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Golden
Years After a Medical Career?
By Cindy Fox Aisen, EurekAlert
8 May, 2003 Can one successfully retire from a stressful, time-consuming career and enjoy a new lifestyle and an old marriage? A study of retired
physicians and their spouses by researchers from Indiana University School
of Medicine and the Regenstrief Institute, Inc. reports that both doctors
and their spouses enjoy very high life satisfaction following the
retirement of the physician spouse. The results of the study were
published in the Journal of Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology
this spring and are being presented later this month at the Indiana
University School of Medicine annual alumni gathering and at a workshop at
the American Psychiatric Association meeting in San Francisco. Approximately 88
percent of the retired physicians and an equal percentage of their spouses
in the study indicated that retirement was going well. Those who were
happiest in retirement were those who had chosen to retire at a young age
(60 to 68 years) and had progressed through the initial post-retirement
adjustment phase. The researchers found that retirees in their late 70s
who had been retired for 8 to 10 years enjoyed retirement more than
individuals of the same age range who waited longer to leave the
workforce. Each marital partner
was surveyed individually. Factors associated with better life
satisfaction for the physicians included good health, optimism, feelings
of financial security, participation in activities and hobbies, and a good
sexual relationship. For the spouses, good health, having a husband
willing to help with chores, a good sexual relationship, and attending the
theatre or sporting events, were associated with higher levels of life
satisfaction. Spouses who had never worked and those spouses who were
retired, reported higher levels of life satisfaction than spouses who were
still working. The study, which was
funded by Indiana University School of Medicine and the Indiana University
Alumni Association, should help people in their 40s and 50s plan for
retirement in a more informed manner, according to Mary Guerriero Austrom,
Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry, who is first author of the
paper. Co-authors are senior author IU Professor of Psychiatry Hugh
Hendrie, M.B., Ch.B., Teresa Damush, Ph.D., and Tony Perkins, M.S., of the
Regenstrief Institute. A selection of
questions and answers from the survey of physicians (group was 98 percent
male) and their spouses shows that while both groups indicated that
retirement was going well, their perspectives on retirement were
significantly different with the physicians grieving over or celebrating
their loss of professional responsibilities and their spouses coping with
the altered family dynamics. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
