Back in 1993, Irvin Cohen, M.D., of Houston was asked to participate in a workshop on psychiatrist retirement at the APA annual meeting. Although he wasn’t quite yet retired—he finally took the plunge in 1996—Cohen found that the workshop piqued his interest in how physicians react emotionally to retirement.

This interest in turn prompted him, along with colleagues from the University of Texas Medical School in Houston, to conduct a survey to explore the subject. The project was funded by the Texas Medical Association (TMA) and included more than 300 Houston physicians who had been retired for an average of six to seven years. Results from the survey are in press and will be published in an upcoming issue of Texas Medicine, the journal of the TMA.

Among the interesting findings is that the biggest emotional problem physicians have with retirement seems to come right after they have retired. They often experience a loss of professional identity that in turn can lead to a loss in self-esteem, and this loss can then lead to mild depression. The depression, however, usually abates after three to six months as they adapt to their new life. Clinical depression is rare, the study found.

The researchers also found that those physicians who retire voluntarily are less likely to have emotional difficulties with their new status than are those who are forced to retire because of ill health, loss of control over medical practice, or some other factor.

Once physicians have adjusted to their retirements they seem to enjoy them. Almost all physicians surveyed reported that they were satisfied with their retirements and were experiencing low levels of stress and depression.

A number of physicians indicated a fear that their relationships with their partners would worsen if they retire because they are going to be around each other all the time. Not so, the survey reveals. Thirty-eight percent of the physicians surveyed said that their relationships with their partners had actually become better after retirement, while only five percent said that their relationships had become worse.

In spite of the myth that physicians want to be carted out wearing their white coats, apparently this isn’t the case. Most retired physicians do not do volunteer work connected with medicine, the survey shows. It appears that they want the freedom to do things that they have long wanted to do, but couldn’t because of professional demands.

The APA Committee on Senior Psychiatrists would also like to conduct a survey along these lines, because APA, like most medical organizations, has little data about its older members, said Cohen, who is currently the committee’s chair. The survey, Cohen visualizes, might address in detail what older psychiatrists are up to these days, or perhaps how they are coping with retirement. The committee likewise hopes to hold a workshop titled "To Retire or Not to Retire?" at the next APA annual meeting, Cohen told Psychiatric News. He would offer the perspective of the retiree and discuss the joys of retiring. Abram Hostetter, M.D., of Hershey, Pa. and president of the American Psychiatric Foundation, would provide the viewpoint of why it is better to still practice when you get older.