Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Retrospective on a rural physician

I heard a story on NPR a few days ago out of Logan, Ohio, population 7,152.  I believe the journalist in that story interviewed a public education administrator in Logan; he talked about how the school district is scrambling to serve rural and low-income students.  I have not, however, been able to track down that story to blog about it.  What I did come across in trying to find that recent story about public education in the age of coronavirus is this extraordinary story from just two months ago (though it feels, in the age of coronavirus, like it could be two years ago) about a family physician, Scott Anzalone, who has worked in Logan, Ohio for two decades.  It's part of Marketplace's series on work in the 21st century economy.  An excerpt follows:
[Anzalone] describes himself as the “last physician standing in private practice in the region,” as others have retired or been bought out by large health care systems. Maintaining a private practice in rural community isn’t easy. He balances the needs of his patients with the demands of operating the business, serving as president of the local school board and a part-time position with Ohio University’s school of medicine. His university and school board positions offer retirement benefits, something that can be tough to get when you’re self-employed. In the two decades he’s lived in Logan, Anzalone has seen the community change by the arrival of Walmart, declines in the manufacturing economy, and more recently by the opioid crisis.

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