After 20 years as a pediatrician, she stopped believing burnout meant she couldn't hack it. The problem was never her. In this episode, pediatrician and physician career development coach Gita Balakumar reframes burnout as a systemic burden wrongly blamed on the individual, and offers a different way to think about it. This episode is based on her article "What physicians and dragonflies share in resilience and agility [https://kevinmd.com/2026/05/what-physicians-and-dragonflies-share-in-resilience-and-agility.html]," published on KevinMD. Drawing on the dragonfly, an insect revered across cultures for transformation and resilience, she explains why the demands of medicine ask physicians to keep evolving. You will hear why self-compassion is a foundation and not a luxury, how career coaching helps physicians name what they actually value, and why the idea that doctors just aren't resilient enough is a fallacy. Hear why she says the most resilient people in medicine still deserve compassion, and that seeking support is a strength, not a failure.

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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What a dragonfly teaches physicians about burnout and self-compassion

At 2 a.m., a surgeon needed an answer fast and had no one to ask. So he built the tool himself, with no coding background. In this episode, consultant cardiac anesthesiologist Ahmed Elsonbaty explains how a single bleeding-patient case in the operating room pushed him to create bedside clinical decision-support tools now used by more than 10,000 doctors across 150 countries. This episode is based on his article "I built clinical decision-support tools at the bedside [https://kevinmd.com/2026/05/i-built-clinical-decision-support-tools-at-the-bedside.html]," published on KevinMD. You will hear why he deliberately avoided generative AI so the tools give the same traceable answer every time, how he built everything on published, documented sources, and why he insists the tools help the doctor rather than replace anyone. He also walks through submitting his work for peer review at a major journal. Hear how he did it, and the exact steps he says any physician can follow to build their own.

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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How a doctor with no coding background built his own bedside AI tools

When his shifts were cut during the pandemic, he took a telemedicine job to pay the bills and ended up loving it. Suneer Chander is an emergency physician who co-wrote the article "Telemedicine as a career, not a side gig [https://kevinmd.com/2026/05/telemedicine-as-a-career-not-a-side-gig.html]," published on KevinMD. He makes the case that telemedicine is the most impactful public health advance to come out of the pandemic, yet most doctors treat it as weekend income instead of the career patients actually need it to be. You will hear why so few physicians work in it full time, what a day of asynchronous care in sexual health, obesity medicine, and psychiatry really looks like, and the red flags that signal a company using your license rather than respecting it. Chander argues the field needs committed clinical leaders, not moonlighters. You will hear which doctors are the best fit, the red flags to watch for, and how Chander says to weigh an offer beyond the paycheck.

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 telemedicine should be a career, not a side gig

He was sued for a case he barely remembered, and five years later it pushed him out of medicine. It is not just malpractice. Jordan Grumet is an internal medicine physician and the author of The Healthcare Heist: How Physicians and Patients Can Unite to Transform Health Care [https://amzn.to/3RFqPxh]. In this conversation he traces how third parties like insurers, pharmaceutical companies, private equity, and malpractice lawyers pull money and agency out of the system and leave doctors and patients worse off. You will hear why most malpractice suits are dropped before court yet still drive billions in defensive medicine, how business entities that never took the Hippocratic Oath end up deciding how medicine is practiced, and why doctors and patients are pushed into feeling like opponents when they are actually the only two real stakeholders. Grumet makes the case that shared storytelling can close the gap between them. You will hear how doctors and patients can start taking power back, and the specific steps Grumet says both can take today.

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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Doctors and patients are not the enemy here

An eye surgeon who used to see forty patients a day now sees one to three in a morning, and he has no staff. Oren Fass, a board-certified ophthalmologist and cataract surgeon, has been an employed physician, a practice owner, and an owner who sold to private equity, and he now runs a solo micro practice. This episode is based on his article "The hidden variable in the physician burnout debate [https://kevinmd.com/2026/06/the-hidden-variable-in-the-physician-burnout-debate.html]," published on KevinMD. You will hear how his agents read incoming faxes, start the scheduling, and apply his billing rules, and why he says this was not feasible three years ago. He is direct about why doctors feel stuck, from the six to twelve month timelines on licenses and insurance panels to the second shift of charting that starts at six in the evening. He also argues that ownership and creativity are the two bets worth making now, and that the salaried job may be the riskier one. You will hear where he thinks the model fits, and where it does not.

