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COVID-19
PANDEMIC

My Coronavirus

Retirement

By Leon Ghitis, MD

I am writing this at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, ner, you would give up a large part of the compensation in the form
one of the greatest challenges human civilization has ever seen, of bonus and shares in the company, but you were free to work as
where probably millions of people will be affected and hundreds much or as little as you wanted, with no obligations and relatively
of thousands of lives will be lost. I hope we survive it and that soon low compensation. As a partner, depending on the age, you would
we may easily diagnose it, measure immunity, have some type of ef- be required to take call and sign for a minimum period in order to
fective treatment, and a vaccine available. qualify for the shares and the bonus opportunity.
Before the holocaust, where millions of people were killed by hu- It was a very difficult decision for me to make. I enjoyed my prac-
mans, of them 6 million Jews, my maternal and paternal grandpar- tice very much. I had been privileged and over the years I had en-
ents had a good life in the “old country”. Everything around them joyed a very nice "gourmet" practice; I worked only with the
suddenly collapsed. They made the decision to flee from Europe to surgeons I liked and kept a decent schedule of hours. After going
Colombia at the end of 1938 saving their lives but leaving and back and forth for weeks, my decision was to go legacy, as a pre-
knowing that other family members would perish. liminary step to retirement and sacrifice a significant amount of
In 1978 in Colombia, under totally different circumstances, 40 money for the sake of a good quality of life with family and espe-
years after my grandparents came to Colombia from Europe, my cially with my grandchildren.
wife and I decided to make the move from Colombia to the US, Initially, I was working once or twice a week, then once a week
looking for better opportunities and a safer place for us and our 2 or once every two weeks, and eight weeks ago I stopped working
children. I had just finished medical school and the situation in completely. I thought it was a great decision. The stock market was
Colombia started to get difficult and dangerous with the rise of doing great, and I had more time for myself and time to enjoy my
Narco-trafficking. Fortunately, I was able to meet the medical re- family and friends.
quirements to come to the US and, after my Anesthesia training in Then, the COVID-19 came into our lives as a surprise: the stock
Houston, my family and I moved to San Antonio in 1982. I started market collapsed, and we are facing a very scary situation that we
my private practice with a small group of anesthesiologists. don't know how and when is going to end. It feels as if our world
In 1997, my partners and I decided that with a consolidation of is collapsing around us again. We lost our freedoms to live normal
smaller anesthesia groups into a big one, we could function more lives and to see family and friends. The number of people getting
efficiently, provide better service, and decrease our operating ex- sick is exponentially growing and the economy of the USA and the
penses. After multiple exhausting meetings with lawyers, several whole world is collapsing.
groups merged. We founded Star Anesthesia which became the In the meantime we, my wife and I, are doing the most we can
largest Anesthesia group in the city. with physical, social distancing, so that we minimize the risks and
The integration was interesting and challenging, because each help flatten the curve so that in the event any of us gets sick, it
group or division had their own way of practicing. Some groups would not be at the peak of the curve and we would hope to get
worked the old-fashioned way where anesthesiologists followed appropriate treatment without restrictions.
their surgeons around to different hospitals, others were basically Even though I stopped working and soon will be 70 years old, I
hospital based, and others functioned both ways. Slowly, we ex- have decided not to resign from the company and to maintain my
panded our anesthesia group in the city. active privileges, so in the event this pandemic gets to an extreme
Around a year ago, Star Anesthesia group started talking about a situation and my services are needed, I can go back and help.
possible sale of the practice. Finally, at the beginning of September
of 2019, Star was acquired by USAP. We were offered two different Leon Ghitis, MD is an Anesthesiologist in Bexar County and a member
options: Remain as a Partner (either full-time or part-time) or be- of the Bexar County Medical Society.
come a "legacy member" and work as a contractor. As a legacy part-

36 San Antonio Medicine • June 2020