Will Mandatory Retirement Come to the Medical Profession?

Modern Healthcare ran an article that got me thinking about whether we will see mandatory retirement being applied to the certain doctors. More hospitals screen aging surgeons to make sure their skills are still sharp was published on June 11, 2016. The article starts with relating the story of  one facility and a 79 year old surgeon returning to work after some health problems. The facility had concerns but the article notes, “[t]hey had few tools at their disposal, though. Hospital policy limited interventions to clinicians who had made medical mistakes. [The surgeon] had never had an adverse event with a patient under his care.” The chief of surgery at this hospital suggested a program from “Maryland that provides cognitive and physical examinations for aging surgeons.”

We all know that conversations with someone about their diminished abilities are very difficult to have. The article offers a nod to that. Everyone is living longer, even doctors, and  longevity along with “[a]dvances in medicine, personal wellness and public health, along with the desire to preserve a sense of purpose and their lifelong identity, have led many to work well beyond traditional retirement age.”  Some facilities are developing policies to evaluate their continued practice of medicine, “policies that require clinicians of a certain age to undergo physical, cognitive and clinical testing. Those programs have been met with ire by career practitioners, who argue that age is just a number. Doctors—no matter what their age—already must renew their medical licenses at regular intervals with state medical boards.”  Critics note that renewals of licenses don’t test “for age-related cognitive and physical decline that could harm the quality of care provided to patients.” (does this debate sound familiar to anyone?)

The article then moves into a discussion of the ADEA and mandatory retirement and whether mandatory retirement should be applied to doctors. The American Medical Association (AMA) issued a report in 2015 on age-related declines with clinicians and is working on the beginnings of “research opportunities to inform preliminary guidelines for assessing senior and late-career physicians.” This year the American College of Surgeons (ACS) “recommended that surgical specialists undergo voluntary and confidential baseline physical examinations at regular intervals starting between ages 65 and 70.”

The article notes that some health care facilities have instituted their own requirements. “The policies vary in terms of the ages at which clinicians begin screening and what the exams require. Some call for clinicians to complete clinical skill and physical health screening every couple of years. Others require a more controversial cognitive test, which the AMA is leery of supporting.” There is no uniformity yet with these programs. As far as the doctor at the beginning of the article? He did go through a program and passed. The surgeon “did recently decide to shift some of his responsibilities and now spends more time on training and education with another physician taking the role of chief of vascular surgery.  [The surgeon] also became an advocate who encourages his colleagues to consider it.”