Recert Redux

Year 2000. I’m sitting in a semi-fancy hotel ballroom near LAX along with several hundred slightly edgy Emergency Physicians. We’re all awaiting the start of our ABEM written re-certification examination. This was in the old-school days of live exams. We had an MD Master of Ceremonies, a famous EM leader; and I can still remember his message to the assemblage. “If you’re re-certing for the first time, welcome, relax, good luck and you’ll do fine.” (His recognition, that I was young enough to remember some of what I’d learned in residency, was heartening and slowed my palpitating, somewhat. Plus, I’d studied.) He continued…smiling, “If you’re re-certing for the second time, my condolences!” Polite titters and a few groans issued from the crowd. I partly missed his meaning then; now I understand. Then, before telling us to break the exam seal and pick up our #2 pencils, or whatever it was we did to start, he said “If you’re recertifying for the third time, you’ve done something horribly wrong in the stock market.” And without having to state it, his one arched eyebrow and sardonic grin drove home “…and in your life.”

Year 2020. I’m supposed to re-cert for the 3rd time. With the dual soft landings of Medicare in a few months and Social Security 14 months after that, and my non-horrible stock market performance, I don’t really have to re-cert to live. But I do find myself wondering, have I done something horrible … with my life!

Emergency Medicine drew me in because it allowed me to do good deeds. More seductions included … variety, immediacy, collegiality and…