Work, identity and health.

Abstract

Personal introductionHaving free-lanced as a public health physician for over a decade, with the inevitable variation in both the avaiIability and type of work, 'retirement' is, perhaps, a vaguer concept than for those with conventional full time jobs.In my middle sixties, I was drifting towards retirement, thinking that I should soon refuse any new work, when an incident occurred quite unconnected with work.Many have experienced being treated by someone with utter contempt, but a dramatic confrontation in which I was made to feel a worthless 'nothing' forced me to reflect on my immediate future, my social status in retirement, and the importance of work.I abandoned thoughts of full retirement and took up new research commitments, having concluded that, for me, it was important to be a 'something', whatever that 'something' was.

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