The aging intensivist and academia

Throughout my education and my professional life, I was usually the youngest one around. It came as quite a shock a few years ago, then, when I looked about and discovered that I was one of the oldest full-time neurointensivists in the country, perhaps in the world, and also one of the oldest practicing intensivists of any sort. This realization led me to some consideration of how I arrived in this position and what I should plan to do in the future. However, these concerns are similar to those of most intensivists as they age. Since the focus of this chapter is specifi cally on academia, I will concentrate predominantly on the interactions of the various parts of the academic medical center with the role of the older intensivist in particular, with some reference to the aging faculty member in general.