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You don't have to feel called to medicine to be a good doctor Jun 05, 2026

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Is medicine a calling or just a job? Christie Mulholland thinks that question is the wrong one, and answering it keeps physicians stuck in burnout. Christie, a palliative care physician and certified physician development coach, returns to the show to introduce a four-quadrant matrix that maps how called you feel to medicine against how satisfied you actually are practicing it. This episode is based on her article "Moving beyond the false binary of medicine as a calling," published on KevinMD. She walks through each quadrant (the calling, the craft, the wound, and the wall) and the specific coaching question that unlocks a next step for physicians living in each one. Christie also talks about how profit-driven systems benefit when "calling" stays the only acceptable answer, why work-life balance keeps getting squeezed out of clinical careers, and when a career pause becomes the move that smaller adjustments cannot replace. Listen for the question that names where you actually are.

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Why AI has outpaced medical malpractice law, and what to do about it Jun 04, 2026

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Medical AI is evolving faster than the legal system can regulate it. Richard E. Anderson, CEO of The Doctors Company, the nation's largest physician-owned medical malpractice insurer, argues that the gap between what AI can do clinically and what courts are ready to judge has created a difficult position for physicians, and that it will take a long time for the system to catch up. This episode is based on his article "The future of U.S. medicine: 10 health care trends in 2026," published on KevinMD. You will hear why following an AI recommendation that diverges from the current standard of care can put a physician in legal jeopardy, why Anderson has seen almost no AI-related lawsuits so far despite widespread clinical use, what physicians should document every time they choose not to follow an AI recommendation, and what the 17-year lag between scientific discovery and standard-of-care adoption means for anyone practicing with AI today. Listen for a grounded read on medical AI heading into 2026.

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What happens when physicians cede AI to direct-to-consumer startups Jun 03, 2026

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Rural doctors hit a ceiling around 35 patients a day, and hiring more clinicians will not move it. Tod Stillson, a family physician, medical device inventor, and health care entrepreneur, argues that the physician shortage is not a headcount problem but a knowledge-scaling problem, and that AI with a doctor in the loop is the only realistic way to extend a physician's judgment to more patients without replacing the human relationship. This episode is based on his article "How artificial intelligence scales physician extension," published on KevinMD. You will hear why he spent two years codifying his own clinical judgment into software, why his text-based triage system outperformed general-purpose AI in a recent study, and what physicians risk if direct-to-consumer companies keep capturing demand while doctors stay on the sidelines. You will also learn why governance of the medical knowledge base has to come from physicians, not from startups in San Francisco or Boston. Listen for a grounded case for AI as capacity multiplier, not replacement.

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Why every new health care tool keeps making the job harder Jun 02, 2026

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Most physicians spend more time fighting their software than seeing patients, and piling on new tools has not fixed it. Grace E. Terrell, a physician executive, argues that decades of layering electronic health records, population health tools, remote patient monitoring, and now AI onto sixty-year-old billing infrastructure has produced a Frankenstein stack that burns out clinicians and harms patients. This episode is based on her article "Connected health care workflows: From chore to core patient care," published on KevinMD. You will hear why layering new tools on old infrastructure keeps failing, how prior authorization became an arms race, and what a genuinely connected workflow would feel like for a clinician evaluating a patient with suspected spinal abscess. You will also learn the one question to ask any vendor pitching a new tool, and why her company's CIO believes EHRs themselves may not survive the next five years. Listen for a concrete path from chore to core patient care.

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MAHA has the right diagnosis and the wrong treatment plan Jun 01, 2026

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The same Robert Kennedy Jr. who sued Monsanto over glyphosate in 2017 is now defending an order to expand its production. What does a functional medicine physician do with that? Shiv K. Goel, an internal medicine and functional medicine physician, argues that the Make America Healthy Again movement correctly names the chronic disease crisis, ultra-processed food, and a broken food system, then prescribes the wrong treatment. This episode is based on his article "Make America Healthy Again fails true functional medicine," published on KevinMD. You will hear why MAHA's root-cause language overlaps with functional medicine, why undermining vaccines during a measles outbreak is the contradiction the guest cannot ignore, how silence on Medicaid and SNAP cuts hurts the patients most harmed by chronic disease, and why clinicians must reclaim root-cause language from populist politics. If you have felt torn between agreeing with parts of MAHA and rejecting the rest, this conversation draws the line the guest thinks physicians have to hold.