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

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VISIT SPONSOR → https://www.modmed.com/

SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST → https://www.kevinmd.com/podcast

Staying salaried may now be the riskier bet for doctors

She built a thriving practice in Manhattan and appeared all over the media. Then she walked away, and it was never burnout. Samantha Nazareth is a gastroenterologist and the author of the memoir I Left Anyway: The Life I Was Supposed to Want [https://amzn.to/4yrKiSA]. In this conversation she describes a deliberate triple exit from her practice, her home, and a ten-year relationship, and the six-week sabbatical that became years of travel. You will hear why she did not wait for retirement or a collapse to ask whether medicine could be all of her. She talks candidly about learning to swim as an adult, rebuilding an identity when your career is no longer the center of it, and sitting with the messy, uncertain in-between that most stories skip. If you have ever wondered what happens after the leap, this is the part no one describes. You will hear why the free fall after the leap is the real work, and what it takes to stay a student when the map runs out.

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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Leaving her practice to reinvent herself from scratch

A teacher came in for migraines and weight loss with a stack of leaky gut test results and a diagnosis that never fixed her. Shiv K. Goel is a board-certified internal medicine and functional medicine physician who argues that leaky gut is not a diagnosis but a physiological response, and that the upstream driver is often chronic stress and a dysregulated cortisol rhythm. This episode is based on his article "Why your leaky gut tests aren't fixing your symptoms [https://kevinmd.com/2026/06/why-your-leaky-gut-tests-arent-fixing-your-symptoms.html]," published on KevinMD. You will hear why a normal scope and an IBS label can still leave a patient uncured, why no single permeability test is reliable on its own, and why objective results still matter because they drive patient adherence. He explains why he reaches for sleep, stress reduction, and targeted support over a generic supplement stack, and why you should neither dismiss patients with normal labs nor over-order unvalidated panels. Press play to hear why the fix starts with the story behind the symptoms, not the next panel.

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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Your leaky gut tests aren't fixing you

A young patient walks in with ordinary back pain and leaves on a path that can quietly weaken the muscle holding the spine together. Francisco M. Torres is an interventional physiatrist who noticed these patients coming back to him sooner, and traced it to radiofrequency ablation denervating the multifidus, the back's most important stabilizer, until the muscle atrophies and fills with fat. This episode is based on his article "Radiofrequency ablation and the young back pain patient," published on KevinMD. You will hear why insurers began steering these patients toward the procedure, why most of the evidence comes from older patients with degeneration rather than people in their twenties, and why he believes the muscle damage should be spelled out in the consent form. He explains why generic core exercises fall short, how facet injections and targeted rehabilitation offer a lower-risk path, and the exact questions to ask before you agree. Press play to hear the questions worth asking before you let anyone burn a nerve in your back.

Partner with me on the KevinMD platform. 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

SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST → https://www.kevinmd.com/podcast

A back procedure that can weaken a young spine

For years, doctors told this pediatrician her pain was fibromyalgia and depression. It was quietly starving her aorta. Victoria Rundus is a board-certified pediatrician who spent four years being misdiagnosed before an ER physician finally listened to her abdomen and heard what everyone else had missed. This episode is based on her article "Diagnostic bias almost cost me my life [https://kevinmd.com/2026/05/diagnostic-bias-almost-cost-me-my-life.html]," published on KevinMD. You will hear how a single label can close the door on everything else, both for the physician treating you and for the patient who starts writing off new symptoms as just the old diagnosis. She explains why the physical exam still matters when labs come back normal, why she felt she was not being heard, and why curiosity and humility belong next to medical knowledge, not beneath it. We usually see horses, but the zebras are real. Press play to hear how a diagnosis can close a door that should stay open, and what it takes to keep looking.

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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A wrong diagnosis that almost killed a doctor

A tech founder used one pediatrician's public advice to train her own AI. Sonal Patel decided doctors should own the tools built on their knowledge instead. Patel is a pediatrician and neonatologist who built and controls her own AI for the fourth trimester. This episode is based on her article "Physicians must shape AI in medicine, not watch it [https://kevinmd.com/2026/05/physicians-must-shape-ai-in-medicine-not-watch-it.html]," published on KevinMD. You will hear why she believes the doctor who uses AI, not AI itself, is the real threat to the one who ignores it. She explains how insurers already use AI to deny claims, and how she keeps patients from being sold products they do not need. You will learn why a paid subscription model matters before you experiment, why physician critical thinking cannot be automated away, and why the human connection at the center of medicine is the one thing a machine can never replace. Press play to hear why the doctor who ignores AI is more at risk than the one who uses it, and where to start.

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

SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST → https://www.kevinmd.com/podcast

Who should own the AI that doctors built

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 T

The Podcast by KevinMD · Zencastr

The Podcast by 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.