Academic & Retired Doctors
- Text Decrease
- Text Increase
- Print Page
Retirement - not when but how
Article first published in vicdoc, September 2010
In July vicdoc we examined the issue of working older doctors knowing when to call time on their careers. In response to our feature, Dr Ken Sleeman argues that retirement should be a slow transitional process.
Retirement is viewed by most people under retirement age as the end of a useful life – a view taken by most in the health industry too. We need a way of moving into retirement – a transitional phase – so that we can retain recognition and acceptance and a sense of worth. This way is semi-retirement. It requires detailed planning and should be a regular feature of educational programs and conferences.
Retirement is a major political issue. Recent population studies and projections indicate that fewer people will be working to support more retirees living longer. If this is coupled with significant shortfalls in the distribution of medical practitioners, not only in the community but also within the various medical vocations, there is a problem.
Financial publications regularly carry articles with titles such as ‘How to live longer and not go broke’, ‘Planning your retirement’ and the like. Most of these articles presume a savings and superannuation plan the individual has carried out for many years.
Often, within our profession, that is not the case. When I first attended AMA National Conferences in the early 1980s a major topic of discussion was around incorporating a medical practice so as to be able to have a superannuation plan and tax relief. Individual practitioners, unless practising in a public hospital situation, were denied superannuation as it existed then. One had to make one’s own arrangements.
For some, shares, property, art and antique collections and even vintage cars became ways of investing for future retirement. There was little tax relief other than negative gearing but huge capital gains taxes on selling investments. In the early nineties, self-managed super funds came along, but most people retiring now have not had the opportunity to contribute sufficiently to rely upon them for a long retirement.
Government treasury departments are holding back reports of their projections and doctors are resigning themselves to working longer. There is a move to raise the retirement age to 67 along with pension eligibility by 2017.
Given this background it is not surprising that semi-retirement has gained momentum in the financial media and is being accepted rapidly in the community. This will debunk the myth that retirement means the onset of senility and inability.
Semi-retirement can take the pressure off a doctor, allowing more time for reflection yet enabling him or her to be able to contribute to super, often after changing to the tax free retirement mode.
There can be no fixed age for retirement, as every person is different, from their state of physical fitness (biological versus chronological age) and their aims and continuing aspirations to their expectations for retirement.
Semi-retirement provides the setting for consideration of options and resetting of aspirations and expectations. It enables a practitioner to select his or her continuing professional activities and pass on others to younger colleagues.
There are many informal rules in hospitals and in practices limiting night or on-call work with age, and individuals can add to that by reducing their scope of work, the number of patients they will see per day or the number of sessions worked in a week. Longer holiday breaks can be taken and more doctors employed at the practice, be it general or specialist. Committee appointments can be relinquished or, alternatively, taken up in lieu of work.
Semi-retirement allows time to explore other areas of life and develop other interests. It is not easy for many doctors think about this and, while others may have developed hobbies or other weekend activities, they may not be right for the doctor as he or she ages. Chasing cattle, pruning vines, or struggling around a golf course with a bad back immediately come to mind.
The support of your spouse or partner is a vital part of planning. After all, their plans are just as important as yours and they may not be in a position to consider even semi-retirement due to age differences or work commitments. Ideas and plans have to be well established long before retirement.
The learned colleges offer programs of re-certification, usually spread over several years, and it isn’t difficult, nor should it be, to retain certification. After all, it relates entirely to our medical practice. These programs should recognise that, because a workload has been reduced by limiting areas of practice, core skill assessments may also need to be adjusted.
There is a great deal to be said for the learned colleges expanding their use of experienced members. Senior doctors make excellent teachers and contributors to think tanks.
We should not fear mandatory reporting as long as it is handled confidentially and sensitively, but it should be a trigger for colleagues to re-evaluate not only their practice but their lives.
Semi-retirement can be a most enjoyable time. You can practice in the areas that interest you without the pressure of night calls, be available to consult with younger colleagues, teach junior colleagues and give of the knowledge gained over many years of clinical practice.
The decision to retire completely is made far easier after a period of semi-retirement. When you stop enjoying work, when re-certification becomes a chore, or is getting too hard to achieve, perhaps when patients seek a second opinion, colleagues no longer phone you and your partner has some new ideas, it is time.
