THE OLDER PSYCHIATRIST AND RETIREMENT

Objective. To determine the clinical practices, retirement plans and p ost-retirement professional activities of older psychiatrists, compari ng retirees with working psychiatrists. Design. Postal survey. Partici pants. All Fellows of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists aged 55 years and over, resident in Australia or New Zea land. Of 468 eligible subjects, 281 (60%) participated. Main outcome m easures. Location and type of psychiatric practice; hours of work; ret irement plans; anticipated and actual retirement criteria; anticipated and actual post-retirement professional activities; self-rated health . Results. Working psychiatrists comprised 79% of the sample, being si gnificantly younger (mean 63.8 years) than retirees (mean 72.3 years, p < 0.001). Over 62% of respondents worked principally in general psyc hiatry. Working psychiatrists were mainly in private practice (61%) an d retirees had been in public psychiatry (53%, p < 0.001). Working psy chiatrists worked about 41 hours/week, 98 (49%) having reduced their h ours in the previous 5 years. Retirement plans had been commenced by 1 24 (61%). Fatigue (27%) and memory impairment (10%) were reported as a ge-related changes adversely affecting work capacity, raising concerns of competence. Working psychiatrists more often anticipated deteriora ting health (p < 0.001) and family/personal reasons (p < 0.01) as reti rement criteria and anticipated involvement in a significantly higher number of post-retirement professional activities than retirees report ed (p < 0.001). Retirees rated themselves in significantly poorer heal th than working psychiatrists (p < 0.001), even when age was partialle d out (p < 0.001). Conclusions. Most older psychiatrists gradually ret ire by reducing work hours and developing new interests. The majority of retirees retain involvement in professional activities, but substan tially less than anticipated by those still working.