

August 21, 2026Aug 21, 2026

Every hospital in America has a critical-results policy. When a scan reveals something dangerous, the finding gets escalated urgently, personally, in a way that cannot fall through the cracks. Hospitals write these rules because they know a missed handoff kills…

In June, a jury in Aroostook County, Maine’s northernmost, most rural county, returned $23.1 million in what plaintiff’s counsel reports is the largest non-death medical …

Podcast

A back procedure that can weaken a young spine [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

August 20, 2026Aug 20, 2026

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A young patient walks in with ordinary back pain and leaves on a path that can quietly weaken the muscle holding the spine together. Francisco M. Torres is an interventional physiatrist who noticed these patients coming back to him sooner, and traced it to radiofrequency ablation denervating the multifidus, the back’s most important stabilizer, until the muscle atrophies and fills …

Conditions and Diseases

Social media addiction litigation blames the wrong party

Gordon B. Kuttner, MD, JD, MBA & Vijay Rajput, MD

August 20, 2026Aug 20, 2026

We have spent our careers moving between the exam room, where we treat patients and their symptoms, and the classroom, where we teach medical, law, and business students how these worlds intersect. Lately those worlds are colliding in a way…

A California jury recently found Meta and Google liable for a young woman’s depression, anxiety, and compulsive social media use, and commentators have …

Health Policy

How to reduce prescription abandonment at the counter

Joseph Kleiman

August 20, 2026Aug 20, 2026

This month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) took an important patient-centered step by proposing rules requiring faster, more transparent prior-authorization decisions for prescription drugs. Regulators are finally signaling recognition of a truth pharmacists have known for years:…

That truth applies well beyond prior authorization. Across the prescription ecosystem, pricing, coverage, and authorization data routinely …

Conditions and Diseases

COVID trauma in emergency physicians can surface suddenly

Howie Mell, MD, MPH

August 20, 2026Aug 20, 2026

I'm the guy who doesn't need help at the Apple Store. Thirty years as the family IT department, the one who sets up everybody's phone at Thanksgiving. So I can't tell you why, when I bought a new iPad Pro…

I’m the guy who doesn’t need help at the Apple Store. Thirty years as the family IT department, the one who sets up everybody’s phone at Thanksgiving. So I can’t tell you why, when I bought a new iPad Pro in June 2022, I walked into the store to have them move everything over for me. Habit, maybe. A slow afternoon. I figured I’d be out in ten minutes.

I always …

Conditions and Diseases

Why diets fail and a sustainable lifestyle wins

Tay Bluerock

August 20, 2026Aug 20, 2026

As a nationally registered medical assistant, certified phlebotomy technician, wound care specialist, and bariatric coordinator, I have dedicated my career to helping others improve their health. Every day, I research evidence-based practices, educate patients, and advocate for healthier lifestyles. While my professional experience has taught me a great deal, my personal health journey has reinforced one lesson above all others: There is no diet that can replace a sustainable lifestyle.

For …

Conditions and Diseases

6 lumbar spinal stenosis treatments, least invasive first

Kayvan Haddadan, MD

August 20, 2026Aug 20, 2026

Lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) is one of the most common causes of pain and disability in older adults. Characterized by narrowing of the spinal canal that compresses neural elements, it classically produces neurogenic claudication that presents itself with leg pain, numbness, or weakness provoked by standing or walking and relieved by sitting or flexion. With an estimated prevalence of 11 percent among older adults in the United States and …

Medical Education

Why residency programs should cap Step 2 CK scores

Deepak Gupta, MD & Sarwan Kumar, MD

August 20, 2026Aug 20, 2026

Every application cycle, graduate medical education (GME) program directors face a familiar question when screening applications submitted through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS): Where should the numerical filters be set? Two recent changes have simplified and narrowed that question.…

Two recent changes have simplified and narrowed that question. USMLE Step 1 is now reported as pass/fail, removing its score variations as a screening variable. USMLE Step 3 scores are rarely available at the time of application, since most applicants …

Conditions and Diseases

What happens to evidence-based medicine when patients stop trusting the evidence?

