More Retirement Advice

I thought your “Retirement Tips” article fell short of giving tested, practical advice to the many ACEP members facing retirement questions. It did so precisely because it solicited input from well-known, august, and wonderful over-achieving emergency physicians. It lacked tips from a single, simple, everyday emergency physician who had not achieved national business or leadership success.

My tips would have been quite different. I did full-time clinical medicine for 40 years. Yes, I had volunteer stints in ACEP leadership, but no business or practice leadership. And I’ve been retired for two years now, for real, unlike any of the honored leaders you quoted. Here’s what I would have said:

Plan to retire before they ask you to retire. Night shifts are impossible in your sixties. Your body starts slowing down in your fifties and you’ll have noticeable and significant physical slowing in your sixties, making it harder to keep up the pace of a busy ED shift. Your mental endurance will also decrease. See if you like urgent care or clinics, but realize that that is not emergency medicine (I didn’t like them: busy and boring).

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