The story of a physician, after a year sober

Here are the stories you missed on KevinMD. Thank you for your continuing readership. --------------------------------------------------------------- Here are the stories you missed on [KevinMD](. Thank you for your continuing readership. --------------------------------------------------------------- Sponsors [Register today!]( | For this Symposium from SUO 2022! Advanced Bladder Cancer: Expert Insights on Navigating an Evolving Treatment Landscape | In-person or Livestream | [1-hour CME/CE]( The rising adoption of telehealth highlights the myriad of challenges it presents to patients, providers, and health care systems. Check out [What Not to Do: Telehealth Lessons Learned]( from TDC Group for tips from risk management experts. Learn what over 200 health care professionals say about health care communications in 2022, including [three major takeaways](. Read the 2022 state of health care communications report to help you evaluate improvements to your [clinical communication strategy](. --------------------------------------------------------------- KevinMD Plus: Nov 21, 2022 [The story of a physician, after a year sober]( My first COVID vacation last year was spectacular, except that I barely remember three days because I was drinking to the point of amnesia. I am a physician from a multigenerational family of alcoholics, and I never wanted to struggle with alcohol use disorder. Instead, I discovered that I could avoid feelings of discomfort by [...] [Design thinking in health care: Physicians already have the training to be innovators]( Compared to the Silicon Valley world of moving fast and breaking things, health care change often happens slowly. Some of the reasons for the inertia of our industry make sense. Change impacting patients requires a vetting process to ensure we are creating net benefit. But this inertia also exists partly because many believe our field [...] [Let’s focus more on caring, rather than coding]( Risk adjustment is a statistical method used by health plans to predict an individual’s use of health care services and the associated cost of care. Unlike traditional fee-for-service Medicare, Medicare Advantage (MA) plans receive a flat monthly payment for the individual beneficiary’s cost of care, with payments partially based on risk score. Higher risk scores [...] [Integrated care is the key to optimizing cancer outcomes]( The American Cancer Society released its annual report on cancer statistics, showing that we have made clear and significant progress in treating numerous forms of cancer. The overall rate of death has declined steadily since 1991, translating to over 3 million lives saved. Despite this progress, I still see room for improvement in a care [...] [What it means to leave clinical medicine [PODCAST]]( “Not too long ago, a circumstance occurred. I have experienced similar circumstances several times in my career. However, this time, my response was different. It was like a switch in my brain flipped. I was ready to leave clinical medicine. It was time for [...] [My 5-minute conversation with a suicide hotline expert]( Sandy was sent to me by her primary care physician for evaluation of anemia. As I reviewed her chart, I explained to the medical student that the blood work showed a lifelong benign condition called alpha thalassemia trait that she was born with. It had no potential to harm her. This would be a quick [...] [It’s time for a reckoning in pain medicine]( More than a million Americans have died since the late 1990s from drug overdoses, with the vast majority dying from an opioid overdose. This trend started with the heavy marketing of opioids to physicians as nonaddictive and effective. The number of deaths from overdose has escalated significantly in the past few years. Although many of [...] [Leaving The House of God]( To paraphrase Fat Man’s Law Number Three, “At a code, the first pulse you take is your own.” Enduring advice, as true today as it was in the early ’70s when Roy G. Basch, MD, and his gang of hapless interns roamed the airless wards of The House of God, the mythical hospital in the [...] [Why you should add advance directives to your college freshman’s checklist [PODCAST]]( “Suppose you’re getting ready to send your young adult off to college for the first time. In that case, you’ve likely been spending the summer getting college dorm and apartment essentials lined up: bedding, storage cubes, first aid kit, extension cords, dry erase board [...] [I saved a baby’s life]( I saved a baby’s life today. I say that not to impress anyone or to make myself out to be some kind of deity but because it is simply true. A three-week-old baby arrived at my office, gray and limp, with agonal respirations and oxygen saturation of 67 percent. My team of dedicated office staff [...] [Why we should end gendered titles]( The question of addressing physicians by name has been addressed again. Yet the question about names has not been addressed. Before addressing the name question, I will talk about how I have evolved with time. In India, I have been used to formally addressing everyone as either “Sir” or “Madam” during in-person meetings and in [...] [Digital philosophy: a critical tool for the mental health of children]( The precipitous decline in the mental health of U.S. children and adolescents has been meticulously cataloged in newspaper articles, books, and documentaries. In our own pediatrics clinic, the numbers have skyrocketed — a baseball player unable to get out of his car for practice, a teenager with aggressive behavior masking underlying depression and anxiety, and [...] [Meet the doctor who had a colonoscopy without anesthesia [PODCAST]]( “If you did not have a colonoscopy, I would still recommend that you do it in a conventional way and get that IV sedation. But if you are an adventurer as I am, I would highly recommend that you do a colonoscopy the same [...] [It is time that medical societies acknowledge that pro-life views are legitimate]( The recent Dobbs decision has led to strong reactions from many major medical associations arguing that limiting abortion options will significantly harm women with unexpected pregnancies. This needs to be acknowledged, and the desire to do what is best for women is to be commended and shows a true passion for providing what these organizations [...] [Political creep: government intrusion in health care]( The American Medical Association (AMA) would have you believe that the biggest threat to the medical profession is “scope creep” – the intrusion of advanced practice providers into medical practice. The way I see it, this is no big deal; the movement will reach equilibrium, and everyone will play nicely in the sandbox. In my [...] [Depriving women of this drug is good public health]( It’s a public health win that on October 19th, an FDA Advisory Committee voted 14-1 to remove Makena, a drug intended to prevent preterm birth, from the market. The FDA usually follows the advice of its advisory committee, and the briefing documents it supplied the committee make it clear that the agency wants the drug [...] --------------------------------------------------------------- [Thousands of physicians are browsing this job board](. They love its selection of over 12,000 openings across the U.S. [Physicians are finding opportunities they almost missed](. --------------------------------------------------------------- If a friend sent you this email and you want to subscribe, go to [KevinMD](. --------------------------------------------------------------- 345 Hudson Street New York NY 10014 USA [Unsubscribe]( | [Change Subscriber Options](