Episodes

When did volunteering stop being a choice and start being a condition of professionalism? Pediatrician, certified coach, and mindfulness and yoga teacher Jessie Mahoney realized she had donated over 2,000 hours of uncompensated work as a volunteer clinical professor, all while holding leadership roles and raising three kids, and she had never once questioned it. Her episode is based on her KevinMD article, "The hidden cost of uncompensated work on physician burnout," Mahoney traces how residency...

What happens when a doctor closes the chart but the patient leaves without understanding what was actually said? Retired surgeon, independent physician, health care consultant, and patient advocate Alan P. Feren describes what he calls "unfinishedness," the gap between administrative closure and true clinical closure that leaves patients disoriented and adrift. His episode is based on his KevinMD article, "Unfinishedness in medicine: When a good visit feels incomplete," Feren shares the story of...

When is the most powerful thing a medical student can do in a patient's room simply to stop talking? Medical students Jay Pendyala and Jonathan Berg draw on years of competitive chess to explain how the game quietly trains skills that medical school rarely teaches directly. Their episode is based on their KevinMD article, "What chess taught me about clinical reasoning and humanism," Pendyala and Berg break down how chess mirrors clinical encounters across three phases, from the structured openin...

What if the biggest problem with electronic health records was not the technology itself, but that we expected it to transform medicine when it could only lay the foundation? Robert Wachter, professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, joins the show to discuss his book, A Giant Leap: How AI Is Transforming Healthcare and What That Means for Our Future. He explains why AI is the first technology that replicates what doctors thought only they c...

What if the moment women stop seeing their gynecologist is exactly when their cervical cancer risk matters most? Nenrot S. Gopep, a physician and public health researcher, joins the show to discuss her KevinMD article, "Menopause and the drop in cervical cancer screening." Her research found that postmenopausal women are 24 percent less likely to receive a Pap smear compared to premenopausal women, even after controlling for insurance, age, and socioeconomic status. You will hear why the persist...

What happens to patients with disabilities when the government signals their lives don't matter, and what does that mean for the doctors fighting alongside them? Ashna Shome, a pediatrics resident with cerebral palsy, joins the show to discuss her KevinMD article, "The impact of policy cuts on ableism in health care." She explains how proposed Medicaid cuts, the rollback of physical access requirements for federal buildings, and harmful rhetoric around autism and vaccines are compounding to crea...

What happens when you ask clinicians to hit dozens of quality metrics but never explain why those metrics matter or how to manage them? Kenneth Botelho, founding program director of the Doctor of Medical Science program at the College of St. Scholastica, joins to discuss his KevinMD article, "Value-based care workforce: Bridging the gap in clinical education," and why medical education still trains you to treat one patient at a time in a world that demands population health thinking. He breaks d...

What happens when your deepest religious convictions collide with a patient suffering from metastatic cancer and no miracle in sight? Medical student Jonah Rocheeld shares the raw tension between his Orthodox Jewish upbringing and the medical ethics he is learning in clinical training, based on his KevinMD article, "End-of-life care and religion: Reconciling Jewish law and medicine." He unpacks the distinction Jewish law draws between withholding and withdrawing care, why that boundary feels cer...

What happens when a patient can't afford the treatment you prescribe but is too embarrassed to say so? Health care executive Adam Cunningham joins the show to unpack the devastating ripple effects of medical debt, drawing on his KevinMD article, "The hidden toll of medical debt on patient health and survival," and sharing how one friend lost her job, her insurance, and nearly her ability to function before finding affordable biologic treatment for rheumatoid arthritis overseas. You'll hear why 1...

What happens when medical students witness dehumanization during clinical rotations but feel too powerless to speak up? Kathleen Muldoon, a certified coach and professor in medical education, joins the show to unpack why moral courage is a skill you can practice right now, not something to defer until you hold a title. Based on her KevinMD article "Moral courage in medical training: the power of the powerless," this conversation reveals how the hidden curriculum in medical training quietly norma...

Is the new oral Wegovy pill a breakthrough or a risk most patients never hear about? Shiv K. Goel, an internal medicine and functional medicine physician, joins the show to unpack his KevinMD article, "Oral Wegovy: the miracle and the mess of the new GLP-1 pill," and why treating this drug casually could hurt you. He breaks down emerging data linking high-dose semaglutide to ischemic optic neuropathy, with reporting odds nearly five times higher for Wegovy than Ozempic, and explains why the obes...

Clinical director at Franklin Park Family Dental in Dorchester and Tremont Family Dentistry in Boston, Charan Teja Bobba, discusses his article "Treating methamphetamine-associated dental disease in safety-net clinics." Charan reflects on the profound human reality behind treating patients with severe addiction, noting that a ruined smile often represents a lifetime of being let down by the health care system. He explains the physical devastation of meth mouth, where acidity, dry mouth, and teet...

Physician wellness coach Jessica Singh discusses the article "." Jessica shares a powerful narrative of a grueling swing shift in a rural emergency department, managing critical patients and a mounting waiting room with minimal resources. She...

Physician and tax specialist Logan Foltz discusses the article "." Logan explains why the Internal Revenue Code patterns are often unfavorable to physicians, who typically rely on clinical labor and face high marginal tax rates with limited control...

Physician coach Apurv Gupta discusses the article "" Apurv describes his model of a loving organization as a system that designs the clinical environment to make safety and purpose natural rather than forced. He explores the bridge between individual...

Obesity medicine physician Jessica Duncan discusses the article "." Jessica explains that expecting to maintain weight loss after abruptly stopping GLP-1 therapy is unrealistic because it ignores the physiological forces that defend a person's prior...

Patient advocate Eric Goldfarb discusses the article "." Eric shares the absurd and heartbreaking story of finding a pregnancy test charge on his 88 year old father’s final hospital bill. He explains how this error was merely a symptom of a larger,...

Internal medicine and functional medicine physician Shiv K. Goel discusses the article "." Shiv explains how the modern longevity boom has trained patients to seek out quick fixes like peptides and weight loss injections while ignoring foundational...

Former Treasurer of the American College of Physicians Janet A. Jokela discusses the article "." Janet reflects on her visit to the Ronald Reagan Museum where she found profound connections between the former president's views on diversity and the...

Family physician, medical device inventor, and health care entrepreneur Tod Stillson discusses the article "AI governance in health care: Why physicians must lead the design." Tod warns that the greatest threat to modern medicine is allowing artificial intelligence to be designed without physician oversight. He reflects on how hospital consolidation and private equity have previously redistributed power away from clinicians, and argues that AI could become the next structural layer that reduces ...

Pediatric hematology-oncology physician and co-founder of Pink Coat, MD Tammie Chang discusses the article "Unhooking from the ego in medicine." Tammie shares her personal journey through depression and clinical burnout, explaining how these challenges forced her to disconnect from a professional identity rooted in ego and achievement. She describes the neurological shift from a left-brain focus on analysis to a right-brain focus on intuition and interconnectedness. By choosing to show up as a l...

Integrative pediatrician Mary Wilde discusses the article "." Mary discusses how medical training conditions clinicians to fear rest and prioritize a treadmill of servitude over personal well-being. She shares insights from teaching medical students...

Metabolic health educator Marsha Shepherd Whitt discusses the article "." Marsha explains that weight loss struggles in midlife are often driven by physiology rather than a lack of discipline. As women move through perimenopause and menopause,...

Health care executive Chris Darland discusses their article "." Chris explains that remote patient monitoring is currently too reactive, functioning as a safety net that tracks problems rather than preventing them. He suggests that technology should...