Do you remember a night when you were called in to initiate thrombolysis for a threatened limb, knowing that you had a full schedule of cases the next day? When this happened, your thoughts likely drifted to a future where you would be retired from interventional radiology and could redesign your life.
Planning for retirement is like executing a complex procedure. We can agree that key ingredients for a successful procedure are planning and timing. Retirement may be on the horizon for some of us, but are we prepared? Being able to deal with unpredictable events is the hallmark of an excellent IR. Using the skills honed during our professional lives will help prepare for our time in retirement.
Post-retirement at a glance
Retirement isn’t just about financial planning; it’s about reprioritizing your life.
Don’t underestimate the importance of friendships, activities and family when making plans.
Determine if and how you want to remain connected to your previous work.
Consider legacies beyond the financial, such as photos and memories.
While it is important to have a secure financial foundation, it is equally important to anticipate the significant changes in day-to-day living that come with retirement. In this article, we address how our lives and those of our colleagues have changed during retirement and the lessons we have learned over the past 3 years since we retired.
Preparing for a change
Transitioning away from work
The work and retirement environments are very different life circumstances. Where possible, negotiate a gradual decrease of clinical responsibilities from your employer over a 2- to 3-year period. The transition will allow you to have an appreciation of retirement and facilitates the development of a lifestyle structure that benefits you and your family. This transition may also allow you to deal with the changes discussed below with minimal impact to you. Others prefer to go “cold turkey” and leave practice all at once. Either way, pre-retirement planning is necessary.
Changing homes
Often, we remain in our homes because of their proximity and convenience to our workplace. It’s not uncommon that, once retired, people consider downsizing, moving to a retirement community or relocating closer to children and grandchildren. Preparing your existing home for sale and searching for a new home can take a while. It’s important to consider your activities and priorities when deciding on a new location, including proximity to family, availability of sports facilities, places of worship, cultural offerings and educational opportunities. Also consider that, if social relationships are a priority, making friends and new contacts is considerably easier in retirement communities or where retired individuals compromise a significant part of the demographic. Even so, it may take months or even a few years to grow a new circle of friends after relocating.
Material disinvestment
We all underestimate the amount of “stuff” that we’ve accumulated over the years, especially if we have remained in the same home throughout our professional careers. Going through material possessions and deciding what goes to charity, to the dumpster, or to children, family and friends is a time-consuming task but will provide you with a deep sense of achievement. Almost as good as the perfect TIPS!
It’s also important to go through this exercise because if you and your spouse love your family, you shouldn’t impose cleanup on them as part of your legacy. The most likely scenario is that they will shovel your stuff into a dumpster and be done with it.
One other important legacy consideration is the distribution of valuable items to children, family and friends after you and your spouse pass. It is wise to list all these items and discuss their distribution amongst your heirs. You should particularly include in such a list items of sentimental value to others. Try not to leave a legacy of ill feeling among your heirs because you did not appreciate the importance of an item to one of them.
Spending your time wisely
New associates and friends
Forming new bonds and friendships can take 6–18 months to develop. Our physician referrers, medical colleagues, nurses and techs form a significant social circle that we interact with on a daily basis. As IRs, we lead the team and command significant respect and deference from the members. When we leave that environment we often lose many enjoyable and sincere relationships. For some, this loss may cause loss of self-worth, depression and even difficult interactions with family. Planning to join social groups that share interests similar to yours helps bridge the social loss, and those new friends will be both important and rewarding. It is also a time to learn new skills, whether it’s photography, birdwatching or bonsai. Joining community volunteer groups such as Habitat for Humanity can be a way to restoring a sense of purpose.
Travel
We are looking to the future. At some point (hopefully soon) we will be ready to resume travel to those exciting places we see in those enticing travel brochures. While it may be inadvisable to travel to remote places in the world in this COVID era, consider a road trip to several of the amazing national parks here in the United States. We can promise you that you will not be disappointed.
Building a legacy
Getting to know your grandchildren
Should you be fortunate enough to have grandchildren, becoming more actively involved in their lives provides them with a great legacy. Sharing with them who you are and participating in their activities can be a lasting influence on who they become and on their outlook on life. And who knows—you may convince them to become an IR like yourself. At a minimum, we’re sure that your children, their parents, will appreciate your help and interest. As a warning, grandchildren can be addictive and may consume a substantial amount of your time.
Compiling a visual history
Coming from a profession whose core skill is imaging, it behooves us to leave an accurate, digitized imaging record of ourselves and our families. All those photos, Super 8 films, VHS tapes and digital photo albums from our childhood, graduations, weddings, our children and professional accomplishments will all be part of the dumpster described above, unless you make an effort to sort out pertinent imaging and have them digitized. It’s amazing how much of life’s images can be stored on a small thumb drive—even more on cloud-based storage. The information is easily duplicated and distributed to our children and grandchildren. You will receive bonus kudos if you make the effort to script and film an interview with yourself, describing your heritage, your family and professional accomplishments. What an incredible legacy that could be to your descendants.
Staying healthy
During retirement, you are no longer under any obligation to be at a given place on a given day. We strongly recommend that you develop a similar commitment to maintain your physical and mental health. Joining a gym and committing to a minimum of 3 days a week of muscle and cardiac workout with or without a personal trainer will help ensure your physical well-being. Likewise, enrolling in courses at your local university or community college will help preserve your mental acuity.
Maintaining a relationship with IR
Professional relationships
While many of us believe that we are essential for our department to function, the reality is that, soon after we depart, the department’s collective memory of our existence rapidly fades and a new structure unfolds. Trying to maintain professional relationships when no longer practicing is difficult. If your intention is to maintain an association with your former department, the time to develop this alternate relationship is in the year before you retire. For example, creating and participating in a voluntary mentorship or teaching program for residents and ancillary staff. It’s also important to consider malpractice or personal indemnity insurance for these activities. Will your existing carrier provide such insurance and who will pay for it. Will this insurance interfere with your tail coverage?
For some, continuing selected scholarly activities in retirement can be rewarding. Serving on your medical school’s admission committee or reviewing for professional journals are ways to stay in the loop.
Providing consulting services to industry
Maintenance or initiation of consulting services once you are no longer practicing is very difficult, unless you have a long history of such activities and are well established in one or two companies. Industry prefers input from individuals who are on the front lines of practice and are closely associated with the current needs of physicians. The time to initiate these enquiries is in the last few years of your practice, when you have the attention of your local company representative. These individuals can facilitate connections within the company with whom you can discuss opportunities.
Service to SIR
Volunteering for an SIR or SIR Foundation committee as you retire is an important consideration. SIR welcomes established IRs and it is often possible to find a volunteer opportunity for many committees of the society. Your expertise and accumulated knowledge and experience will greatly benefit your younger colleagues and keep you connected to your passion for IR.
Retirement is a stage of life requires years of planning. And while there is no correct way to approach it, preparation is key. As with all complex procedures, before you begin you should be armed with as many facts and considerations as possible.
Related reading
- Exit strategy, part 1 – Career-long retirement planning: The early-career IR
- Exit strategy, part 2 – Career-long retirement planning: The established IR
