LIFE AFTER MEDICINE
If you have read this missive to this point , you are probably thinking that maybe you should continue working ! So … how have I adjusted to Life After Medicine ?
The first thing I found out , I had to swallow my ego and embrace the change into a different life . I watched my friends and patients and found that certain things were characteristic of a successful retirement : first , retire for the right reason . I had been able to practice for 40 years and felt good about myself . I wanted to retire much like Stan Musial , the great St . Louis Cards baseball player . He wanted to retire thinking he had a couple more at bats in his arsenal , not to play long after his at bats were a bust . I certainly did not want to overstay my due date and feel that I no longer had the edge it took to remain a vibrant physician .
Almost immediately after retiring , I was solicited from many directions to volunteer my time on boards , committees or in clinics . A bit of good advice was to not make any decisions for six months or so , at least until I could separate out my priorities .
I had worked too hard on becoming a physician , and I did not want to relinquish that . I felt that I had a lot to contribute to others with my medical knowledge . So … eventually I decided to volunteer in the medical clinic at The Healing Place which has certainly been different from my clinical practice , but very rewarding . I have agreed to serve on a few committees , but only in a manageable fashion .
As part of my desire to teach , The Healing Place exposes me to medical and nursing students ( in the pre-pandemic era and hopefully , soon again ). I serve on the medical school admission committee for the University of Kentucky College of Medicine , and I interview undergraduate students applying to UK , as another service and connection to medical education . One of the benefits of all of the above is being motivated to keep up with my medical education through reading and attending weekly Grand Rounds .
Another trait of those who retire successfully is both physical and mental activity . In my case , my wife , Judy , and I walk together almost daily , and I give her a good listening to during this time . Of course , like most retirees , I play golf and try to walk the course as much as possible … I want something to show for four hours of my time other than fair to poor golf !
Reading has always been a real passion , but now more than ever . I find myself able to read and learn things that I never had an opportunity to before . I tried a couple of book clubs but found that these did not do a lot for me . A really valuable learning activity , however , has been a biweekly discussion group . Seven of us get together and over a glass of wine , we watch a lecture from the Great Courses and then during a light meal , discuss what we have studied . We are very eclectic in our studies from religion , to art , to history or science . Thus , remaining curious is a major feature of a successful retirement .
Another drawback of retirement is the loss of regular contact with people I have loved and cared for . Thus , it is imperative we maintain others in our lives . Certainly my friends and former colleagues remain important as do activities that bring me a lot of connection and sense of community . Judy and I have a lot of common interests and interact a lot . She is only too glad that I have joined her in the kitchen , and I ’ m amazed how cleverly she has turned me into the chief chef and bottle washer !
I observed that my patients who aged well also paid a lot of attention to their health and specifically their diet and alcohol intake . It is certainly too easy to let bad habits creep in as we observed during our isolation during the pandemic . We both gained about 10 pounds , and the evening cocktail watching Andy Beshear ’ s COVID-19 updates became just a little too comfortable . So … we have become much more cognizant of our bad habits and thus , have begun to watch ourselves a lot more closely .
Travel was always a part of our game plan , but the pandemic certainly put an abrupt halt to this . Hopefully that will be part of our future again .
Family is so important , and we are fortunate to have our eldest son and his family here . Our other two sons and their families live in California and Washington State respectively . The limit of our recent travel has been to the west coast . Thank goodness for FaceTime and Zoom , without which we would be so left out of the lives of our grandchildren out west . We are better grandparents now that I have free time , but ironically now our two grandsons living here have trouble working us into their schedules ! We do however see a lot of soccer , lacrosse , football games and the like .
Thus , thinking about my life after medicine , I ’ m certainly not like Bum Phillips ( I can ’ t even sleep past 6:00 a . m .), but more closely follow my deceased father-in-law Wilfrid Gettelfinger ( one of the smartest men I ’ ve ever known ). Without realizing it , I have been developing habits throughout my practice years and only now am able to expand on all of these interests and activities . I ’ ll never learn all of the things I ’ d wish , travel to every desired destination and accomplish all the things I ’ d like , but I want to be able to say I remained active and curious as long as possible .
So … I pulled the trigger seven years ago and climbed the mountain to retirement , and … the view from here of Life After Medicine is pretty darn good !
Dr . Hoskins is a retired internal medicine physician .
April 2023 7