Surgery

Guilty until proven innocent? My experience with a state medical board.

Physician

August 29, 2025

When I found out about the summary suspension of my medical license in February, I was terrified and shocked, but I knew it was a mistake. There had not been any hearing. I was not even aware they were charging me until I got the letter.

The allegations involved three patients. I had the cases reviewed by four independent spine surgeons, leaders in the field from stellar institutions; all agreed that …

Why transgender health care needs urgent reform and inclusive practices

Angela Rodriguez, MD

Conditions

August 16, 2025

Everyone deserves informed, compassionate and respectful health care. As medical professionals, we have the profound privilege and responsibility to make a difference in the lives of others.

As a practicing Board Certified Plastic Surgeon in San Francisco, CA, I have dedicated my practice to serving trans women, trans men, non-binary and gender-diverse individuals. Through this practice, I have viewed discrimination at the most basic levels. Patients struggle to find primary care …

A surgeon’s take on God, intelligence, and cosmic responsibility

Fateh Entabi, MD

Physician

August 6, 2025

In the operating room, I often find myself marveling—not just at the complexity of the human body, but at its intelligence. The way tissues adapt, how cells communicate, how the body heals—it all feels less like machinery and more like music. There’s rhythm. Responsiveness. A kind of attunement.

That word—attunement—has become central to how I think about not only medicine, but life, belief, and even the nature of the universe itself.

As …

When conscience compels doctors to walk out

Patrick Hudson, MD

Physician

August 5, 2025

There is a kind of silence in hospitals that no overhead page can interrupt. The silence after you have raised a concern, documented it, escalated, and nothing changes. Some physicians endure that silence for years. Some burn out. A few walk out, not in defiance of medicine, but in fidelity to what medicine was supposed to be. And when they do, we often call them disruptive, political, or unprofessional. But …

It’s OK to want a different life in medicine [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

August 1, 2025

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

Pediatrician and certified coach Jessie Mahoney discusses her article, “From burnout to balance: a neurosurgeon’s bold career redesign.” She shares the powerful story of a female neurosurgeon who, on the verge of …

Why doctors striking may be the most ethical choice

Patrick Hudson, MD

Physician

July 27, 2025

“When doctors strike, patients die.” That phrase—flattened into certainty—gets tossed around like a moral verdict. It shows up in op-eds, comment threads, morning rounds. As if to say: there’s no argument. The matter’s settled. You swore an oath.

But what oath, exactly?

Most physicians are taught to revere the Hippocratic Oath, but few have read the original versions. It wasn’t universal. It wasn’t sacred scripture. It forbade surgery. It invoked Apollo and …

How doctors can turn criticism into collaboration

Mary Remón, LCPC

Conditions

July 24, 2025

You’re in the OR. A colleague, maybe a resident, suggests a different approach. You’ve already considered it. Or maybe it’s not a great suggestion. Either way, it’s hard to hear. You feel your muscles tense and lean away from your colleague, avoiding eye contact. Defensiveness is a common and understandable dynamic.

A common dynamic

In the era of shared decision-making, physicians get all kinds of suggestions—not only from peers, but also from …

Why rigorous training is vital for today’s surgeons

Philip Alford, MD

Physician

July 21, 2025

Are you serious? It’s 2 a.m., and you take a patient to the OR for what you believe is a bowel obstruction or appendicitis — only to find metastatic cancer, necrotic bowel, or something equally catastrophic. The patient is unstable, anesthesia is struggling to maintain blood pressure, and you can’t simply apply a wound vac and leave the patient in the ICU. This is when your training must take over.

Since …

Healing beyond the surface: Why proper chronic wound care matters

Alvin May, MD

Conditions

July 13, 2025

An excerpt from Heal Your Wound: A Doctor’s Guide For Hard-To-Heal Wounds.

Chronic wounds are more than just a medical issue, they can be a daily challenge that can impact every part of a person’s life. From physical discomfort to emotional stress, these wounds often linger for weeks or months, especially when tied to conditions like diabetes, poor circulation, or limited mobility.

But here is the good news: With the right …

Why timing, not surgery, determines patient survival

Michael Karch, MD

Conditions

July 8, 2025

She was 68. Diabetic. Living alone with chronic osteoarthritis. Like many patients, she carried a story more complex than any preoperative checklist could capture: a long history of opioid dependence, obesity, limited mobility, and no one at home to help her recover.

Her total knee replacement—performed with state-of-the-art robotic precision—was flawless. The surgical plan was executed to perfection. The implant was perfectly aligned. She was discharged on time, per protocol.

