Old Doctors should be respected. They still are here, but most of them are long dead.
Old family doctors and old hunting dogs, smile.
I highly respect the old doctors I work with, but I also hope they can decide correctly when it is time to retire. Most do, because it is an extremely stressful profession.
But, for some, it is their life. All of it. Sad, in a way, but...hey, it is their life, and if that is what works for them, I have no opinion on that.
On the funny side, I had a liver specialist who I saw for many years, and he was approaching eighty when he retired. He was a grand looking old guy, too...huge shock of white hair, great big, bushy white eyebrows, seamed face. If you put him in a lineup and asked a bunch of people to pick out a country doctor, he is the one they would pick. In manner, he reminded me very much of Star Trek’s Dr. McCoy...:) Very, very down to earth, and very conscientious and meticulous. When I would go in, normally he would barely acknowledge me initially, much more than an curt “Good morning...have a seat.”
As I sat and watched, he would pore over my chart which was open in front of him (in the days they had charts). He was completely absorbed, making notes, turning pages, making more notes, turning back pages, then he would look up, take off his glasses and ask me how things were.
One day I went in, and he seemed even more curt than normal. He was almost grumbling and muttering. When he asked me how I was, I asked him how he was, because he seemed out of sorts. He said in an extremely irritated and gruff voice: “I was walking in through the hallway today, and they have my portrait hung on the wall downstairs. I guess that means I am going to DIE soon.”
At the hospital, they hang portraits of the physicians who have worked at the hospital long enough to merit it when they retire...or when they die unexpectedly! I thought it was hilarious...:)
I liked him a lot.