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THE WONDERS
OF RETIREMENT

The Exit:
Retiring from Academic
Medicine, Part 1
THE EPIPHANY
By Rajam Ramamurthy, MD I really did not want to retire. I had to. I have always functioned at about 10

years below my age level, kind of got stuck at 60 for quite some time now. I

never worried about money, my husband did that. There is lab evidence for

that in his A1-C hemoglobin and lipid profile. I woke up every morning eager

to go to work. Work was overwhelming, and I thrived in that environment. Is

that not what physicians like to do? Keep doing what we do best. In academics,

we are immortal. We take care of the patient, push the frontiers of research and

teach to create new health workforce. We can do this forever.

It was 11 p.m. one night two years ago. I was at the home computer. Like

clockwork, my husband got up to go to bed. Like clockwork he asked, “What

are you doing tomorrow?” In the beginning this annoyed me. What would I

do? I will wake up, get dressed and get to work same as him. Later, I realized

that it was his way of making me remember my meetings, appointments and

18 San Antonio Medicine • September 2015