Jane Orient

About Jane Orient

Jane M. Orient obtained her undergraduate degrees in chemistry and mathematics from the University of Arizona in Tucson, and her M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1974. She completed an internal medicine residency at Parkland Memorial Hospital and University of Arizona Affiliated Hospitals and then became an Instructor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and a staff physician at the Tucson Veterans Administration Hospital. She has been in solo private practice since 1981 and has served as Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) since 1989. She is currently president of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness. Since 1988, she has been chairman of the Public Health Committee of the Pima County (Arizona) Medical Society. She is a published author and more than 100 of her papers have been published in the scientific and popular literature on a variety of subjects including risk assessment, natural and technological hazards and nonhazards, and medical economics and ethics. She is the editor of AAPS News, the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness Newsletter, and Civil Defense Perspectives, and is the managing editor of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

Posts by Jane Orient:

2022/ January 10

Test, Jab, Boost, Repeat

Jane Orient Guest Opinion January 10, 2022

Joe Biden introduced his “new” plan to save us from the dread coronavirus. He will provide 500 million “free” tests (paid for by taxpayers or with borrowed money); 1,000 National Guard troops to overstressed hospitals; and more pressure to get vaccinated and boosted. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, we would need 2.3 billion tests […]

2017/ May 29/ Past Issues

Universal Coverage Means Less Care

Jane Orient Guest Opinion May 29, 2017

By: Jane M. Orient, M.D. The reported success of the Affordable Care Act (ACA or ObamaCare) is based on enrollment numbers. Millions more have “coverage.” Similarly, the predicted disasters from repeal have to do with loss of coverage. Tens of thousands of deaths will allegedly follow. Activists urge shipping repeal victims’ ashes to Congress—possibly illegal […]

2017/ April 10/ Past Issues

ObamaCare Repeal vs. Reality

Jane Orient Guest Opinion April 10, 2017

The attempt by House Speaker Paul Ryan and other powerful Republicans to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act (ACA or “ObamaCare”) has run into a buzz saw of opposition from both sides. Most proponents of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) concede that the Act is “not perfect.” But there is “political reality” to […]

2017/ March 27/ Past Issues

Trump Needs to Drain the “Healthcare” Swamp

Jane Orient Guest Article March 27, 2017

By Jane M. Orient, M.D. In his Feb 28 , President Trump called the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or “ObamaCare”) an “imploding disaster.” His references to soaring premiums, contracting choices, and market collapse are all spot on. And of course everybody wants “reforms that expand choice, increase access, lower costs, and at the same time, […]

