The Podcast by KevinMD

Burnout isn't only about autonomy, it's about your bank account

Physicians stay in jobs they cannot afford to leave. The wellness conversation talks about resilience and meaning, and never about what is in your bank account. Stanley L

Genetic test results, social media advice, and an irreversible choice

Your genetic test results now arrive on your phone before anyone is available to explain them. So the questions go to an online mom group, or to ChatGPT, and strangers an

A cure for aggressive lymphoma exists, and most patients never get it

A treatment exists that can cure aggressive lymphoma after chemotherapy has failed. Only about two in ten eligible patients receive it. Manali Kamdar is clinical director

Doctors were told to be blind to the cost of care

He counts four wounds in American medicine. Patients rarely bring up the first one, which is what health care costs. Narinder Singh Parhar is a physician with more than t

Hurricane season is a fifth season, and medicine has to plan for it

In South Louisiana, hurricane season is treated like a fifth season of the year. Angela C. Johnson explains what that means for physicians and patients. She is an interna

Antibiotics for sinusitis without a real diagnosis

Most people who get antibiotics for a sinus infection never needed them, and the real problem goes untreated. Franklyn R. Gergits is a board-certified otolaryngologist wh

Your AI judges patients by how they write, not their symptoms

What if medical AI judges you by how you write instead of what's actually wrong? A health care executive says it already does. Craig Hauben has spent 30 years in health c

Leaving medicine isn't a loss, it's a translation problem

Leaving medicine can feel like erasing 20 years of work. What if it isn't a loss at all, but a language problem you can solve? Physician executive Shveta Gupta, a pediatr

Why value-based care hasn't lowered your medical bills

Everyone agrees health care should reward better outcomes at lower cost. So why hasn't it happened? The answer isn't payment models or policy. It comes down to the everyd

Why weak branding is costing private practices patients and talent

Patients now choose doctors the way they shop for everything else, judging your practice online before they walk in. Ashley Gay, a branding expert, argues that a strong b

Bloated from all that fiber? You added it too fast.

Social media says to spike your fiber intake as fast as you can. That is where the bloating starts. Lisa Talamini is a registered dietitian nutritionist and senior vice p

Addiction stigma costs lives, and one word can change that

A man told his doctor he was struggling with addiction. The doctor told him this was not something he could help with. Devika Bhushan is a public health physician and a f

Health insurance mergers are why your doctor is leaving

In a lot of towns there is only one health insurer left, and that is starting to show up in patient care. Rita Agarwal is a pediatric anesthesiologist who started asking

Ketamine for depression: what actually makes it dangerous

Ketamine made headlines for the wrong reasons, and people who could be helped by it are staying away. Jim Ellwood is an anesthesiologist who has given ketamine in the ope

When you have five doctors and no one is directing your care

You can have five doctors and still have no one actually in charge of your care. That gap is where patients get lost. In this episode, retired surgeon and patient advocat

She spent weeks on her personal statement. Then someone asked why she didn't use AI.

A resident read a student's personal statement and asked why she didn't just use ChatGPT. The comment landed like a wound. In this episode, certified coach and professor

Why overdiagnosis is failing the students it claims to help

At one university, the share of students receiving disability accommodations rose sevenfold in a decade. Is that progress? In this episode, health care educator and patie

What a dragonfly teaches physicians about burnout and self-compassion

After 20 years as a pediatrician, she stopped believing burnout meant she couldn't hack it. The problem was never her. In this episode, pediatrician and physician career

How a doctor with no coding background built his own bedside AI tools

At 2 a.m., a surgeon needed an answer fast and had no one to ask. So he built the tool himself, with no coding background. In this episode, consultant cardiac anesthesiol

Why telemedicine should be a career, not a side gig

When his shifts were cut during the pandemic, he took a telemedicine job to pay the bills and ended up loving it. Suneer Chander is an emergency physician who co-wrote th