An emergency physician bought a new iPad and found 53 phone numbers he had forgotten were there. Each one was a family he put on a video call to say goodbye before he intubated their loved one. Howie Mell is an emergency physician with a master's degree in public health. This episode is based on his article "COVID trauma in emergency physicians can surface suddenly [https://kevinmd.com/2026/08/covid-trauma-in-emergency-physicians-can-surface-suddenly.html]," published on KevinMD. You will hear why he says he never wanted to be thanked for the work but did not expect to be attacked over it. He explains why he wants the word burnout retired, what he believes physicians are actually carrying, and why he never expected anyone else to say me too. He also describes what happened when he published the piece and his inbox filled with colleagues telling him their own version. He closes with the three things he tells physicians who have been carrying this in silence, starting with what to call it.

Partner with me on the KevinMD platform [https://kevinmd.com/kevinmd-influencer-opportunities]. With over three million monthly readers and half a million social media followers, I give you direct access to the doctors and patients who matter most. Whether you need a sponsored article, email campaign, video interview, or a spot right here on the podcast, I offer the trusted space your brand deserves to be heard. Let's work together to tell your story.

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Stop calling it burnout: COVID denial and the wounds ER doctors carry

Your patients can see everything you post. So can the hospital that employs you. Tali Lando was posting funny videos from her office while two of her young patients lay in the hospital struggling to recover, and it left her torn. She is a pediatric otolaryngologist and airway surgeon. This episode is based on her article "The question doctors on social media should ask first [https://kevinmd.com/2026/09/the-question-doctors-on-social-media-should-ask-first.html]," published on KevinMD. You will hear why her hospital once shut her accounts down completely and threatened her job, what two longtime parents said when she finally asked them directly, and why she calls their answer a selected group rather than a verdict. She explains how a silly video lowers a scared child's fear before an office procedure, how posting pulls her back from burnout, and the three things she tells physicians never to do online. Press play for the question she still has not answered and the limits she sets while she works on it.

Partner with me on the KevinMD platform [https://kevinmd.com/kevinmd-influencer-opportunities]. With over three million monthly readers and half a million social media followers, I give you direct access to the doctors and patients who matter most. Whether you need a sponsored article, email campaign, video interview, or a spot right here on the podcast, I offer the trusted space your brand deserves to be heard. Let's work together to tell your story.

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Doctors on social media should ask this question first

The lab says the potassium is critically low. You walk in, and the patient looks completely fine. Duane Penshorn is an emergency physician and author. This episode is based on his article "Automation bias is the new medical error [https://kevinmd.com/2026/07/automation-bias-is-the-new-medical-error.html]," published on KevinMD. He explains that automation bias got its name from studies of airline pilots, who had seen an alert be correct so many times that they stopped checking whether this one was. You will hear why point-of-care machines never answer "I don't know," and why most errors trace to how the sample was handled rather than to the machine. One clumped platelet count sent a child to the hospital for nothing. He is direct about the fix. If the number does not fit the patient in front of you, order it again, and say so out loud to the radiologist when the scan does not fit either. If you have ever scanned a result for the red flags and moved on, this conversation will make you look twice.

Partner with me on the KevinMD platform [https://kevinmd.com/kevinmd-influencer-opportunities]. With over three million monthly readers and half a million social media followers, I give you direct access to the doctors and patients who matter most. Whether you need a sponsored article, email campaign, video interview, or a spot right here on the podcast, I offer the trusted space your brand deserves to be heard. Let's work together to tell your story.

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Trusting the lab over the patient is the new medical error

A man is dying. He cannot speak, and no one in his life can say what he would have wanted. Kirsten Engel is a palliative medicine physician, and Medha Tripathi is a health writer and incoming Fulbright research scholar. This episode is based on their article "Guardianship and hospice care fail dying patients [https://kevinmd.com/2026/07/guardianship-and-hospice-care-fail-dying-patients.html]," published on KevinMD. They explain what happens when a patient has no family and no health care proxy, and a court appoints a guardian who has never met them. A move to comfort measures then needs a court date that can take weeks, while the hospital works in hours and days. Estimates range from 5 to 25 percent of intensive care patients with no family member or proxy. You will hear what helps now: your state's rules, hospital social workers and ethics committees trained for them, and a proxy named long before anyone needs one. If you have never named one, this conversation explains who decides in your place, and what has to change so the decision comes in time.

