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Someone mentioned trying to get retired physicians to practice part-time in rural communities. I am a retired pediatrician and can see several problems with this.

One is the malpractice problem. Even if funding could provide the money to buy malpractice insurance, the physician is still liable to malpractice suits. A malpractice suit can devastate a physician and his/her family for many years. I would not like to spend my retirement under the threat of a possible malpractice suit.

A second problem is keeping current. You might be practicing part-time, but you need to keep current on all the developments in medicine. This is a full-time job and not something I would want to do in retirement.

A third problem is night and weekend call. A retired doctor would not be interested in being on call nights and weekends. Even if you are not officially on call, you can't live in a small community, get close to your patients and ignore their around-the-clock needs.

posted 4 years, 10 months ago
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