A while back a friend of mine made a milestone kind of post on Facebook. It was a big photo of he and his wife with an announcement that he was retiring, and they were about to start a five-month cruise around the world. I asked him about his decision. He’s a cardiothoracic surgeon in our community and I wondered if he was stopping altogether and how long he had been planning to retire. He said it was hard to be a heart surgeon part time and had been planning his exit for a couple years.
Since then, I’ve had a fair number of colleagues tell me of their plans to retire or slow down. In fact, over the next 10 years, it turns out that quite a few ophthalmologists will be retiring (Berkowitz et al. Ophthalmology Workforce Projections in the United States, 2020 to 2035. Ophthalmology. 2024;131:133-139).
So, what does retirement in ophthalmology look like? It depends on who you ask. For some, it’s just cutting back a day or two in the office and continuing to work part of the time. This is the most common description I hear. Turns out our specialty is one you can do part time. We can still be productive seeing a smaller load of patients or cutting back on surgical responsibilities. It’s possible to just do laser cases.
Vince Lombardi once said, “the harder you’ve worked to achieve success at something, the harder it is to surrender it.” I think that’s very true for a lot of ophthalmologists who have established practices over a 30- or 40-year career. It’s too hard to just completely walk away from the practice.
But not everyone feels that way. My senior partner stopped seeing patients, completely moved to Panama, started growing coffee and never looked back. Finding a second passion in life seems to be a great way to retire and I envy those who can. For me, there are still a few editions of Ophthalmic ASC to write and patients to see. A five-month cruise around the world does sound kind of nice, though. OASC
