Common Sense Family Doctor

04/17/2026

My 100th column for Medscape!

Medical knowledge is always evolving. For his 100th column, Dr Kenny Lin reflects on how his views on cancer screening, blood pressure, and health policy have changed.

04/15/2026

https://commonsensemd.blogspot.com/2026/04/saving-ahrq-and-uspstf.html

AcademyHealth CEO Aaron Carroll, MD recently submitted testimony to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies about the dire condition of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), where I spent 4 years as a medical officer...

04/03/2026

https://commonsensemd.blogspot.com/2026/04/ai-health-tools-for-general-public-fall.html

03/28/2026

https://commonsensemd.blogspot.com/2026/03/universal-resource-menu-more-effective.html

In January, I wrote a Medscape commentary about the mixed evidence that routinely screening patients for social needs improves health outcomes. Although many patients could benefit from assistance with necessities like food, housing, or transportation, screening for social needs only works if patien...

03/10/2026

https://commonsensemd.blogspot.com/2026/03/primary-care-supply-and-access.html

Although as an American family physician, I tend to focus on the primary care crisis in the United States, a recent New York Times story highlighted the familiar challenges of recruiting family doctors to rural communities in Canada. In a "Hunger Games"-style competition, cash-strapped communities w...

03/07/2026

https://commonsensemd.blogspot.com/2026/03/smartwatch-screening-for-hypertension.html

03/07/2026

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/what-relax-your-tight-end-super-bowl-ad-got-wrong-about-psa-2026a10006gt

PSA tests are never 'simple.' Dr Kenny Lin discusses how to move beyond overdiagnosis toward truly informed prostate cancer screening.

02/20/2026

https://commonsensemd.blogspot.com/2026/02/continuity-of-care-health-benefits-and.html

02/04/2026

https://commonsensemd.blogspot.com/2026/02/rfk-jr-is-making-measles-great-again.html

Last year, there were more than 2,200 confirmed measles cases in the U.S., the highest number since 1991. More than 1 in 10 infected persons became sick enough to be hospitalized, and 3 people died.

01/23/2026

https://commonsensemd.blogspot.com/2026/01/preventing-rsv-bronchiolitis-in-infants.html

01/09/2026

https://commonsensemd.blogspot.com/2026/01/diy-medicine-good-bad-and-ugly.html

In a time when artificial intelligence chatbots can answer all of your medical questions, and it's possible to access laboratory testing and imaging scans without a health professional's order, who needs actual doctors?

01/05/2026

https://commonsensemd.blogspot.com/2026/01/de-implementation-as-quality.html

One of my roles as a residency faculty member is to make sure that every resident completes a quality improvement (performance improvement) project by the time they graduate. Nearly all of these projects focus on getting clinicians to do more of something that improves health outcomes: lowering bloo...