The Podcast by KevinMD

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...

A patient says her hip has hurt for a while. Whether she leaves trusting her doctor depends on what happens next. Alan P. Feren, a retired surgeon, health care consultant, and patient advocate, separates active listening, which makes a patient feel heard, from careful listening, which changes the reasoning. This episode is based on his article " Trust in medicine is restored by method, not empathy...

A patient came in with weight gain nobody could explain. Every test came back fine. Shiv K. Goel is a board-certified internal medicine and functional medicine physician. This episode is based on his article " How relationships affect health, seen from the exam room ," published on KevinMD. He treats the people in a patient's life as part of the same picture as sleep, alcohol, and diet. A difficul...

A doctor cracked open an airplane emergency kit and found a sticker saying there was no epinephrine inside. Lianne Mandelbaum, president of No Nut Traveler and airline correspondent for Allergic Living, has spent a decade collecting accounts like it. This episode is based on her article " Epinephrine on airplanes should not depend on the airline ," published on KevinMD. You will hear what a propos...

An eye surgeon who used to see forty patients a day now sees one to three in a morning, and he has no staff. Oren Fass, a board-certified ophthalmologist and cataract surgeon, has been an employed physician, a practice owner, and an owner who sold to private equity, and he now runs a solo micro practice. This episode is based on his article " The hidden variable in the physician burnout debate ,"...

A surgeon's kids FaceTime him from their iPads while he is in the operating room, and he cannot pick up. Alyssa Kressel, a strategic communications professional, has spent more than fifteen years alongside her husband's surgical training. This episode is based on her article " What the children of physicians carry ," published on KevinMD. You will hear why the usual advice about adjusting hours do...

You drive home after a long shift and see someone standing at the roadside. It turns out to be a sign. Chinelle Miller had that happen more than once, and her first thought was that something was wrong with her. She is a physician and multidisciplinary artist. This episode is based on her article " Why seeing things doesn't mean you're losing your mind ," published on KevinMD. You will hear what s...

Doctors have heard promises about health technology for decades. Now artificial intelligence has to deliver something better than what health care already has. Seema Verma, executive vice president and general manager of Oracle Health and Life Sciences and former administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, explains where health systems stand with AI today. You will hear why am...

She loved the job for 20 years. She left anyway. Christine King, certified registered nurse anesthetist, returns to explain what changed in the operating room and what it cost her. This episode is based on her article " Why I left health care after almost 20 years ," published on KevinMD. You will hear why decisions about whether a procedure happens started to feel like insurance decisions rather...

Many doctors picture themselves practicing until the day they die. Andrea Hayes decided otherwise, and tells you what came next. She is a retired endocrinologist, author, and speaker. This episode is based on her article " From endocrinologist to writer: a doctor's second act ," published on KevinMD. You will hear how 30 years in practice, 25 of them independent and five in concierge medicine, end...