Food for thought on retirement for doctors

Dr. Ilmar Kents has loved being a physician for the past 48 years. But all that will end at midnight on Dec. 31 when his medical license and hospital privileges expire. “That really hurts (and) hits home that it’s over,” Dr. Kents said from his home in Bracebridge, a two-hour drive north of Toronto in the heart of Ontario’s cottage country. “But now I can concentrate on doing the other things I like.” Those “things” are as varied as the many personal interests and activities the 73-year-old has developed and pursued over the years. A family doctor in the southern Ontario town of Brantford from 1974 to 2011, Dr. Kents decided to close his practice following the death from breast cancer in 2009 of a 52-year-old nurse who worked in his clinic. “She was a good friend of me and my wife, who was also my nurse,” said Dr. Kents. “Before she died she told us to get out and enjoy life. And we decided to do just that.” Read: Questions to ask yourself if you're considering retiring from medicine Buoyed by decades of savings and professionally managed investments that allowed him to put two kids through school (including daughter Dr. Kersti Kents, who practices dermatology and cosmetic medicine in Bracebridge), Dr. Kents wound down his practice and moved north in 2011. Since then he has worked a few days a month doing operating room assistance at Muskoka Algonquin Health Care’s two hospitals. Most of his time has and will be filled doing activities and hobbies like fishing, boating, wood burning, exercising and keeping up with family and friends on social media. He and his wife are also inveterate cruise ship travellers, having visited nearly every corner of the world, including the poles, and with an upcoming trip planned up the Amazon River. “I’ll miss being a doctor,” said Dr. Kents. “But I knew this day would come from Day Go—and I made sure I was ready for it.” That is sound advice not just for doctors but for everyone, says Candace Konnert, a professor and clinical psychologist at the University of Calgary who specializes in aging. “I don’t think there is anything unique about doctors,” Konnert wrote in an email to the Medical Post. “Physical/psychological health and finances are good predictors of retirement adjustment in the general population as are leisure activities and social integration.” According to Konnert, much of people’s focus in retirement planning is on financial preparedness rather than how they will fill their days once what she calls the “sugar rush of retirement”—the roughly six-month period of euphoria newly-retired people feel from their unstructured lives free of obligations—begins to wear off. “After that sometimes people have difficulty because they simply don’t have a plan,” said Konnert. Making matters worse can be feelings of worthlessness for people whose sense of self-worth is tied to their occupation. Doctors, she added, do have some inherent advantages in regards to retirement planning. “Presumably this group is better off financially so that bodes well,” said Konnert. “Similarly, they should be more cognizant of health/mental health issues and be better off in this domain (although there are certainly many who experience significant stress with all of its deleterious consequences). “If they have maintained leisure activities and social connections, this will facilitate the transition to retirement,” added Konnert. “I guess the main message is to start thinking about these things pre-retirement.” That’s what Dr. Ken Armstrong did early on his medical career, which began in 1981 when he returned home to Niagara Falls to join his dad’s family practice clinic. “I had a financial planner who strongly recommended that I start saving—and I did,” recalled Dr. Armstrong, a self-described jock, trumpet player and ADHD poster boy in high school, where one of his best friends was then-future Hollywood movie director James Cameron. After 20 years as a family doctor and a diving medicine specialist—a sideline that evolved from his love of scuba diving—Dr. Armstrong switched to doing mostly occupational medicine in 2003. He also remarried and moved to Oakville, where he joined diving and motorcycling clubs and got a black belt in jujitsu before retiring in 2016. “It got to the point where I was looking forward more to my social activities than work,” said Dr. Armstrong. “And by then my financial planner told me I was good to go—which I did, and it’s been great.” Retirement, however, isn’t for every physician. Dr. Michael Soboloff, for example, has been in practice in Toronto since 1967. And though he will turn 80 early in the New Year, he has no intentions of hanging up his stethoscope. “I’m still enjoying it, as are some of my old classmates who are still practicing,” said Dr. Soboloff. After 40 years in private practice in the Bloor/Ossington area, Dr. Soboloff closed his clinic a decade ago to concentrate on long-term care, a sideline he started in the 1970s. “It was a good base for a practice because you had a floor of 50 patients you saw every week,” he said. Though he found it difficult to give up his family practice, Dr. Soboloff says he enjoys working in nursing homes more. “I get to spend more time with patients and work more carefully,” he said. He also credits his decades-old adherence to a local journal club with a dozen physicians for keeping him up to date in the medical profession. “I’ve spent my life concentrating on medicine and didn’t develop any interests other than travelling,” said Dr. Soboloff. “That’s an issue because when I’m not working I sit in a chair and watch TV. If I had one bit of advice for doctors who are thinking about retiring it’s that they develop interests outside of medicine.”

Food for thought on retirement for doctors

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