Medical

I sat outside my patient’s ICU room, my eyes glancing from his chart to him and his wife.  The picture was grim.  My patient, Tom, was a 56-year-old man, severely ill from decompensated cirrhosis, was admitted for the third time in a month with hypothermia from sepsis.  Despite antibiotic therapy, he was not improving.  Now…

President Trump was administered dexamethasone therapy for COVID-19 treatment, and had two episodes of low oxygen saturation levels that required supplemental oxygen, said doctors at Walter Reed Medical Center at a press conference on Sunday. “In response to transient low oxygen levels, we did initiate dexamethasone therapy [and] our plan is to continue that for…

It has been six months since I have achieved certification as a physician peer coach. My motivation was the desire to provide both peer support and guidance to my colleagues in health care. Once certified, I began the process of reaching out to individuals and organizations and was surprised to learn that many in the…

We’ve never met, but I’ll bet you could use some encouragement right about now. This has been a tough year.  Maybe for you, like me, depression feels like an old song that keeps getting played and stuck in your head over and over through the years. Or maybe this is the first time you’re experiencing…

A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD. Making an accurate clinical diagnosis is one of the most important things physicians can do for their patients. But being able to do so is not an easy process to begin with.  It takes years of preparation in learning as much medicine as…

Some time ago, I performed a colonoscopy on a patient who was having serious internal bleeding.  He had already received multiple transfusions since he was admitted to the hospital.  After obtaining informed consent for the procedure, I performed the colon exam.   I encountered blood throughout the entire colon, but saw no definite bleeding site, raising the possibility that…

“One of the calls you dread making as a doctor is telling a family member their loved one is dying. That was the call I received when my grandfather decompensated. We grow accustomed to making the call as clinicians, but we never expect to get it ourselves. I felt for his pulse. Slow but faint.…

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced multiple new threats for physical and mental health. The novel coronavirus itself continues to infect more than 30,000 Americans as we enter the influenza season. The pandemic, economic devastation, and racial reckoning have led to a tripling of emotional distress. Essential preventive services such as cancer screenings, childhood vaccination, maintenance visits for…

A brief press conference at Walter Reed Medical Center on Saturday sought to provide answers, but may only have raised more questions about President Trump’s clinical status since his COVID-19 diagnosis. The main point of contention between White House physician Sean Conley, DO, and reporters was if the president ever received supplemental oxygen. Conley said…