The Podcast by KevinMD

The words you put in a patient's chart can be used to deny their disability claim. A note that says "stable" or "improved" can mean one thing to you and another to the insurer. Jennifer Hess, an ERISA disability attorney and Riemer Hess partner, represents physicians and other professionals in long-term disability claims. This episode is based on her article " Why your patient's disability claim w...

Many doctors who run their own practices spend hours on work someone else could do. One practice owner who charges $300 an hour was his own receptionist, verifying insurance all night and stepping away from a family dinner to take a patient's call. Central AI and Wing Assistant CEO Karan Kanwar discusses his KevinMD article " The physician opportunity cost nobody puts on a bill ." He argues that t...

When you can't speak for yourself, a living will is supposed to speak for you. Too often, it doesn't. Seventy percent of U.S. adults don't have one, and those who do often keep it in a drawer at home. Emergency physician and MIDEO Health Technologies CEO Ferdinando Mirarchi and attorney Thaddeus Mason Pope discuss their KevinMD article " Why problems with advance directives keep harming patients ....

Someone tells you their memory is slipping. What you say next can decide whether treatment is still an option for them. Emer MacSweeney is a neuroradiologist and the cofounder and CEO of Re:Cognition Health. This episode is based on her article " Early Alzheimer's diagnosis now decides who gets treated ," published on KevinMD. She explains why two licensed treatments work only inside a narrow earl...

A patient arrives already sure of what is wrong with them. The words they use came from somewhere else. Alan P. Feren is a retired surgeon, health care consultant, and patient advocate. This episode is based on his article " Clinical authorship: the missing principle in medical AI ," published on KevinMD. He walks through the three points where artificial intelligence enters a visit: the patient s...

Medical training hands you a ready-made group of friends. Then it ends, and many women physicians find themselves starting over alone in a new city. Cassie Burton Greenbaum is a pediatric critical care physician and the founder of Off Service Mom Co., a friendship matchmaking service for physician moms. This episode is based on her article " Physician loneliness is driving women out of medicine ,"...

Surgical training still runs on the model it did decades ago. Everything around it has changed. Danny Goel walks you through what that mismatch costs. He is an orthopedic surgeon, and this episode is based on his article " In 2026, the surgical backlog has a training bottleneck ," published on KevinMD. You will hear why he counts surgeons themselves as a constraint on capacity, alongside operating...

You can learn more from watching a patient walk down the hallway than from the rest of the exam. Most exams happen sitting or lying down. Narinder Singh Parhar is an internal medicine physician and founder of Jeeva Health Systems. This episode is based on his article " Musculoskeletal health may be the foundation of prevention ," published on KevinMD. After nearly 40 years in practice, he argues t...

Most patients called difficult have a reason nobody has asked about. Every chart carries labels, and the labels rarely carry the person. Stella Awua-Larbi is a nephrologist who has practiced in the Chicago suburbs for more than 15 years. This episode is based on her article " The person behind the diagnosis every chart hides ," published on KevinMD. You will hear how one young patient, labeled non...

A patient with a urinary tract infection calls at 9 p.m. and gets told to call back in the morning. Frustrated patients default to the emergency room instead. Tod Stillson is a family physician, health care entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of ChatRx. This episode is based on his article " Why medicine is late to asynchronous telehealth ," published on KevinMD. You will hear why traditional teleme...

Only 4 in 10 caregivers say a doctor asked how the patient prefers to communicate. The patients who cannot answer often have the most to report. Chris Ross is a speech-language pathologist and school administrator. This episode is based on her article " Communication access is a patient safety issue ," published on KevinMD. She spent 35 years giving nonverbal children a way to be understood, then...

Gratitude is easy to preach and hard to feel on a bad day. One physician spent a 40-year career learning to practice it on purpose. Scott Abramson is a neurologist and author. This episode is based on his article " A physician's three lessons on gratitude in medicine ," published on KevinMD. You will hear the patient in a wheelchair who pointed out that his shoes never wear out, the colleague who...

