How You Can Still Be a Real Doctor After You Retire

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Six years ago, I retired after 33 years in a busy general internal medicine practice. I had a lot of things planned – travel, writing, reading, more time working on our weekend farm, and more time with the grandchildren. I got started with a great trip to Turkey, and an offer to write a book about seniors. Things were going well, but I really missed something. I did not think I was a doctor anymore. I read journals and still went to my hospital grand rounds, but it was not the same if I didn't see patients.

Then I began volunteering at our local free clinic. I renewed my ties with former colleagues and met some new ones, and have enjoyed the interaction with the full-time staff at the clinic. Most of all, I have gotten a great deal of satisfaction from being able to use the skills I have gained over a lifetime, helping the sickest and neediest people in our community. The best few minutes of the week are those I experience as I walk to my car after my evening in the free clinic. The patients are grateful; the other volunteers are admirable people; and I feel that I have done something important for my community. Reading the journals and going to grand rounds, again, have a tangible, real benefit.

When I meet someone socially, I don't have to say I am a retired internist and let it go at that. I add that I am a volunteer physician, and the volunteer medical director of The Arlington Free Clinic. That is, now, as much a part of what I am, and what my former private patients and my friends think of me as anything else I have ever done. Mostly, that is what I think I still am – a doctor. If you want to feel “real” again, contact your local free clinic and volunteer. You can probably find it at www.freeclinics.us.

That's my opinion. I'm Dr. Tom Connally, Volunteer Medical Director at The Arlington Free Clinic in Virginia.