retirement hobbies – Page 3 – Go Retire Psychiatrist

Oops, We Missed Earth Day 2019

Well, we missed Earth Day this year, which fell on April 22^nd. The theme was to protect threatened and endangered species. One excuse is that we’ve been too focused on the cardinals building a nest in our back yard this spring. They are neither threatened nor endangered. I would call them fussy, especially when we get too close to the nest in our evergreen tree.

My other excuse is that April 22, 2019 was the day I had my last official work-related CPR recertification. It’s valid for two years but I’ll be retired next year. CPR is very important and I take the class seriously. I always seem to have a problem getting the bag mask tight enough on the mannequin’s face to get a good breath in.

This year there was an electronic device to monitor the quality of your chest compressions. It lights up green to let you know when they’re adequate. Orange lights means you have to fix your technique. That was new for me and I was probably not letting up enough to let the heart fill. Imagine that. I’ve probably had poor technique for years.

Getting back to the cardinals, we’ve noticed that there are two eggs, off white with brown speckles. We’ve never seen eggs like that and we can distinguish them from the eggs of robins and chipping sparrows. The cardinal parents chirp pretty loudly at us whenever we get too close to the tree.

Northern Cardinal eggs…we’re pretty sure.

Also, it’s Hosta planting time in the back-yard garden, a job my wife does because my form with a shovel is just as bad as my chest compressions and bag breathing on the CPR mannequin.

Last year, we got out for Earth Day and I found an old polaroid camera while we were out on the Clear Creek Trail. I’m not sure how harmful it was to the environment. Judging from its condition, the environment was more harmful to the polaroid.

On the other hand, we did spot a plastic bottle, which is harmful to the environment. We did the appropriate thing by dropping it in the proper trash receptacle.

Today is National DNA Day, which celebrates the discovery and understanding of DNA and the scientific advances that understanding has made possible. About the only thing important to me about it is that there are a few things that are definitely not in my DNA:

Cooking—unless it’s sticking a frozen pizza in the oven.

Planting Hostas.

Bag breathing the CPR mannequins.

Reading, listening to, or watching political news.

Eating shredded coconut.

Sitting in a psychiatry outpatient clinic, waiting for no-shows.

Waiting in airports.

Shopping for anything.

Removing or spreading mulch.

It’s an incomplete list, of course. Happy DNA Day!

More Time for Birds

I’m off service for a while, which means I have more time for birds. Right now, my wife and I are trying not to spook the cardinals. It looks like they’ve finished the nest and we’re waiting for the eggs.

This will be the first time we’ve seen cardinals nesting in our yard. It’s a little strange, because the cardinals chose the same evergreen tree as the robins did last year.

The robins built a pretty sturdy nest but the cardinals just threw one together. It looks pretty flimsy.

A couple of years ago, chipping sparrows raised chicks in one of our front yard evergreen trees. They were cute.

But the baby robins looked like little dinosaurs.

I imagine the new cardinals will look pretty scruffy.

They Work Here Too

The cardinal nest is pretty much done—no eggs yet, though. At least we think it’s a cardinal nest. It looks typical according to experts; loosely woven of twigs, leaves, stucco, and ponderosa pine accents. They’re pretty fussy about us snooping around the backyard evergreen tree they chose to build a home in.

Any day now, we’re hoping to see a clutch of eggs, bluish white with brown markings. Or maybe pale green with brown-lilac spots. Or possibly whitish to pale bluish or greenish white, marked with brown, purple, and gray. Or Hawkeye black and gold. It all depends on which guidebook you read, I guess.

I’m gradually getting back into bird watching and spending less time with my head at the hospital (“Earth to Jim!”). Doctors learn to spend all their time either on the wards or in the clinic. It reminds me of a couple of scenes from Men in Black (MIB) II.

As Agent J walks into the MIB complex at Battery Park, the elevator dude says “Don’t you ever go home? Agent J says “Nope.”

Later he drops into Zed’s office and asks, “What you got for me?”

Zed replies, “Look. See those guys in black suits? They work here. We got it covered.”

That’s how physicians can get after years of acculturation into the driven doctor model. Often enough, I take most of the work away from the trainees, when they’re not looking. And I take my work home—that’s called pajama time.

Hey, those dudes work here too. I have a tendency to see myself as almost indispensable, which makes it hard to envision retirement at times.

I have to keep reminding myself that I’m not the only doc who can do my job. The next generation of doctors are eager and ready. They deserve a chance. But I sometimes catch myself telling old war stories about how hard it was when I was a resident or a junior attending.

