Patients-not just Images

Devoted to Education and Practice in Patient-centered Radiology

Chairman's Corner

Retirement?

Ravi Ramakantan

At 67, I have been meaning to retire for some time now.

Doing more of the same never interested me and now, there are others to take over....

When I tell others about my intention to retire, they often respond with alarm.

"But, Ravi, what else will you do.. ghar mey pak jayega (you will get bored at home)".

But, I won't.

I plan to spend a large amount of my time working with my school students and school teachers.. there are many things that can be done at the school. Besides everything else, this was one of the important things that we decided on - on that fateful Sunday afternoon in February 2008- the first school reunion of our batch we had after 40 years.

So, I hope, school will take much of my time; besides, it is not far from where I live and it is always fun..

I will work with my model trains - my layout is getting ready - already...a room full of it!

I started this hobby in 1959, when I was 7 years old and now 60 years later, I am still at it..

Model trains are no kid stuff.

You cannot even begin to imagine how 'train-work' can be obsessive.. it knows no time of day or night.. just thinking, planning, doing, problem solving and all of this all over again!

This keeps me young and my brain active - overactive. If you have a grandson ..sorry - girls seldom play with model trains. It is a well established fact that the 'model train gene' is a Y chromosome linked madness!),

So if you have a son, a grandson, any boy you care about - over 12 years of age (that's the legal minimum age for this hobby) , introduce them to this hobby. They will be thankful to you for a lifetime.

I will restart my activities at Hoopers, my basketball club. Maybe play a bit of "standing basketball" :-)

Being with close friends at Hoopers - friendships forged over a lifetime - is bliss.

I will work with online radiology teaching... using this, my personal radiology education website

I will teach at KEM, may be at Tata - as long as I can... I now have an official visiting position at KEM. THAT will be so much fun.

The Medical Humanities program at my alma mater is my pet project. I will be able to get involved with it to the extent I want to be.

I will write more of my "Chairman's Corner"

I will look forward to activities with SIES1969 ; - my fully active SIES school alumni batch - a bunch of fun loving 65+ crazy, 'boys and girls'.

So much said, let's see how much done!

Time will tell.

So many of my school batchmates, most non medical folks, have retired since a while. They spend their time gainfully.. even relaxing and listening to a song is 'gainfully'! Most of my medical school classmates are still trudging away..

I have often asked my medical friends .. most over 65 years of age "Why don't you retire now?"

And they say.

"Why should I retire, I can still work"

"My practice brings in money, I will practice as long as I physically can"

And this - from an exceptional surgeon

" My patients are waiting for me, how can I stop practising?"

But, most will say :

"But what else can I do, Ravi?".

For all doctors, there is a moral in this statement somewhere. In our race up to becoming a doctor, in establishing a practice and in attending to patients and perhaps teaching, we have lost sight that there's more to life than practice medicine. Often therefore, feel lost when it comes to retirement and life beyond.

I will have to remind them what the 'Father of modern medicine", Sir William Osler had said about age and retirement. In a farewell speech, in 1895, Osler talked about the link between age and accomplishment:

" The effective, moving, vitalizing work of the world is done between the ages of 25 and 40 — these 15 golden years of plenty.” In comparison, he noted, “men above 40 years of age” are useless. As for those over 60, there would be an “incalculable benefit” in “commercial, political and professional life, if, as a matter of course, men stopped work at this age.”

I readily agree that this is not the truth - as we understand more today about 'ageing and the brain',