Physician

Physicians writing on KevinMD about the life of the profession: the work itself, the exhaustion, what women physicians are paid and asked to carry, the losses the profession has been slow to name, and who decides how physicians work. Five maintained records draw on this archive: Physician burnout: what physicians say, in their own words, Primary care: what physicians say, in their own words, Women in medicine: what women physicians say, in their own words,, Physician suicide: what physicians say, in their own words, and Physicians and administrators: what physicians say about who runs medicine, in their own words.

A national hotline could track bias in physician discipline

Babajide Ogunseinde, MD

Physician

September 24, 2026

Becoming a physician is one of the longest professional journeys in America. The path typically requires four years of college, four years of medical school, and three to seven or more years of residency and fellowship training. For surgeons, training routinely extends well beyond a decade after college.

The investment is financial, professional, and deeply personal. Medical graduates routinely carry substantial educational debt, spend thousands of hours studying, take licensing examinations, …

The 15-minute appointment is not the boundary of care

Alan P. Feren, MD

Physician

September 24, 2026

Care does not have to be finished in one encounter. But it must not be allowed to disappear between encounters.

When primary care clinicians say they cannot adequately manage their patients’ concerns in 15 minutes, I take that seriously. A patient may arrive with a new symptom, several chronic conditions, medications prescribed by different clinicians, and questions about what has changed. The clinician faces that complexity alongside chart review, examination, documentation, …

Observation status is a clinical choice, not a billing one

Chinyelu E. Oraedu, MD

Physician

September 24, 2026

One night, during cross coverage with residents, I was called to provide clinical oversight for a frail older woman admitted from the emergency department. She had multiple comorbidities and a deteriorating clinical picture, but she had been placed under observation status. I was perplexed.

When I asked residents why observation was so often selected, the answer was usually some version of this: “It is easier to change the patient to inpatient …

3 reforms to counter wellness influencers in practice

Farid Sabet-Sharghi, MD

Physician

September 23, 2026

We spend our days in the quiet reality of clinical practice. We chase elusive diagnoses, weigh the fine distinctions of symptom presentation, and measure our clinical instincts against rigorous decades of peer-reviewed science. We sit across from human beings in moments of vulnerability, applying a lifetime of anatomy, neurobiology, and pharmacology to parse real suffering from pathology.

Yet, step outside the exam room door, and we are met with a deafening …

Choosing a limb lengthening surgeon requires accountability

Hrayr Basmajian, MD

Physician

September 23, 2026

Patients considering cosmetic limb lengthening usually begin with one question: How much height can be gained? That question is understandable, but it should not drive the decision. The more important issue is who will remain responsible for the patient’s care throughout the process and what will happen if recovery requires extra attention.

Cosmetic limb lengthening is often presented as a procedure that increases height. Technically, that is the goal, but it …

How to reassure patients: 5 steps beyond normal tests

Devina Maya Wadhwa, MD

Physician

September 22, 2026

Physicians reassure people every day:

“Your tests are normal.”
“There is nothing dangerous going on.”
“This is good news.”
“You are going to be OK.”

We usually say these things with good intentions. We want to reduce fear, provide perspective, and help patients leave our offices or emergency departments feeling safer than when they arrived. But sometimes reassurance does not reassure.

The patient continues asking questions. They return to the emergency department. …

Setting boundaries as a physician doesn’t mean caring less

Jerina Gani, MD, MPH

Physician

September 21, 2026

For years, I thought good doctors always said yes.

Can you squeeze in one more patient? Yes. Can you answer this message before you leave? Of course. Can you finish this chart tonight? Yes. Can you take care of just one more thing? Absolutely.

It rarely felt like a major decision. Each request seemed small. A few more minutes. One more patient. One more message. But small yeses have a way of …

How emergency medicine decision making works under pressure

Geoffrey Mount Varner, MD, MPH

Physician

September 20, 2026

Ask most physicians outside emergency medicine how they’d handle a patient presenting with three possible diagnoses, incomplete labs, and a deteriorating vital sign trend, and you’ll usually get a version of “I’d want more information first.” Ask an ER physician the same question, and you’ll get an action plan within seconds. That gap isn’t intelligence. It’s training. And I think it’s worth naming exactly what that training builds, because most …

Why I stay in emergency medicine: a dancer at nearly 100

Howie Mell, MD, MPH

Physician

September 19, 2026

The author and his wife, at a time when getting off the floor required considerably less planning.

People ask what being an emergency physician is like, and they expect the blood, the saves, the codes, the worst nights. Those happen, and they matter, but I try not to carry those home. What I try to keep is the people. You meet everyone in …

Distrust of science is inviting the Middle Ages back

Tomi Mitchell, MD

Physician

September 19, 2026

A few days ago, I saw a fake book cover online that was so ridiculous I laughed out loud. It was beautifully designed: deep red. Ornate gold lettering. The kind of cover that looks as though it belongs in a medieval monastery, chained to a wooden desk while a monk copies its contents by candlelight.

