An interesting survey was conducted of physicians who left clinical practice prior to the usual retirement age.
What were the findings?
Among this group, the mean age at which they left practice was 48.1. It should be noted this is a much earlier age than during prior generations.
Female physicians consisted of 64 percent of this group.
This is a pretty big deal. Society invests enormous resources into training physicians. It is pretty important that they have full careers because more patients will be served and helped.
My own opinion is that the current norm of medical schools having a small majority of female students is a mistake. But there are other factors driving these doctors to leave clinical practice. The contemporary house of medicine is built on sinking sand.
Every working person deserves a decent retirement. But is a mistake for these physicians to take an early out. It is afterall a free choice. Thus it is crucial that med schools turn out more ( qualified ) doctors.
That is part of the issue, Fred. American medical schools only produce a finite number of physicians, and we only have a finite number of residency slots. It is such a waste when we train people who will leave the field prematurely. Then the politicians open the floodgates and start admitting foreign physicians.
So fewer older, experienced physicians and the younger physicians admitted via the DEI sieve. Not encouraging. Oh well, I’ll remind myself both groups tend to lack epistemic humility about what they don’t know and just die at home when my body quits its magical, complex performance.
Don’t forget, J. Sobran– there are lots of nurse practitioners to replace those older, experienced physicians– and less nurses to care for those in the hospital.
Triad, are you sort of recommending the nurse practitioners as a generally good option? My one experience with one was good.
Even though iatrogenic death–from physicians removing literally half of George Washington’s blood to forbidding Ivermectin while prescribing Remdesivir, ventilators, and fake vaccines–is common, the second sentence in my last post was somewhat tongue in cheek. Somewhat.
J. Sobran, I am not recommending nurse practitioners as a generally good option to replace “older, experienced physicians”. It is very possible to have a good experience with single interactions, or with a given nurse practitioner, but it is a profoundly bad idea that they would be replacing physicians throughout the marketplace. But that is what is happening.