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Publication Exclusive: It is not the practice you pass on to others that counts
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“No legacy is so rich as honesty.”
– William Shakespeare
My mother always told me that as you go through life, no matter what you do, or how you do it, you leave a little footprint, and that’s your legacy.”
– Jan Brewer
“It’s not about my leaving my fingerprints or a legacy. It’s more important to be part of a process by rolling up your sleeves, being on the ground, initiating projects, you know, building stuff.”
– Queen Rania of Jordan
In a humdrum, workaday 30-plus-year career, the typical ophthalmologist labors about 60,000 hours, earns about $10 million and passes the reins down to a replacement surgeon. He or she then has about $3 million left in the bank to spend during another 20 years or so of retirement, thinking and rethinking his or her legacy. Sometimes with a smile, sometimes not so much.
Because the baby boom bulge is reflected not just in the older age distribution of patients but also in the graying distribution of surgeons, and because practice stresses are rising sharply, I have more clients than ever before who are retiring, moving on and starting to talk to me about what they thought their legacy would be. Or what they wished it could have been.
Some focus on the building they built or the infrastructure they filled it with, perhaps because these tangibles might last a bit longer and be something they could drive by years later, point to and say, “I did that.”
But only a minority of eye surgeons leave behind such tangible legacies.
Because of the shrinking pool of young ophthalmologists, it is hard today to sell a practice in less choice parts of the country for any more than salvage value, leaving a vacant suite where a practice once thrived.
Many of your colleagues are understandably frustrated with this because from the start of their careers they had pinned their legacy hopes on the next generation taking over their “baby.” Closing up shop can be a profound disappointment. (And it is even more disappointing when your practice is taken over by an unworthy successor.)
Click here to read the full publication exclusive, By the Numbers, published in Ocular Surgery News U.S. Edition, October 10, 2015.