Credentialing & Privileging

Age: Not necessarily a barrier to excellent practice

Credentialing Resource Center Connection, April 14, 2003

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Dear Credentialing Colleague:

Chances are you have one or more on your medical staff. There may be some concern about his or her diagnostic abilities, technical skills, or professional judgment. There's also a good chance that this physician is among the best healers the community.

So what is a medical staff to do when a physician reaches that "certain age?" In other industries closely associated with public safety, these individuals face mandatory retirement. In the academic environment, they teach until they become octogenarians. Still others wait longingly to reach "retirement age."

I've found that the very best medical staff policies and procedures require physicians of a certain arbitrary age to undergo more frequent collective reviews and reappraisals of their skills and cognitive abilities. They also may be subject to mandatory physical and mental exams as a prerequisite to bi-annual reapplication. Their younger peers and co-workers certainly help to ease the transition from active practice to semi-retirement to retirement by shouldering and sharing more complex patient cases.

At the other end of the spectrum are medical staff leaders who ignore the situation completely, and hope their term ends before a significant problem occurs.

Gerontologists are quick to point out that human faculties deteriorate with age. Our eyesight dims, hearing diminishes, hand-eye coordination deteriorates, tremors may set in, and knowledge and judgment are compromised.

Unfortunately for medical staffs, there is no set age at which these changes occur. There is no national for federal law upon which to base our policies. Credentials committees are left to deal with this issue on a case-by-case basis, and that may be our best response.

That's all for this week.

All the best,

Hugh Greeley



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