Others are returning to school to earn a master's in business administration so they can seek administrative health care roles. "They're frustrated with medicine, but they want to give back to medicine, too," Mr. Mosley noted. "A lot of them are becoming CEOs or COOs [chief operating officers]. A lot of them are saying, 'I can go back and make a difference running a hospital. I'm frustrated with medicine, but I think I can make a change at the executive level.' We're seeing that."
If you're considering retirement, Mr. Mosley recommends asking yourself a fundamental question: Do I want to give up medicine?
"A lot of physicians have done it for so long they've forgotten their Hippocratic Oath and how rewarding [practicing medicine] is for them," he explained. "[Many] come back from retirement and say, 'I just miss that contact with patients.' Can they work temporarily, being a locum tenens physician on the side, or do they have to completely give up medicine? A lot of doctors say, 'I don't want to completely lose what I trained for.'"