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One hallucinated citation can end your expert witness career May 29, 2026

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One AI-hallucinated citation on cross-examination, and the expert witness career you built is over. It is already happening. Tracy Liberatore, a former physician assistant turned attorney and founder of the National Expert Academy, walks through the real court cases where clinical experts leaned on generative AI and watched their reports, and their reputations, get thrown out. This episode is based on her article "Expert witness credibility is destroyed by AI opinions," published on KevinMD. You will hear why AI hallucinated citations are ending careers in medical-legal work, why one expert was allowed to keep AI in his workflow because he could account for every prompt, what responsible AI use actually looks like for clinicians writing expert reports, and the brain flip clinicians have to make to defend a process rather than a conclusion. If you do expert witness work, or are thinking about it, this conversation names the line you cannot cross.

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Metrics got you into medicine and are making you unhappy in it May 28, 2026

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You hit every number: top grades, top test scores, top patients-per-hour. So why does practicing medicine feel hollow? Ben Reinking, a board-certified pediatric cardiologist, medical educator, and certified physician development coach, argues that the same metric-driven mindset that carries pre-meds into medical school is the one leaving attendings disconnected from why they practice. This episode is based on his article "How competency-based education is driving medical education reform," published on KevinMD. You will hear why a 15-minute billing slot frustrates both patient and physician, how competency-based education and entrustable professional activities shift the question from "did you meet the number" to "do we trust you in the system," and why admitting "I don't know, but let me figure it out" gets discouraged when learners are judged only by scores. If you have ever sensed the gap between your scorecard and your purpose, this conversation names what you have been feeling.

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After Match Day, orthopedic surgery is finally open to every kind of surgeon May 27, 2026

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When you open your Match Day envelope, you step into an orthopedic surgery field that looks nothing like it used to. John E. Klibanoff, an orthopedic surgeon, discusses his article "Navigating your orthopedic surgery residency after Match Day," published on KevinMD. He explains why nobody will care about your physiology grade or your rotation honors once you start residency, and why the old archetype of the tall, athletic, Northeast-raised orthopedic surgeon no longer describes the field. You will hear how AI and short online snippets have collapsed a week of attending-to-attending research into thirty minutes over coffee, how impaction devices and minimally invasive tools have opened recon and spine surgery to surgeons of any stature, and why younger faculty and peer networks are replacing top-down lectures. Klibanoff also explains why mentorship and adaptability matter more than competitiveness, and why patients now arrive with hours of their own research to bring into the room. Listen to hear what actually earns you the craft of orthopedic surgery after Match Day.

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When a code blue on the psychiatry unit ends in a police interview May 26, 2026

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You hear code blues overhead in a hospital all the time, but one on a psychiatry unit is different. A young patient died after a cardiac event, and what followed looked nothing like a code blue on a medical floor. Devina Maya Wadhwa, a psychiatrist, discusses her article "When a code blue happens on a psychiatry unit," published on KevinMD. She describes the locked oxygen tanks and missing electrical outlets that slowed the response, the coroner's investigation that opened automatically, and the police interview that felt like an interrogation. You will hear why standard debriefs fall short when staff are trained for emotional safety rather than cardiac arrest, how self-doubt follows a physician long after the incident report closes, and what genuine check-ins could look like weeks later. Wadhwa also names the hypervigilance that settles over the unit afterward and why she believes sharing these stories is empowering and deeply healing. Listen to hear what psychiatric teams carry when a patient dies on their floor.

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GLP-1s, weight loss, and the inflammation tests your patient needs May 25, 2026

Show notes

A cardiologist who helped set national cholesterol and weight targets for 40 years now says those numbers can mislead. Richard M. Fleming, a physician specializing in cardiovascular and inflammatory disease, argues that weight loss on a GLP-1 does not automatically mean a patient is getting healthier, and that some patients who never lose a pound are already metabolically well. This episode is based on his article "GLP-1 agonists and weight loss: Treating the disease, not the number," published on KevinMD. You will hear why body mass index was never built to diagnose individuals, why inflammatory and thrombotic markers track disease more honestly than the scale, and how clinical trials from CAST to ACCORD have shown what happens when medicine treats the surrogate instead of the patient. He walks through which inflammation tests a primary care physician can run before, during, and after GLP-1 therapy, including high-sensitivity CRP, homocysteine, and fibrinogen. Hear why a 40-year insider says precision medicine requires precision measurement, not precision weighing.

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