Hi Ken,

Congratulations and enjoy your last 2 weeks in practice! Let us know how it feels after you see your last patient.

I am 64, and I agree with most of the thoughts listed above. I am tired, and things are getting harder.

I do not think I would financially be able to retire at this point, I absolutely agree with the responsibility to patients, but there is another issue as well.

Generally, as physicians, we eat, drink, and breathe medicine. For most of our lives, we have put an immense amount of time and energy into this field. No longer seeing patients will be an enormous change.

I have been keeping track of a few older physicians who retire. It seems like over half get back into medicine one way or another, working for someone else, doing some shifts in a doc in a box, or so forth.

Best story involves an internist, who was Peruvian. Nice guy, excellent physician, kept going until his early 70s. He retired.

6 months later he was back to working, just about full time, at a Community Health Center. He did this for about 4 years, then decided it was time to really retire. To help to ensure that he never got back into medicine, he moved to California.

Last I heard he was working part time out there.

Again, congrats!

Gene

Gene Nallin MD solo family practice with one PA Cumberland, Md