Partner with me on the KevinMD platform [https://kevinmd.com/kevinmd-influencer-opportunities]. With over three million monthly readers and half a million social media followers, I give you direct access to the doctors and patients who matter most. Whether you need a sponsored article, email campaign, video interview, or a spot right here on the podcast, I offer the trusted space your brand deserves to be heard. Let's work together to tell your story.

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Hospice waits on a court order when no family can speak for you

Someone you love says they are fine. They still eat, they still go to work, and no one asks a second time. Nneka Oluoha is an internal medicine physician and the author of a novel about a Nigerian immigrant living with depression. This episode is based on her article "The signs of depression a husband almost missed [https://kevinmd.com/2026/08/the-signs-of-depression-a-husband-almost-missed.html]," published on KevinMD. She explains why depression is an illness the entire family carries, and why the people around someone are left with challenges of their own. You will hear why she believes therapy belongs to men and to children, and where the pressure to look strong begins. She found the same stigma in the United States that she grew up around in Nigeria. Her answer is not complicated: more honest conversations, and a willingness to sit and listen when someone cannot say what is wrong. If someone close to you keeps insisting nothing is wrong, this conversation will change what you listen for.

Partner with me on the KevinMD platform [https://kevinmd.com/kevinmd-influencer-opportunities]. With over three million monthly readers and half a million social media followers, I give you direct access to the doctors and patients who matter most. Whether you need a sponsored article, email campaign, video interview, or a spot right here on the podcast, I offer the trusted space your brand deserves to be heard. Let's work together to tell your story.

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Signs of depression families miss, and the stigma behind it

A young mother arrived in the intensive care unit sick but improving. Overnight, her care was handed to a telemedicine physician on a video screen. By morning she was beyond saving. Keith Corl is an emergency and critical care medicine physician who has worked in more than 40 community hospitals. This episode is based on his article "Why tele-critical care fails the sickest ICU patients [https://kevinmd.com/2026/01/why-tele-critical-care-fails-the-sickest-icu-patients.html]," published on KevinMD. You will hear how remote ICU coverage works in practice, why a physician who beams in arrives without the context that builds at the bedside, and what a split physical exam misses. He walks through the sign-out math behind covering dozens of beds across multiple hospitals. He explains why the 2024 TELESCOPE trial found no reduction in mortality or length of stay, and why the older studies hospitals cite tested adding remote physicians rather than replacing bedside ones. Press play to hear what remote coverage costs the sickest patients, and the standard he says physicians and patients should insist on.

Partner with me on the KevinMD platform [https://kevinmd.com/kevinmd-influencer-opportunities]. With over three million monthly readers and half a million social media followers, I give you direct access to the doctors and patients who matter most. Whether you need a sponsored article, email campaign, video interview, or a spot right here on the podcast, I offer the trusted space your brand deserves to be heard. Let's work together to tell your story.

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Hospitals are replacing bedside ICU doctors with a video screen

A trauma surgeon spent two decades on call for the worst nights of other people's lives. Then he ran his hospital's pandemic response. Then he could not function. Jeremy Heffner is a trauma surgeon, speaker, and author. This episode is based on his article "Why frontline health care workers get no mental support [https://kevinmd.com/2026/06/why-frontline-health-care-workers-get-no-mental-support.html]," published on KevinMD. You will hear how compartmentalizing one case after another works until it does not, and why he was told the system had nothing for him until he was in acute crisis. He describes what he learned about how a board treats a physician who asks for help voluntarily, and the therapy that finally let him talk about a case he had blocked out for years. He explains why untreated trauma often shows up as anger that colleagues read as a character problem. Press play for a direct account of what frontline exposure did to one surgeon, and what he thinks health care owes the people working its front line.

