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Dike
Dike Drummond MD
www.TheHappyMD.com
[Transcript]
Physicians Unchained: Retirement Mastery for Doctors – Weekly Tip
Don't miss your Exit Ramp and get Shot Out of the Saddle!
Hello, Dr Dike Drummond, MD, here with the latest lessons from my new book, Physicians Unchained: Retirement Mastery for Doctors.
And in this tip, what we’re going to talk about is what happens if you miss your off-ramp and fail to retire when it’s most appropriate.
And what I can tell you is it’s not a happy story. It’s not a pretty picture. But let’s check this out.
When You Are Financially Free But Still Working
Let’s say that you were in your 60s.
Let’s say that your financial advisors are telling you that you can quit anytime you want. You don’t have to work anymore.
But you’re still seeing patients full time.
And I get that, because it’s hard to break that habit. It’s hard to release that identity as being a doctor. And it’s especially hard with the state of the medical industry, where we’re short staffed.
And the first thing you’re going to think about is, what about my patients? What about my staff? What about my partners? Who’s going to see all these patients?
That’s called survivor guilt. We’re going to talk about that in a future tip.
But today, let’s say that you’re still seeing patients when you are financially free and could have walked away.
You’ve missed your off-ramp.
Shot Out of the Saddle
And unfortunately, what that sets you up for is two things, two sayings that basically come from old cowboy movies.
And the old cowboy doesn’t know when to leave the range.
If you are not proactively stepping away from your practice into the retirement transition and creating your life after medicine, you are vulnerable.
You are vulnerable to be shot out of the saddle.
Shot out of the saddle.
What do I mean?
Well, as we get older, our faculties decay. There’s nothing you can do about that. And our skills and our memories get worse.
So over time, you may end up being forced to stop practicing medicine by a bad outcome or a medical error.
Shot out of the saddle.
There’s another form of shot out of the saddle too.
You may have a medical issue come up, like, for instance, my stroke. I had a stroke two years ago. Now you can’t tell, but I can.
But if my stroke had been worse, let’s say I had a hemiparesis, that would have shot me out of the saddle too.
So medical error, bad outcome, personal health issue can shoot you out of the saddle.
Die in the Saddle
And then the ultimate tragedy, I think, is when you die in the saddle.
What do I mean?
Well, you croak in the office between your 2:30 and three o’clock patient next Tuesday, and you never, ever entered the retirement transition.
You never lived your life after medicine.
Why This Is Tragic
Now, why do I consider these to be tragic?
Well, one of the major goals of your life after medicine is—drumroll, please—to ultimately die with no regrets.
To live your life in a way that you die with no regrets.
And I think in your last moments of your life, if you end up coding at the office, or if you end up being shot out of your practice by either your own medical emergency or a bad outcome, I think that from that future perspective, you’re probably going to have some regrets.
And it’s probably going to be along the lines of what we already know is one of the most frequent regrets of the dying.
And that’s: I should have retired sooner.
The Invitation
So my advice—if your financial advisors are telling you you’re financially free, if you put 40 years of your life into paying it forward into your practice—you are righteously eligible to begin the retirement transition.
To step into your life after medicine.
I can show you how to do these things and without the struggle that most people go through.
That’s the whole purpose of the book.
Closing
So don’t let yourself get shot out of the saddle or die in the saddle, please.
That’s it for today.
Somewhere on this page, you can sign up for the early bird list to be first notified about the book and get these weekly tips in video format that I’m doing until the book is released.
That’s it for now.
Keep paying it forward.
Keep being the light worker that you are.
And I’ll see you in the next video.