News You Can Use – April 2026

This month’s episode of “News You Can Use” on Healthcare NOW Radio features news from the month of April 2026.

The show that gives you a quick insight into the latest news, twists, turns, and debacles going on in healthcare with my friend and co-host Craig Joseph, MD (@CraigJoseph) Chief Medical Officer at Nordic Consulting Partners and myself, where every diagnosis comes with a side of humor. We hope you stay curious, stay engaged, and keep seeking the truth in healthcare in a world that thrives on information.

Buckle up as we dive into the ER of excitement, the ICU of irrationality, and the waiting room of wacky wisdom in this month’s show that features a review of:

• Doctors are not calculators
• GLP1 resistance (no not that kind)
• Chat-GPT takes on Doximity and Open Evidence
• MCP (Model Context Protocol) Installed 96 Million Times
• Epic shows up on Freakeconomics

This month we discuss the absurdity of modern medicine, starting with the great AI turf war. Apparently, 40% of us physicians are already using “Open Evidence,” but ChatGPT is trying to crash the party by demanding everything up to your credit history just to prove you’re a real doctor. Nothing says cutting-edge healthcare like a digital velvet rope. And to be clear, none of these shiny AI toys are actually connected to our Electronic Health Records yet. So, we’re all just playing with calculators that can talk, while still manually typing into a system that makes a 1995 DOS computer look fast.

Speaking of calculators, can we stop pretending a single cholesterol reading means anything? Craig’s former cardiologist wrote a blog post titled “Doctors Are Not Calculators,” and we agree, because he’s right. We obsess over a random number going from 200 to 187 like we just cured death, when it’s often a calculated guess, not a real measurement. Meanwhile, 20% of people who drop dead from a heart attack look like Olympic athletes. It’s probably inflammation and/or genetics, but sure, let’s keep arguing about your ratio like it’s a horoscope. If you don’t even know your Lp(a) result, stop obsessing about your LDL. We’re dumbing down science so hard it hurts.

Finally, the gym bros have a new enemy: GLP-1 resistance. I literally overheard a guy at the gym whining that people should just “put in the work” instead of using weight-loss drugs. Enough of the moral superiority. As Craig points out, your pancreas isn’t “lazy” when you get diabetes; it’s biology. And for the 10% of people who don’t respond to the GLP-1 drugs? It’s probably genetic, which means we need precision medicine, not judgment. We already know 95% of us react weirdly to common meds, yet we still carpet-bomb patients with antibiotics.

97 Million Downloads Later, AI Still Can’t Find the EHR Login

And finally, we catalog the future as detailed in the download statistics of “Model Context Protocol”, MCP’s for short. This is connecting your AI to your computer so it can send, amongst other things, emails for you. Yes, that’s a real thing, MCP, and it has been downloaded 97 million times. Just don’t give it full access until we figure out who’s really in charge. Spoiler: It’s probably not the calculator.

We’ve Connected AI to Everything Except Common Sense

We hope you enjoy our take on the latest news and developments in healthcare and want to help you keep untangling the web of information, dodging the sensational pitfalls, and emerging victorious, albeit a little dizzy, on the other side. In the end, the stories we uncover, and the discussions we ignite, all shape the narrative of our shared future. We want to hear from you, especially if you have topics covered or questions you’d like answered. You can reach out directly via the contact form on my website, or send a message on LinkedIn to Craig or me.

Until next time keep solving healthcare’s mysteries before they become your emergencies and stay healthy, stay skeptical, and for heaven’s sake, check who’s listed as your emergency contact.

This article was originally published on the Dr. Nick – The Incrementalist blog and is republished here with permission.

News You Can Use gives you a quick insight into the latest news, twists, turns and debacles going on in healthcare with Dr. Nick and Dr. Craig and where every diagnosis comes with a side of side-splitting humor. Your hosts are Dr Nick a long-time host, innovator and healthcare wizard who can prescribe a digital dose of innovation to cure even the most ailing operational inefficiencies. And Dr. Craig Joseph is the healthcare guru who can diagnose both patient and software glitches with equal precision, making sure hospitals run smoother than a well-oiled robot doc.

So buckle up, because we’re diving into the ER of excitement, the ICU of irrationality, and the waiting room of wacky wisdom.

Stay curious, stay engaged, and keep seeking the truth in a world that thrives on information. Because in the end, the stories we uncover, and the discussions we ignite, they all shape the narrative of our shared future.

And keep laughing at the absurdity, keep rolling your eyes at the headlines, and keep spreading the news like your favorite gossip. Who knows, maybe someday you’ll be the breaking news story we’re all talking about!

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