The title? How to Avoid Vaccines & Die Like a Medieval Peasant. The author? Robert F. …

Why the family medical history lives with women caregivers

Dr. Malika Gupta

Physician

September 19, 2026

Across the different hospitals and services where I have trained, I have noticed something I did not expect to notice. When we ask who knows the patient’s medications, who can explain what happened during the last hospitalization, or who we should call in an emergency, the answer is very often a woman. A mother. A wife. A sister. A daughter.

A specific memory I have: a seventy-year-old man with diabetes and …

Burnout or job dissatisfaction: 4 causes usually in play

Diane W. Shannon, MD, MPH

Physician

September 18, 2026

How do I know if I’m burned out or just unhappy at work? On the surface, this is a straightforward question. Job burnout is one thing; professional dissatisfaction is another. We have validated survey questions for each, like the Maslach Burnout Inventory and the Physician Worklife Survey, and measures that can differentiate burnout from dissatisfaction, like the Professional Fulfillment Index. But I’ve found that when physicians are no longer thriving …

Patient satisfaction scores punish the doctors who say no

Farid Sabet-Sharghi, MD

Physician

September 18, 2026

In the digital age, we have been conditioned to trust the social proof of a high star rating. We see five stars on a retail site and immediately assume the product is excellent. But as a psychiatrist, I have learned that when it comes to medicine, that logic is fundamentally flawed. In fact, if you encounter a physician with 375 five-star reviews and not a single negative comment on social …

Frivolous malpractice lawsuits are a governance failure

Howard Smith, MD

Physician

September 17, 2026

It’s time to call out medical malpractice for what it really is. Dick Durbin’s own words define what is behind medical malpractice. “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 became a lawyer in 1969. He was first elected to Congress in 1982. …

Why physician outsourcing is a warning sign for hospitals

Shelly Haug Monti, MD

Physician

September 17, 2026

History has taught medicine some brutal lessons. Nearly two centuries ago, Ignaz Semmelweis noted a disturbing pattern in the maternity wards of Vienna, Austria. Women cared for by physicians were dying of puerperal fever at dramatically higher rates than those cared for by midwives. The hospital still looked functional, the wards remained open, physicians continued working, and the institution carried on. But something inside the system was profoundly wrong. Semmelweis …

Physician mental health and the shame of asking for help

Kenneth Scott Burnham, DO

Physician

September 17, 2026

I have intubated people who intentionally overdosed on many things they could find. I have sat with families in the minutes after we lost someone who didn’t have to be lost. I have written discharge summaries for patients I worried about the moment they walked out the door.

For twenty-three years, I was the doctor on the other side of the crisis. Then I wasn’t.

It didn’t arrive the way emergencies do: …

Surgical judgment: the skill no one sees from the gallery

Mustafa Kemal Çalık, MD

Physician

September 16, 2026

When I was younger in surgery, I watched hands. I watched how senior surgeons held an instrument, how little unnecessary movement they made, how calmly they worked around a vessel that could turn an orderly operation into an emergency within seconds. Technical mastery was visible. You could stand across the operating table and recognize it.

I wanted that kind of control. Most young surgeons do.

In my first year of cardiovascular surgery …

Physician burnout often begins with self-abandonment

Christine Kempton, MD

Physician

September 15, 2026

The room was still dark, my cat curled next to me, when I looked at the clock: 4:18 a.m. It was well before my alarm was set to go off, but I knew I wasn’t going to fall back asleep. Reluctantly, I grabbed my phone, put on my slippers, and shuffled downstairs to the coffee maker. While the coffee brewed, I skimmed my email and read the news headlines. Coffee …

Can physicians and organized labor stand together?

Sameen Farooq, MD

Physician

September 15, 2026

Our cultural ethos has revolved around the paragons of “hard work” and so much so that now our health leaders are suggesting that “healthy” Americans work longer to delay retirement to stimulate the economy. In the words of Dr. Oz, “If Americans could stay healthy enough to work just one additional year or start working earlier in their lives, it would increase the GDP of our nation by trillions …

Fragmented care made my family her care coordinator

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

Physician

September 15, 2026

I recently read Kara Wada’s September 7, 2026, KevinMD essay asking a simple but profound question: Who holds the telescope? Her article resonated with me immediately because I know the answer.

When my wife Kathy was dying, nobody did.

Kathy was not the victim of one catastrophic mistake. There was no single dramatic error that changed the course of her illness. What I witnessed instead was something more common and, in many …

Physician

Most Popular

Past Week

Past 6 Months

Recent Posts

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Most Popular

Past Week

Past 6 Months

Recent Posts