An emergency physician bought a new iPad and found 53 phone numbers he had forgotten were there. Each one was a family he put on a video call to say goodbye before he intubated their loved one. Howie Mell is an emergency physician with a master's degree in public health. This episode is based on his article " COVID trauma in emergency physicians can surface suddenly ," published on KevinMD. You wi...

Your patients can see everything you post. So can the hospital that employs you. Tali Lando was posting funny videos from her office while two of her young patients lay in the hospital struggling to recover, and it left her torn. She is a pediatric otolaryngologist and airway surgeon. This episode is based on her article " The question doctors on social media should ask first ," published on Kevin...

The lab says the potassium is critically low. You walk in, and the patient looks completely fine. Duane Penshorn is an emergency physician and author. This episode is based on his article " Automation bias is the new medical error ," published on KevinMD. He explains that automation bias got its name from studies of airline pilots, who had seen an alert be correct so many times that they stopped c...

A man is dying. He cannot speak, and no one in his life can say what he would have wanted. Kirsten Engel is a palliative medicine physician, and Medha Tripathi is a health writer and incoming Fulbright research scholar. This episode is based on their article " Guardianship and hospice care fail dying patients ," published on KevinMD. They explain what happens when a patient has no family and no he...

Someone you love says they are fine. They still eat, they still go to work, and no one asks a second time. Nneka Oluoha is an internal medicine physician and the author of a novel about a Nigerian immigrant living with depression. This episode is based on her article " The signs of depression a husband almost missed ," published on KevinMD. She explains why depression is an illness the entire fami...

A young mother arrived in the intensive care unit sick but improving. Overnight, her care was handed to a telemedicine physician on a video screen. By morning she was beyond saving. Keith Corl is an emergency and critical care medicine physician who has worked in more than 40 community hospitals. This episode is based on his article " Why tele-critical care fails the sickest ICU patients ," publis...

A trauma surgeon spent two decades on call for the worst nights of other people's lives. Then he ran his hospital's pandemic response. Then he could not function. Jeremy Heffner is a trauma surgeon, speaker, and author. This episode is based on his article " Why frontline health care workers get no mental support ," published on KevinMD. You will hear how compartmentalizing one case after another...

A patient in intensive care gets worse at 2 a.m., and the hospital has no critical care doctor in the building. Chris Gallagher, a cardiologist and founder of Access TeleCare, has spent 15 years building virtual care programs inside hospitals, and he explains why that gap is so hard to close. This episode is based on his article " Why tele-critical care deserves expansion, not retreat ," published...

Women physicians are walking away from practice in their forties, and not because they stopped loving the work. Dawn Sears is a gastroenterologist of 25 years and the founder of GutGirlMD Consulting, where she coaches physicians and runs Women in Medicine groups. This episode is based on her article " 10 ways to keep women physicians from leaving ," published on KevinMD. You will hear why the job...

Medical training hands you a ready-made group of friends. Then it ends, and many women physicians find themselves starting over alone in a new city. Cassie Burton Greenbaum is a pediatric critical care physician and the founder of Off Service Mom Co., a friendship matchmaking service for physician moms. This episode is based on her article " Physician loneliness is driving women out of medicine ,"...

Fear of AI is not the problem. Refusing to test it is. Eric Jennings, a board-certified, fellowship-trained ophthalmologist and the senior medical director of ophthalmology at ModMed, argues that hesitancy about AI is a protective clinical instinct, and that the right response is the one physicians are already trained to use: appraise it the way you would appraise a new drug or a new procedure. Yo...

America spends nearly a fifth of its economy on health care, yet chronic disease keeps rising and prevention lags. Narinder Singh Parhar, an internist and intensivist with four decades of experience across outpatient, hospital, and ICU care, argues that American medicine has grown top-heavy, brilliant at acute rescue but neglectful of the everyday habits that keep people well. This episode is base...

A car shows up when you click a button and groceries arrive by tonight, but a doctor's appointment takes weeks. Payam Zamani started MY DR NOW while he was still a resident, in a clinic of twelve hundred square feet, and now runs more than eighty of them as founder and chief executive officer. This episode is based on his article " Primary care access is the real problem, not the system ," publish...