Lynn McComas, DNP, ANP-C

August 20, 2026Aug 20, 2026

National Immunization Awareness Month got me thinking about vaccines, but probably not in the way you might expect. I have never been anti-vaccine. In fact, vaccines are very personal to me. My father had polio. I spent my entire life…

National Immunization Awareness Month got me thinking about vaccines, but probably not in the way you might expect. I have never been anti-vaccine. In fact, vaccines are very personal to me.

My father had polio. I spent my entire life watching the effects it had on him and thinking about how different his life might have been if the polio vaccine had been available before he contracted the disease. It became …

Health Policy

The ADA called the police. That is obeying in advance.

Kim Bergner, MD

August 20, 2026Aug 20, 2026

On June 5, the American Diabetes Association called security and the police on some of its own members. Officers forcibly removed five prominent diabetes researchers from the ADA’s 2026 Scientific Sessions for handing out copies of an editorial in its own flagship journal, Diabetes Care. The editorial warned that federal funding cuts and policy changes were threatening biomedical research, and it called on medical and scientific professionals to …

Podcast

A wrong diagnosis that almost killed a doctor [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

August 19, 2026Aug 19, 2026

For years, doctors told this pediatrician her pain was fibromyalgia and depression. It was quietly starving her aorta. Victoria Rundus is a board-certified pediatrician who spent four years being misdiagnosed before an ER physician finally listened to her abdomen and…

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Conditions and Diseases

Why doctors won’t prescribe opioids, and who profits

Simon Feng, MD

August 19, 2026Aug 19, 2026

Opioids have acquired a terrible reputation as dangerous drugs, thanks to not one, but two opioid epidemics. America's first opioid epidemic began in the 19th century following the purification of morphine in 1804. Widespread military use during the Civil War,…

Opioids have acquired a terrible reputation as dangerous drugs, thanks to not one, but two opioid epidemics.

America’s first opioid epidemic began in the 19th century following the purification of morphine in 1804. Widespread military use during the Civil War, followed by aggressive postwar civilian marketing, contributed to widespread opioid use. Opioids were available not only from doctors but also as patent medicines, used for everything from menstrual cramps to insomnia, …

Physician

Research integrity and accountability lessons from 2026

Olumuyiwa Bamgbade, MD

August 19, 2026Aug 19, 2026

Research misconduct deserves scrutiny. But scrutiny should not become spectacle. The landmark 1980s case of U.S. cardiology researcher John Darsee remains a defining example. Auditors found extensive data fabrication, and federal sanctions reached beyond institutional leadership, forcing science research to confront supervision, authorship, and institutional accountability. The lesson was not simply that one researcher failed. The institution and research system also need safeguards.

Four decades later, the Retraction Watch leaderboard of …

Physician

Medical malpractice reform and the lawyers who block it

Howard Smith, MD

August 19, 2026Aug 19, 2026

Senator Dick Durbin describes his career this way: "Before I was elected to Congress, I worked in a courtroom. For years, I defended doctors and hospitals, and for years, I sued them on behalf of people who were victims of…

Senator Dick Durbin describes his career this way: “Before I was elected to Congress, I worked in a courtroom. For years, I defended doctors and hospitals, and for years, I sued them on behalf of people who were victims of medical malpractice.”

Dick Durbin’s own words betray that, first, he was defense counsel, earning a living being retained by malpractice insurance companies. Second, he was plaintiff counsel, earning a living by …

Health Technology

Chatbot safety for psychosis is failing patients in 2026

Nicole Drapeau Gillen

August 19, 2026Aug 19, 2026

Sophie Rottenberg's mother described her, before this year, as "a largely problem-free twenty-nine-year-old badass extrovert who fiercely embraced life." No documented psychiatric history. No prior crisis. Just, in her mother's words, "a mix of mood and hormone symptoms" that led…

Sophie Rottenberg’s mother described her, before this year, as “a largely problem-free twenty-nine-year-old badass extrovert who fiercely embraced life.” No documented psychiatric history. No prior crisis. Just, in her mother’s words, “a mix of mood and hormone symptoms” that led her to confide in a ChatGPT persona named Harry instead of her own therapist, her best friend, or her parents. She died by suicide this winter. Sixteen-year-old Adam Raine had …

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