“I remember when I had to walk 40 miles to work in the driving blizzard alternating with blazing heat (it’s Iowa) to get to my 6 x10 foot office in the basement to stoke the fire in the pot-bellied stove for coffee and grits at 4:00 in the morning, before the damn birds even get up, milk a few dozen cows in the atrium, chase the pigs out of the operating rooms and then go see about a hundred or so consultations before 7:00 in the morning I tell you, then write notes until midnight, be on call until 3:30 the next morning and do it all over again. What do you guys know about work?”

I may exaggerate a little bit. Usually there weren’t that many cows in the atrium.

It can be difficult to unwind from the physician’s treadmill. But as time goes on, I look forward to seeing the birds build nests, to see the brand-new eggs, the ugly chicks who look like little dinosaurs until the feathers grow out. I can pay more attention to the world outside the hospital, where the new doctors are stoking the fire.

Gauging My Readiness for Retirement

I’m noticing something about my readiness for retirement. Certain activities are starting to be at least as interesting as my work as a consultation-liaison psychiatrist at the hospital—maybe even more so.

For example, my wife and I are hoping that the cardinals will come back to our backyard evergreen tree. They were building a Hoorah’s Nest in there a week ago, which I took a picture of and then they left when they saw us spying on them. This evening, my wife noticed they were back. We rushed to the window (me with camera in hand) and I swear, they peered at us with intense suspicion. Pretty soon, they flew off in a huff.

They are among the most stand-offish backyard birds I’ve ever seen.

Why is this so important? It’s because I am getting so absorbed in birdwatching again now that I’m in phased retirement that I find it fascinating enough to look forward to more than going to work. I think that’s a sign I’m finally beginning to adjust to retirement.

I spent 4 years in medical school, 4 years in residency, and have worked for more than 23 years as a psychiatrist, mostly as a general hospital consultant. Nothing used to jazz me as much as running around the hospital, seeing patients in nearly all specialties, evaluating and helping treat many fascinating neuropsychiatric syndromes, teaching medical students and residents, and I even wrote a book.

On the other hand, I don’t want to hang on too long. When people ask me why I’m retiring so early (“You’re so young!”), I just tell them most physicians retire at my age, around 65. I also say that I want to leave at the top of my game—and not nudged out because I’m faltering.

I saw a blog post that identified that reason for retirement. It was entitled “When Physicians Reach Their Use-By Date,” by James Allen, MD. The site is identified as “Not secure” unfortunately, so I’m not giving a link to it. However, the web site is The Hospital Medical Director and it’s sponsored by Ohio State University–so it’s probably safe.

Now if you do read Dr. Allen’s post, you’ll think I’m flattering myself as a “master clinician.” I don’t think of myself that way. I’m actually more of a demigod.

I’m just kidding. The descriptions of how physicians finally reach retirement sound fascinating. I’m not sure I could just abruptly stop—that’s why I chose phased retirement. Staying on as a preceptor is not appealing to me because I liked the clinical action too much. I’m actually afraid of becoming someone who knows only medicine. It’s one of the best reasons for me to retire sooner rather than later. You’d think I’d identify with the consultant model; I’ve briefly thought of carrying my resignation letter around with me, although not in my coat pocket and not with malice in my heart.

Although I joined the fraternity of medicine, so to speak, I’m really not a joiner. In fact, I’ve gradually given up membership in organizations like the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Medical Association. I’ve let go of social media accounts like Doximity and LinkedIn—all of them actually, including Twitter and Facebook; I just couldn’t get the hang of those.

There’s a National Association of Retired Physicians (NAORP) that I’ve peeked at. There’s the University of Iowa Retiree Association (UIRA) that I learned about a couple of years ago when my wife and I attended a seminar about retiring from the university. I probably won’t join either one.

I’ve been getting invitations from AARP for many years now (who doesn’t?). The tote bags look nice and I am glad that somebody is lobbying for people my age. I haven’t joined so far.

And I joke about my own fictional organization, Retiree On My Own Time (ROMOT). No dues, no meetings, no minutes, no Robert’s Rules of Order. I’m the President, Secretary, Treasurer (Har!), and the only member—for now.

I’m keeping my schedule open.

Fine Weather for Ducks

Today we had fine weather for ducks—who waddled across our front yard lawn and across the street. They sampled the worms the robins evidently wouldn’t eat. They didn’t like them much either.

I wonder what kind of romance life ducks have—probably about the same as humans.