Many possible takes on ‘retirement.’

When I meet many of my nursing school mates from (too many) years ago, conversation inevitably turns toward talk of retirement. There are many angles to this, from “Are you going to retire?” to “Are you thinking of slowing down?” to “What are you going to do next?”

I have friends who couldn’t wait to retire and wanted nothing more than an empty schedule to be able to make spur-of-the-moment decisions about what they wanted to do or not do. Others I know also retired fully from nursing but now are docents in museums, driving meals-on-wheels, supervising exercise in an elderly day care facility. And of course there are many who just “cut back”—they work part-time or per diem, but “keep their hand in.”

Photo by Aaron Cynic.

But the decision on when to leave a full-time career can be a difficult one, as the author of the July Transitions column, “What Would Ellen Do?” (free until August 20), points out.

Ellen Elpern was an advanced practice critical care nurse at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, a large urban academic medical center, loved the work and enjoyed working with her colleagues.

In making her decision to retire, she says, a main concern was not to stay too long, to be one of those people that coworkers whispered about as “needing to go.” She made her decision to leave when changes in administrative and clinical training requirements as well as family changes led her to want more time for herself (grandchildren will do that).

Leaving on her own terms.

This article has some great lessons—one that particularly struck me was her decision to usurp the traditional farewell party. Instead, Elpern planned and hosted a party for all the colleagues she worked with, thanking them for their part in enabling her to have such an enjoyable and rewarding career. Makes me wish I had worked with this thoughtful person!

Any doubts she had about her impact or the esteem in which her colleagues held her was erased when staff later sent her a photo showing them sporting buttons with the letters WWED (translation: What Would Ellen Do?).   Ellen now volunteers at another Chicago hospital to provide information to patients about advance directives.

Here’s a podcast of my conversation with Ellen:

(PS. Given what we learned about Ellen from her story, it should be no surprise that during the surge in patient admissions during COVID-19 pandemic, she returned to Rush to volunteer on the proning team in the ICU.)