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4 weeks ago | 
kevinmd.com | Shirley Sarah Dadson |Barry Greene |Jeremy Goodwin |Amy Mae Baxter
Aloma Isaac Junior, a Nigerian comedian popularly known as Zicsaloma, recently underwent rhinoplasty. This intervention exposed deep-rooted biases about masculinity, beauty, and body autonomy in Africa. Instead of curiosity or support, his decision was met with mockery, outrage, and accusations of self-hate. This backlash reveals a cultural blind spot. Plastic surgery is often seen as an indulgence for women, while men are expected to accept their looks as they are.
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1 month ago | 
kevinmd.com | Myles Gart |Amy Mae Baxter |Janet Tamaren |Gary Call
I’ve witnessed what’s possible when we rethink pain management. By implementing a multimodal assessment approach at my hospital, I achieved a 50 percent reduction in inpatient opioid use, measured in morphine milligram equivalents (MMEs). The Numeric Pain Scale (NPS)—that 0-10 score we’ve leaned on too much—drives overuse when it’s the only guide, and with the U.S. consuming 80 percent of the world’s opioids as just 4.4 percent of its population, that’s a problem we can’t ignore.
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2 months ago | 
kevinmd.com | Amy Mae Baxter |Gary Call |Julie Craig |Janet Tamaren
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!Amelia Bueche, an osteopathic physician, discusses her KevinMD article, “This perspective will change how physicians address pain and recovery.” Amelia explores the interconnectedness of trauma, pain, and recovery, emphasizing the importance of addressing pain’s root causes on physical, mental, and emotional levels.
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Jan 11, 2025 | 
kevinmd.com | Amelia L. Bueche |Amy Mae Baxter |Gary Call |Julie Craig
I implore all physicians to watch the film Tipping the Pain Scale. Invited by a friend to view from the perspective of recovery, I accepted in support and out of curiosity for the proposed approach to the treatment of pain. As an osteopathic neuromusculoskeletal medicine physician, this is the chief complaint of many patients seeking care, often addressed with hands-on treatment considering structure and function and the unity of body, mind, and spirit.
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Nov 13, 2024 | 
kevinmd.com | Richard A. Lawhern |Amy Mae Baxter |Janet Tamaren |Gary Call
For years, the U.S. public has been hearing that prescription opioid pain relievers are always and forever a bad thing—and that doctors and big pharma companies are supposedly responsible for an epidemic of addiction and drug overdose-related deaths. However, these assertions are outright lies. Both the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Veterans Administration know it.
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Oct 28, 2024 | 
kevinmd.com | Damane Zehra |Julie Craig |Amy Mae Baxter |Janet Tamaren
Since I was a child, I have despised the words “May you live long.”I felt like it was a curse. My younger brother, who knows my thoughts, used to joke, “Allah kre tumhari itni lambi umar ho, tum marne ko tarso!” (May Allah bless you with such a long life that you will pray for your death.)He still wishes the same for me. (He wants me to suffer.)I used to say that I didn’t want to go through this suffering for more than 30 to 40 years.
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Oct 1, 2024 | 
kevinmd.com | Shakeel Ahmed |Barry Greene |Jeremy Goodwin |Amy Mae Baxter
“In this short LifeThat only lasts an hourHow much – how little – isWithin our power.”—Emily DickinsonHealth care around the world faces an existential crisis. While the quality of medicine continues to improve, its cost remains unbridled and out of control. Better means more expensive, be it a drug or an imaging modality. The whole world is aware of this impending financial crisis, and heads are hunched together to find solutions.
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Sep 12, 2024 | 
kevinmd.com | Richard A. Lawhern |Amy Mae Baxter |Christopher Doan |Richard Liebowitz
As a U.S. health care writer and patient advocate for almost 30 years, I read a lot. Recently, some of that reading is in court transcripts of doctors being persecuted out of medicine or into jail by various prosecutors and their hired “experts.” I use the term “persecuted” intentionally.
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Aug 14, 2024 | 
kevinmd.com | L. Joseph Parker |Amy Mae Baxter |Rita Agarwal |Julie Appleby
A doctor in Virginia named Joel Smithers was serving a 40-year sentence in an Atlanta prison when he won his appeal to the 4th Circuit. No, he didn’t shoot someone. That’s probably 25 years. He treated patients in pain. Now, he will get a new trial where he will be bludgeoned again with false metrics and innuendo. To ensure that the benefit of the doubt prevails, a Reuters article starts with, “A Virginia doctor who prescribed more than 500,000 opioid doses in less than two years …” OK.
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Aug 13, 2024 | 
kevinmd.com | Richard A. Lawhern |Gary Call |Amy Mae Baxter |Julie Craig
Anyone reading health care news today must be aware that American medicine – particularly pain medicine – is in crisis. Doctors are experiencing high levels of burnout due to administrative burdens, prior authorization demands, and a health care system that often prioritizes efficiency over patient care. This burnout is leading to mental health issues and, in some cases, physician suicides.