But protocol …

From burnout to balance: a neurosurgeon’s bold career redesign

Jessie Mahoney, MD

Physician

July 3, 2025

When a neurosurgeon tells you she thinks she might want to leave surgery for interior design, you listen closely.

Not because it’s outrageous, but because it’s honest. Many physicians carry similar longings. They wonder whether it’s OK to want a different life.

In medicine, conformity is expected and often a means of survival. Especially for women in male-dominated fields. The unspoken expectation is to blend in, push through, and never question the …

How New Mexico became a malpractice lawsuit hotspot

Patrick Hudson, MD

Physician

July 1, 2025

Across America, physicians worry about malpractice litigation—but what happens when state policies unintentionally create a malpractice litigation magnet? New Mexico offers a troubling case study every health care provider should know about.

Between 2019 and 2024, New Mexico lost 248 practicing physicians; for a large state with a small population, this is significant. Rural communities bear the brunt of this exodus. Specialists, surgeons, and primary care doctors alike have left, most …

Why even the best employees are silently quitting health care

Dr. Suhaib J. S. Ahmad

Physician

June 26, 2025

Imagine yourself being miserable at work and you have been thinking about quitting for a long time now, but you are just really good at what you do. Your colleagues approached you when they needed advice and even your patients praised and thanked you all the time. Imagine leaving all of this and walking away from years’ worth of hard work.

Initially, you might have felt guilty and isolated for feeling …

How robotics are reshaping the future of vascular procedures

David Fischel

Conditions

June 18, 2025

Medicine has always evolved through a blend of scientific rigor and bold innovation. Over the last century, surgical practice has progressed from risky open procedures to highly controlled, minimally invasive interventions. Laparoscopic surgery marked one such revolution, dramatically enhancing patient outcomes by enabling precision through small incisions. By the 1990s, it had become an essential part of modern surgery.

A similar, albeit slower, evolution has taken place in endovascular care. …

Bridging the rural surgical care gap with rotating health care teams

Ankit Jain

Education

June 9, 2025

Compared to urban areas, rural communities had a 21 percent higher rate of deaths due to heart disease and a 15 percent higher rate of cancer deaths from 2001 to 2019. The per capita number of general surgeons decreased from 6.4 to 5.2 per 100,000 population (−18 percent) during the same period, further highlighting disparities in rural care.

The recruitment of rural physicians and surgeons remains a challenge. …

If I had to choose: Choosing the patient over the protocol

Patrick Hudson, MD

Physician

June 4, 2025

It was after dinner at The Goring, just the three of us—Ulla, David Chipp, and me. The kind of dinner where the wine lingers longer than the food, and the conversation slips into the quietly personal.

David, once Reuters’ correspondent in Peking during the Mao years and later editor-in-chief of the Press Association, handed me a gift: a copy of E. M. Forster’s What I believe. Inside, he had written a line …

Hope is the lifeline: a deeper look into transplant care

Judith Eguzoikpe, MD, MPH

Conditions

May 30, 2025

A few months after meeting her during rounds at a dialysis center, an elderly woman gripped my hand and quietly asked, “Do you think I’ll make it in time?” Her voice trembled. She had been silent for weeks, worn down by dialysis and overwhelmed by the long transplant process. Her question pierced through the clinical routine. I looked into her eyes, squeezed her hand gently, and said, “We’re going to …

A surgeon’s startling ketamine experience [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

April 19, 2025

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

General surgeon Arthur Williams discusses his article “A surgeon’s battle with ketamine-induced hallucinations.” He shares an account from his novel of an experience needing a pacemaker for a “janky heart” prone to …

Normalizing male plastic surgery in Africa

Shirley Sarah Dadson

Conditions

March 26, 2025

Aloma Isaac Junior, a Nigerian comedian popularly known as Zicsaloma, recently underwent rhinoplasty. This intervention exposed deep-rooted biases about masculinity, beauty, and body autonomy in Africa. Instead of curiosity or support, his decision was met with mockery, outrage, and accusations of self-hate.

This backlash reveals a cultural blind spot. Plastic surgery is often seen as an indulgence for women, while men are expected to accept their looks as they are. Medical …

The hidden financial burdens shaping modern medicine

Sarah Fashakin

Education

March 12, 2025

Imagine this: Two attending surgeons undertake a surgical procedure on a patient. The surgical residents have draped the patient; the surgical tech and the circulating nurse are ready to begin the operation. The surgical attendings enter the OR, scrub in, and move to the next order of business: “How are we going to bill for this procedure?”

Often, there is an unspoken—and spoken—consensus that the medical field is a lucrative one. …