Partner with me on the KevinMD platform [https://kevinmd.com/kevinmd-influencer-opportunities]. With over three million monthly readers and half a million social media followers, I give you direct access to the doctors and patients who matter most. Whether you need a sponsored article, email campaign, video interview, or a spot right here on the podcast, I offer the trusted space your brand deserves to be heard. Let's work together to tell your story.

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Doctors hide their PTSD out of fear for their license

A patient in intensive care gets worse at 2 a.m., and the hospital has no critical care doctor in the building. Chris Gallagher, a cardiologist and founder of Access TeleCare, has spent 15 years building virtual care programs inside hospitals, and he explains why that gap is so hard to close. This episode is based on his article "Why tele-critical care deserves expansion, not retreat [https://kevinmd.com/2026/06/why-tele-critical-care-deserves-expansion-not-retreat.html]," published on KevinMD. You will hear why the technology can never be allowed to fail, why training doctors to build trust through a screen is its own skill, and how a team-based approach let his group manage cardiac arrests with the doctor not in the hospital. He walks through the hybrid staffing hospitals are using now, with nurse practitioners at the bedside and physicians on video, and answers the charge that telemedicine is a cost-cutting move. He is also direct about the limits of the current evidence. Press play to hear what separates virtual critical care done right from done wrong.

Partner with me on the KevinMD platform [https://kevinmd.com/kevinmd-influencer-opportunities]. With over three million monthly readers and half a million social media followers, I give you direct access to the doctors and patients who matter most. Whether you need a sponsored article, email campaign, video interview, or a spot right here on the podcast, I offer the trusted space your brand deserves to be heard. Let's work together to tell your story.

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ICU telemedicine done right is a program, not a doctor on a screen

Women physicians are walking away from practice in their forties, and not because they stopped loving the work. Dawn Sears is a gastroenterologist of 25 years and the founder of GutGirlMD Consulting, where she coaches physicians and runs Women in Medicine groups. This episode is based on her article "10 ways to keep women physicians from leaving [https://kevinmd.com/2026/06/10-ways-to-keep-women-physicians-from-leaving.html]," published on KevinMD. You will hear why the job asks women to carry patient care, child rearing, and elder care at the same time, how the patient portal routes them 25 percent more messages than male physicians in the same practice, and what has genuinely improved over the last decade. Dawn walks through fixes she has watched work, from half call and half weekends for the first six months after a baby to a handful of extra days off for screenings and staff support to triage the inbox. She also shows you how to ask, using a hostage negotiator's playbook and the reframe that brings a skeptical colleague back to the table.

Partner with me on the KevinMD platform [https://kevinmd.com/kevinmd-influencer-opportunities]. With over three million monthly readers and half a million social media followers, I give you direct access to the doctors and patients who matter most. Whether you need a sponsored article, email campaign, video interview, or a spot right here on the podcast, I offer the trusted space your brand deserves to be heard. Let's work together to tell your story.

PARTNER WITH KEVINMD → https://kevinmd.com/influencer

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Why women doctors leave in their forties and what keeps them

Medical training hands you a ready-made group of friends. Then it ends, and many women physicians find themselves starting over alone in a new city. Cassie Burton Greenbaum is a pediatric critical care physician and the founder of Off Service Mom Co., a friendship matchmaking service for physician moms. This episode is based on her article "Physician loneliness is driving women out of medicine [https://kevinmd.com/2026/06/physician-loneliness-is-driving-women-out-of-medicine.html]," published on KevinMD. You will hear why friendships get harder to build once you are the attending, and how a schedule with no pattern to it pulls you away from everyone who works ordinary hours. She explains how chronic loneliness turns into burnout and lost career satisfaction, and how the shame around the word lonely keeps physicians from ever saying it out loud. She describes the six-week pilot she ran with 20 physician moms and what made the matches work. Press play for the specific moves she recommends, starting with the reason that waiting until you feel less busy never works.

This episode is brought to you by ModMed [https://www.modmed.com/].

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Loneliness, not weakness, is driving women out of medicine

Kevin Pho (@kevinmd) · Zencastr

Kevin Pho (@kevinmd)

Social media's leading physician voice, Kevin Pho, MD, shares the stories of the
many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from. 15
minutes a day. 7 days a week. Welcome to The Podcast by KevinMD.