PHYSICIAN RETIREMENT
Retirement from Medicine in Stages: Slow Descent From the “Mountain” By Jaime Pankowsky, MD, FACS
While in training and when in private practice, one does not think of retirement at any time. That thought and feeling enters in our mind as our circumstances, and sometimes our health, begins to change; but not for the better. Alongside the care of patients, duties in the hospitals where we practice and paying off rents and/or mortgages, we are concerned to care for our families and see that our children get the education they can obtain and accomplish. But sooner or later, events personal, professional, financial and social begin to exert their influence and make retirement a more immediate concern. The “when-and-how” is different for each doctor depending on the physician’s conditions in health, finances, family and age. Early on, when one’s practice becomes stabilized and settled, we begin investing in annuities, IRA’s and/or the stock market, thinking in a very distant future for retirement. Until then we continue humming along. And then, the children are grown up and educated, the house mortgage is paid up and changes are occurring in one’s profession or specialty that we did not expect and for which we were not trained. And then health changes occur and retirement is looking us directly on the face. I practiced general surgery for over thirty years in San Antonio and then changes began to creep on my complacency. First, general surgery began to be replaced by subspecialties, like colon and rectal surgery, bariatric surgery, breast preservation, etc. One is at that stage, or at an age, when returning to a training program is not an option. Second, I developed cryptogenic tremor in my left hand and this alone made operating less safe for the patient
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SAN ANTONIO MEDICINE • April 2021
and unsightly for the staff. Finally, a spinal fusion made standing in the operating room for long hours more problematic. So, health issues and changes in the specialty demanded I stop doing surgery. Other than those problems (none of them potentially fatal), I was in good health and condition. But just doing nothing was not in my nature. I took on other activities. I volunteered as a member of the Committee on Continuous Medical Education of the Texas Medical Association and for a couple of years I used to go with the committee staff to evaluate the educational programs of hospitals in different cities in the state. It was interesting
and stimulating, but it required traveling and attending meetings in Austin. At one point they chose to not have me on the committee and I left. Also, I spent about 18 months evaluating medical claims for the Social Security Administration. I gave it up, because judges seldom had any use for our medical evaluation and it appeared to me to be a waste of time. I also saw how the system was being gamed and cheated by people with false diseases (myalgias) or insignificant injuries. I resigned. I decided to travel with my wife and, after learning to scuba dive, with a club of scuba divers. Trips as close as Cozumel and as far as