2017/ February 27/ Past Issues

Travel Ban Is Revealing—But Does Not Threaten American Medicine Jane M. Orient, M.D. A 90-day ban on travel from seven countries has sparked tremendous outpourings of “worry” or outright opposition by some 33 medical organizations. “The community is reeling over the order, fearing that it will have devastating repercussions for research and advances in science and medicine,” states an article in Modern Healthcare. Certainly the order is disrupting the lives of individual physicians who have won coveted positions in American medical institutions and were not already in the U.S. when the order was issued. Also their employers have a gap in the work schedule to fill. War tears people’s lives apart, however innocent they may be. And countries that sponsor terrorism have effectively declared war on the U.S. But is American medicine so fragile that it can’t survive a 90-day delay in the arrival of physicians, most of them trainees, from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and Sudan? After all, every year more than a thousand seniors in U.S. medical schools do not land a position in a post-graduate training program through the annual computerized “Match” of graduates with internships. After another chance through the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program, or SOAP, hundreds of seniors are still without a job. This means that they cannot get a license to practice in the U.S., however desperate rural communities or inner-city hospitals are to find a physician, and their four years of rigorous, costly post-college education are wasted. Yet James Madara, CEO of the American Medical Association (AMA), is worried about vacant residency slots, according to a Feb. 3 article in MedScape by Robert Lowes. Entry to medical school is highly competitive, so presumably all the students are well-qualified. Can it be that graduates from Sudan are better trained? Does the U.S. have so few young people capable of and interested in a medical career that we have to depend on a brain drain from countries that are themselves desperately short of physicians? For all the emphasis on “cultural competence” in American medical schools, and onerous regulations regarding interpreters for non-English speakers, what about familiarity with American culture and ability to communicate effectively with American English speakers? Some foreign-born graduates are doubtless excellent, but many American patients do complain about a communication gap. So why do some big institutions seem to prefer foreigners? Could it be that they want cheap, and above all compliant labor? Physicians here on an employment-related visa dare not object to hospital policy. Whatever the reasons for them, here are some facts about the American medical work force: One-fourth of practicing physicians in this country are international medical graduates (IMGs), who are more likely to work in underserved areas, especially in primary care, according to Madara. According to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), 10,000 IMGs licensed in the United States graduated from medical schools in the seven countries affected by the ban. Immigrants account for 28% of U.S. physicians and surgeons, 40% of medical scientists in manufacturing research and development, and 15% of registered nurses, according to the Institute for Immigration Research at George Mason University. More than 60,000 of the 14 million workers in health-related fields were from the seven countries affected by the ban. Is medicine, like agriculture, now filled with “jobs that Americans won’t do”? Actually, we have more than enough Americans who love medical work. But some of the best doctors are being driven out by endless bureaucratic requirements, including costly “Maintenance of Certification™” programs that line the pockets of self-accredited “experts” but contribute nothing to patient care. They are being replaced (substituted for) by “mid-levels” with far less training. Then there are thousands of independent physicians having to retire or become employees because they can’t afford the regulatory requirements—soon to be greatly worsened by MACRA, the new Medicare payment system. Physician “burnout” is becoming so bad that we lose up to 400 physicians—the equivalent of a large medical school class—to suicide every year. The U.S. should be a beacon to attract the best and brightest, and it should welcome those who want to become Americans. Unfortunately, the lives of Americans, as well as the opportunities of aspiring foreign-born doctors, are threatened by those who desire to kill Americans and destroy our culture. These must be screened out. Meanwhile, the reaction of organized medical groups to the travel ban is spotlighting serious problems in American medicine.

Jane Orient Guest Opinion February 27, 2017

A 90-day ban on travel from seven countries has sparked tremendous outpourings of “worry” or outright opposition by some 33 medical organizations. “The community is reeling over the order, fearing that it will have devastating repercussions for research and advances in science and medicine,” states an article in Modern Healthcare. Certainly the order is disrupting […]

2017/ February 13/ Past Issues

Why Republicans Should Let ObamaCare Self-Destruct

Jane Orient Guest Opinion February 13, 2017

Suppose you are a surgeon who is called to see a patient who is bleeding from something in his abdomen. You are to consider an exploratory operation to try to find the bleeding point and stop the hemorrhage. The problem is that the patient has widely-metastatic cancer. He has already mostly depleted the blood bank’s […]

2016/ November 14

Quality and Value Defined

Jane Orient Guest Opinion November 14, 2016

The congressional echo chamber, on both sides of the aisle, constantly talks about the great reform fad: “payment for value” and “quality” care. And the Medicare version called MACRA passed nearly unanimously, with cheers from the marbled halls of the AMA tower. ObamaCare too constantly harps on “quality.” Politicians seem to think that payment […]

2016/ July 25/ Past Issues

Making American Medicine Great Again

Jane Orient Guest Opinion July 25, 2016

The Republicans are at it again: trying to tweak a bad idea, make it “bipartisan,” and set a flawed system more firmly in concrete. What we really need is a Republican reform—one that can restore the Republic, along with medicine. Yes, ObamaCare needs to be repealed—every last syllable. But that’s not all. To make […]

2016/ April 25/ Past Issues

Zika: Crisis or Sentinel Event?

Jane Orient Guest Opinion April 25, 2016

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Zika is, like Ebola, a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Now the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has stated that it is “clear” that the Zika virus causes a serious birth defect, microcephaly (small head). CDC publishes a scary interactive map of cases […]

2016/ January 11/ Past Issues

Who Has Constitutional Rights? Trump Raises the Question

Jane Orient Guest Opinion January 11, 2016

Donald Trump’s suggestion to exclude Muslims from the U.S. has been called unconstitutional as well as offensive to many. Elected officials swear an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” But do they know what is in it? One thing that is not in it is the poem by Emma […]