July 30th, 2012
And The Survey Says: You Are Thinking About Retirement
Harlan M. Krumholz, MD, SM
I saw a news item today with an alarming statistic about the number of doctors who plan to retire in the next decade. We all have days where work can be frustrating – but the article indicated that 45% of cardiologists planned to retire in the next decade. I was thinking about what the natural attrition rate might be and how this compared with other eras. What is your experience? Do you have the sense that people are planning to leave the profession earlier than they might have planned a few years ago? The job market for new cardiologists remains tight.
What do you think? Are we headed for an unprecedented exodus from the field?
6 Responses to “And The Survey Says: You Are Thinking About Retirement”
NEJM Journal Watch — Recent Cardiology Articles- Strategies and Criteria for the Diagnosis and Management of Myocarditis
- Sex-Based Disparity in CABG Outcomes: Are We Moving Toward Parity?
- Can Genetic and Social Risk Scores Improve Cardiac Risk Prediction?
- Extensive Ablation vs. Pulmonary Vein Isolation in Persistent Atrial Fibrillation
- Can a Novel Stent Design Improve Long-Term Outcomes of Percutaneous Coronary Intervention?
Empty threats. Either these doctors, after working for 15-20 years, have accumulated enough to allow them to retire and maintain their lifestyle or they do not make sense. Saying that we are not being paid enough so we will stop working, effectively going from an unsatisfactory income to no income at all, is absurd. Maybe they made a lot of money in Facebook stock.
Additionally it sends the message that we are in it just for the money which in our field is not insignificant, compared to the average income of an American family.
The decision to retire involves many elements which may/must be reconciled with the financial ability to do so. In my view, the “ecology” of the practice environment that determines PRACTICE SATISFACTION plays heavily here, which includes but is not restricted to: numbers of patients to be seen in relationship to time allotted, call frequency and rigor, restraints on test ordering, regulatory intrusion, demands of EHR in changing patient-physician interaction, scope of practice (ie, subspecialization or superspecialization, the latter referring to performing predominately one technical skill, for example, intervention or ablation or device implantation) self perception of maintainence of competency and performance, the ability to infuse new knowledge and implement. Above all, the quality microcosm of daily patient intercourse and physician commitment “to see patients through to the end” is the supreme professional “hook”.
How many cardiologist nearing retirement age would be willing to work part time in a mentoring and teaching role in a university hospital setting (freeing up full time staff for reseach, patient care and administration) if their overhead was covered and part time positions were available?
I would.
What a great gift it would be to have talented cardiologists who are retiring from practice enter as teachers. Perhaps we can even develop programs that prepare these individuals for new careers in education – almost all will have served as teachers – and perhaps they can acquire even more skills in pedagogy.
As Harlan has intimated, we should harness the years of society’s and professional societies’ investiture in physicians maintenance of competence and performance and leverage that to teach and mentor. A sort of “Peace Corps” equivalent. Does such a track exist?