Jen Baker-Porazinski is a family physician who blogs at Pound of Prevention.

America’s ailing health care system: How it’s failing patients and doctors

Policy
April 27, 2023

As painfully revealed by the coronavirus pandemic, the American health care system is ailing, plagued by the inefficiencies and greed of big business and for-profit medicine.   It is not unlike the virus, attacking vital organs one by one until the whole is weakened. In more grave cases, the severely ill can’t survive. In much the same way our health care system is killing Americans. The sickness is proving incurable, for …

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America’s ailing health care system: How it’s failing patients and doctors

America is failing primary care doctors

Physician
November 1, 2021

While the pandemic sparked a renewed (if only temporary) appreciation of the medical profession, this alone wasn’t enough to induce change in the system overwhelming them – a fact blatantly revealed to me this year at the annual conference of the American Academy of Family Physicians.  I admit I was a little disappointed when the pandemic forced the location to be changed from sunny California to virtual. But, since I’d …

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America is failing primary care doctors

Caregiving for COVID at home: a physician story

Conditions
February 3, 2021

The day after Christmas, my husband Paul developed a fever, chills, and cough.  On Sunday, he tested positive. He probably got sick helping a family member, but we’ll never be certain how the virus invaded our home, rendering us hostage for weeks.

Since I wasn’t sick, I tried working from home. In between patients, I’d peek in on Paul, trying not to disturb him, piled under blankets. He groaned when changing …

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Caregiving for COVID at home: a physician story

The commodification of health care is destroying the doctor-patient relationship

Physician
March 7, 2019

My elderly patients miss the days when, in an emergency, they could call their family doctor at home, and they’d be cared for. Retired doctors reminisce about the “good old days” when they were in charge of their own schedules and could prescribe whatever drug or test they felt necessary based on years of experience. While there was a strong doctor-patient relationship in those bygone days, it was not necessarily …

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The commodification of health care is destroying the doctor-patient relationship

Physicians can’t ignore health risks posed by guns

Physician
May 31, 2018

I’m a family doctor in upstate New York. My patients include active NRA members and ardent pacifists. Most probably fall somewhere in the middle — they own guns for hunting or encourage neighbors to hunt the deer that feed on their lush gardens.

As a mother, I tried not to let my boys play with toy guns when they were little. In a young boy’s imagination, though, everything became a gun …

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Physicians can’t ignore health risks posed by guns

The real cost of not having health insurance

Policy
March 27, 2018

I was behind schedule (again). My next patient was Helen, a non-compliant diabetic that hadn’t been into my office in over two years. Her blood sugars weren’t controlled at her last visit when I’d tried to impress on her the serious health problems that could develop if she didn’t take better care of herself.

Clearly, I’d failed. Maybe I’d even chased her away? No pill I prescribed would help her diabetes …

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The real cost of not having health insurance