Being an emergency physician requires you to excel, among other areas, in one particularly important preschool skill: playing well with others. I deal with consultants from other specialties numerous times on a daily basis, often asking them to employ their unique talents at inopportune hours.
One of emergency medicine's kindred "plays well with others" specialties is radiology - in fact, I have a tender spot for those gentle cavern dwellers who convert Rorschach test shapes into diagnoses I can act on.
Over the years I've developed friendships with several radiologists. Early in my career, I secured one lifelong friend by making all my inquiries in verse:
Last night after beers and some weed
My patient pissed off a large Swede
They grappled like heck
'Til they rolled off his deck
Do you, too, see this subdural bleed?
Regrettably, as the ED grew increasingly busy, I was unable to continue my patient limericks.
Other friendships came by being one of the few docs to physically visit the reading room. I was pleasantly surprised at how willing people were to teach a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none person like me a little nugget from their specialty.
Another of my warm relationships was with a bookish radiologist (perhaps in his mid-70s) who never failed to make me glad I'd asked him for help. I'd describe the clinical context, and we'd discuss what we saw and scroll through the study from our respective computers as if we were 6th grade besties winding telephone phone cords around our wrists during an evening gossip session.
(I know, just the concept of telephone cords is dating me right now.)
(I also acknowledge the idea of a bookish radiologist may simply be a contrast to the comparably loud emergency docs that characterize our specialty).
He'd stop by the ED at the end of his shift, we'd catch up on small life victories, and a genuine connection took root.
Fast forward to the email I received this morning with the latest medical staff bulletin - turns out my friend tendered his resignation and has decided to retire. Given his youthful physiologic age and the enthusiasm he seemed to have for work, it's hard not to suspect that fear of contracting COVID was the straw that broke this camel's back.
Supporting burnt out docs in the pursuit of financial independence means some quantity of young docs might leave the profession when they reach their number and their limit. There's no debt to society large enough to mandate miserable working conditions undertaken at great personal cost. Society wants to retain physicians? Make the job better!
It's quite another thing to see an older physician in a high risk age group, someone who might otherwise enjoy an extended career, leave due to fear of contracting COVID.
That's yet another unintended consequence of this pandemic I'd not considered- seeing professionals who love what they do retire before their time to protect their health.
Add one more facet to this international tragedy.