Image: Junior doctors protest, March 2016. Rights: Garry Knight/Flickr
The continuing troubles and discontents of junior doctors have evident newsworthiness; not so the equivalent problems in later careers. This is easy to understand: younger doctors have (we hope) a long future career ahead – that future is also our future healthcare, so we want them to be there, and in fine fettle. Older doctors will have retired from that picture: we are less concerned.
So, the morale and welfare of older doctors does not arouse the same kind of public interest or apprehension. Yet older doctors have much to tell us about our direction of travel: they have witnessed and practised many kinds of care and treatment, management and colleagueiality, ethos or its lack. Surely, the story and state of our elders’ retirement conveys much about the trend in our healthcare culture and, therefore, what we may expect.
