Throughout my career, “getting done early” was a rare and welcome occasion. It meant the day had gone smoothly: patients seen, charts completed, staff questions answered; I could maybe even pick up the kids from school. It was a small victory, a cause for celebration and a chance to do something spontaneous.

I was on the verge of getting “done early” as I stepped off the elevator and into the hallway of the medical ward. I expected the scene to resemble every hospital I had walked through in the last 25 years. The familiar sights were all there: the worn floor tiles, the cluttered nursing stations and equipment crowding the corridors, but something felt different. It wasn’t the setting; it was the people. The clerks at the desk, the patient care technicians, the nurses, the transporters—they were all visibly young, fresh-faced and untouched by the weariness that often comes from years of walking with patients through suffering.

I located the nurse caring for my patient and, following a hunch, asked how long she had worked there. “Three months out of nursing school,” she said.

“That’s great!” I replied. “How do you like the work?”

Her smile faded. “It’s been a bit of a struggle. We’re all new here.”

She didn’t elaborate, but I knew what she meant. When I finished training and became an attending, I thought I knew it all. It only took a few weeks for me to understand there is a difference between technical competency and medical wisdom. Competency is performing the emergency cesarean quickly and without error. Wisdom is helping the patient and her husband understand what life will be like with a baby in the NICU for months, and then understand long-term care needs at home.

As a new physician, experienced physicians were my greatest resource. Through their life experiences and gentle guidance, they quietly and consistently passed down the wisdom of intuition and judgment honed through compassionate journeys with patients. I had several colleagues who practiced well into their 60s and even early 70s. They stayed long enough to impact me and numerous others after me. They helped my competency grow into wisdom.

The phrase “done early” took on a new meaning as I stood in that ward. If no one on the floor that day appeared to be over 35, then it wasn’t just a scheduling quirk we were witnessing. The experienced clinicians—the ones who could mentor, guide and pass on their wisdom to the younger generation—were gone. They had left the halls of medicine—moved on. They had, in a very real sense, gotten “done early.”

There are innumerable reasons why clinicians may leave medicine early. Medicine has always been hard, but the nature of its difficulty is changing. Long hours and evolving technology are nothing new, but for some, loss of control, moral injury, corporatization and administrative burden were more than growing pains.

I’ll admit, there have been times I’ve considered leaving myself. The idea of finding something else has tempted me more than once, but something keeps me here.

William Osler once said, “The good physician treats the disease. The great physician treats the patient who has the disease.” I believe that, still, but several of today’s trainees haven’t seen this way of medicine modeled to them. If the only examples they see are mid-career physicians venting about circumstances and plotting their exit, why wouldn’t they view medicine as transactional rather than transformational?

That’s why I stay.

I walk these halls to model another way of medicine. One where patients are people, not productivity metrics. Where quality isn’t sacrificed on the altar of efficiency. Where we take time to understand the entire story, not just the chief concern. Where we hold ourselves to one standard of care—the one we’d demand for our own families. Where we pursue purpose, not just promotion.

My wisdom may not be as elegant as Osler’s, but it is lived. I offer it as someone who has both given and received care. And I remain—not because I’m stuck, but because I believe my presence makes a difference. We owe it to the next generation to be more than cautionary tales. We owe them our time, our stories and our wisdom—until they’re ready to take the torch and care for us and our children.