NDA Journal 2 Dr. Orr practices Anesthesiology and OMS in Las Vegas, is an Adjunct Professor (Surgery) at UNLV SM and Touro University SM (Jurisprudence), Professor Emeritus at UNLV SDM, and a member of the CA Bar and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Editor’s Message Daniel L. Orr II, DDS, MS (anesth), PhD, JD, MD [email protected] NDAJ Exclusive Retiring Quite a few articles document about when doctors retire,1,2 a few also opine about when they should retire.3,4 The articles about when doctors retire have to do with statistics relating to actual retirement and those retirements are generally couched in a doctor’s ability to retire, often secondary to financial considerations. The articles relating to when doctors should retire are at times secondary to doom and gloom unreferenced opinions about competence. One thing most of the works have in common is that the authors are generally not actually doctors, which in my mind essentially makes those authors unqualified to give an opinion, kind of like administrators, regulators, attorneys, and politicians in general when trying to control regular people. Of course, a lack of qualifications or real-life experience never slows down such individuals, often anointed as “experts,” interested in opining about others’ lives in innumerable circumstances. At times, however, even non-doctors may have a legitimate basis to offer suggestions to doctors; the key question is why non-doctors would deign to do so. The motives of the non-doctors are important. Let’s consider children. Generally, my own kids ask, don’t tell, me when it comes to retirement issues. That attitude is, in part, because they love me, I hope. But at times they can cross the line, love or not. I have two daughters, Holly and Ivy, like the Christmas carol, who have told me in no uncertain terms to retire from certain activities, those being skateboarding and paddle boarding (in bigger surf). I crashed on one of my skateboards a couple of years ago, when I was only 70, and Holly had the temerity to tell me I was “too old” to skateboard. The abrasions healed quickly (Figure 1). Within a week or two, Holly crashed on my board and ended up having her knee reconstructed (Figure 2). I have to admit, a tiny little part of me smiled and felt somehow skateboard-validated. Figure 1, Editor’s skatebaord scrapes. Figure 2, Holly, the skateboard advisor.
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