"In medicine, empiric therapy is treatment that is administered based on the probability of success because we don’t have all of the information. We make our 'best guess.' Actually, empiric decision-making exists in our everyday lives — running...
"While there is a myriad of expert opinions on what long term effects this pandemic will have on our children and their physical and mental health, we must also remember the age-old idiom: this too shall pass. We must also be sensitive to not add to...
"Appreciation in the personal finance world has two different components to it: Quantitative: increasing value of net worth and financial assets Qualitative: feeling of gratitude for one’s finances, resources, and circumstance. This is not...
"While the rise in substance use disorders during COVID will become more apparent as the pandemic eventually ebbs, the silver lining is that this is not a novel problem. We understand substance use disorders far better than we understand COVID-19, and...
"We are social beings. Evolution has taught us that in order to survive, we must work together. Community trust (trusting your fellow citizen) is a very effective way to build community resilience when hardships strike. Studies have been done in the...
"Why real estate? By having a 'why' you want something, it’ll help keep you motivated to pursue your goals when setbacks and mistakes occur. For our family, we wanted passive income streams. Passive income gives you options. I love options. It...
"Like 9/11, we have a new reference point touching everyone on the planet: life before COVID-19 and life after. Regardless if you get it or don’t, the unknowns and secondary consequences are scary. Life before COVID was scary, too, minus the...
"The inflammatory response elicited by the novel coronavirus can do great damage to the essential function of lungs. People with underlying lung disease are more vulnerable to this coronavirus, including people with asthma, emphysema, lung fibrosis,...
"Holding space means being physically, mentally, and emotionally present for someone. It means putting your focus on someone to support them as they feel their feelings. An important aspect of holding space is managing judgment while you are present....
"The reality of being a medical practice owner is that we are small business owners and very vulnerable to the impact of COVID. Having previously worked in the telemedicine industry and because I am a psychiatrist, I initially felt that I was in a...
"To help the reader understand the issues better, I would like to relate some stories. A friend of mine was dying of pancreatic cancer. He had an implantable morphine pump and was on both hospice and palliative care. Still, he found that his suffering...
"There are some things that we are living through as a result of COVID-19 that I did not imagine in my fictional account. For example: the timeline. As we are now four full months into this pandemic in the U.S., some experts estimate that we are still...
"As our office begins to return to pre-COVID operations, it has been uplifting to have a relative sense of normalcy, even though morale seems to be reduced. It is difficult to promote team building and improve morale when everyone has to maintain...
"The duty of physician officials in the government exceeds that of other officials. As physicians, they have a unique moral obligation to do more than protect the constitution from enemies, foreign and domestic. They have a duty to be unambiguously...
"Growing up, my family sheltered and protected me with everything related to vitiligo. People never really asked me what happened to my skin. And, if I did get questions, I honestly did not know how to answer them, so I would say 'oh, they’re just...
"The daily email update on COVID-19 affecting our hospital system is a glaring reflection of the health disparities amongst those in marginalized groups. The farther south you go, generally in San Diego, the higher the number of socioeconomically...
"Signing up for an improv class was unchartered territory. It was far beyond my comfort zone, like skydiving, for a little thrill. I’m not an adrenaline junkie interested in the ultimate adventure nor an aspiring actress hoping for a guest...
"What on earth are we doing here, folks? To try to save a tanking economy, workers were sent back to their jobs much too early, causing again a spike in cases of the virus. I realize that the loss of a paycheck is a major traumatic situation for any...
"I have been depressed. I have been burned out. I have been both. I have been neither. How do you know if you are depressed vs. burned out when your chief complaint is, “I feel like crap?” It’s time to call a consult. I don’t mean curbsiding...
"An increasing number of institutions are relying on telemedicine to continue delivering care to patients in lieu of typical outpatient visits in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Telemedicine has been lauded as a potential equalizer in health care...
"While our bodies have been a bastion of the heart and soul of medicine, a group of our peers thought it was acceptable to diminish the capabilities of our bodies to pictures on social media. They thought our ability to be exceptional physicians was...
Meet the physician who has written multiple widely-shared articles on KevinMD. How does writing change minds and bring people together? Why is humor such an important part of her pieces? Explore how her articles come together, and why writing has made...
"I wonder what keeps us physicians going? What makes us show up to work every day? Even though it might sound clichéd, for most of us, it’s the love for medicine; it’s the love to be there and still be able to make a difference. And maybe money...
"What is SEO? In short, it is the process of optimizing content found online in order to help it be seen by those searching for the information found in that content. It used to be that people would just stuff their poorly written, short, and...