"Remember high school and the little cliques? It's kind of like that," she said. "I'm outside that since I'm married and older."

But that doesn't bother the Southern California native who, after 10 years as a court reporter and a career as a physical therapist, decided in her 40s to fulfill a lifelong dream to go to medical school, an ambition long delayed by marriage, motherhood and perceptions of what was socially acceptable.

"It was unheard of in 1980 to be outside of the traditional 22 to 25 (age range). Not only that, but very few women were accepted" to medical school, Dr. Bishop said.

The eldest members of the baby boomer generation -- a demographic wave of Americans born after World War II -- turn 62 this year. While surveys find that many are planning to work well into their retirement, either part time or volunteering, a large number also plan to go into new fields.

Less common is the baby boomer embarking upon a career in medicine, a venture that requires an enormous commitment of time, money -- and guts.

"It requires not just physical stamina, but it requires courage to do this," said Dr. Mack Worthington, chairman of the family medicine residency program at Erlanger and president of the Tennessee Medical Association. "Think about coming back to a very structured environment that has a high degree of stress in it."

Dr. Worthington oversees the work of Dr. Bishop, a second-year resident in the program.

Dr. Bishop, 57, had previously been a court reporter and a physical therapist before deciding to go to medical school and specializing in geriatrics.

"She's a high-energy person," he said. "Many people don't have the energy when they get on in their life, but there are others who continue to be very active people in their 50s and 60s. Some of them run circles around people in their 30s."

The decision to go to medical school in his 40s was decidedly more capricious for Ringgold, Ga., native John Emberson, now 58 and an obstetrician-gynecologist in Chattanooga, Tenn.

After 12 years as an agricultural extension agent for the University of Georgia and another dozen years as a farmer and construction worker, his wife one day offhandedly suggested he might try medicine.

"It wasn't like I'd always wanted to be a doctor," he said. "The odds of a 40-something-year-old farmer getting into medical school aren't real good. You kind of have to figure there's a little divine intervention along the way."

It wasn't all divine, however, said Dr. Emberson, who attended the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta.

"I'd hate to do it again, but I would definitely do it," he said. "Medical school was pretty intimidating. ... The kids that you're going to school with are the age of my children."

A 2005 Merrill Lynch study of more than 3,400 baby boomers found that most of them plan to work in retirement and, of those who will continue working, 56 percent expect to work in a completely different field.

Anti-discrimination legislation and widespread acceptance of women in the medical field have broken down many of the barriers to embarking upon a new career late in life, boomers here said.

"When I applied to medical school I was 28 or 29," Dr. Worthington said. "One of the schools I applied to wrote back and said sorry -- they weren't considering any applicants beyond the age of 26."

In Chattanooga, Dr. Donna Hobgood, 59, said she saw doors open later in her life that she hadn't seen when choosing her first career as a teacher.

"Around here you saw a lot of social change happen in the early '70s," said the obstetrician-gynecologist at Memorial Hospital. "I think the social changes had a lot of implications (and) certainly one of them was more a drive for personal freedom, which also spelled out that in the workplace you could pursue a job that you wanted to pursue."

Liberated from what she termed a very traditional upbringing in Chickamauga, Ga. -- "a sort of 'Leave It to Beaver' world," she said -- Dr. Hobgood left the teaching field for medical school in her 30s, finishing up an OB-GYN residency at Erlanger in 1988 at age 40.

"As the generations have gone on, it's clear that it's going to become more and more equal at work and at home," Dr. Hobgood said.

Dr. Bishop said, "I do think the baby boom generation was the first to kind of protest and not follow the traditional (life plan of) the World War II generation. We're more likely to challenge authority and say, 'Why not?'"

About 10 percent of all applicants to U.S. medical schools -- there were about 42,000 applicants in 2007 -- are over age 28, said Gwen Garrison, associate vice president of student and applicant studies at the Association of American Medical Colleges. The median age of medical students over the last 20 years has hovered at about 24, she said.

"When they translate to who gets admitted, it ends up being a couple of handfuls spread throughout the medical schools," she said.

Ms. Garrison said there does not seem to be any increase in recent years in the number of older medical students. As the country has experienced a physician shortage, medical schools today often are hesitant to take on students who may not be able to work as practicing physicians for a significant amount of time, she said.

"When you start getting older and older, the medical schools talk very specifically with older students about, 'Can you commit to a career for the next 10 years?' With the doctor shortage right now, I think this is putting more pressure on that conversation. ... We really want to be very productive about training and educating people to meet the demands of our population."

The decisiveness that can come with age is an asset when going into the field of medicine, Dr. Worthington said.

"Looking at people who've done other things and who have had a lot of life experiences ... their goals become even sharper and clearer at that point, as far as making decisions about what they want to do for the remainder of their life," he said.

Dr. Bishop, who intends eventually to specialize in geriatrics, said she often can relate to her patients' conditions, particularly when working in gynecology.

"I've been through menopause, and I know what hormones are like," she said.

She also said she has confidence in her interactions with her superiors.

"I'm not intimidated by the older attending (physicians) who are my age or younger," she said. "I don't feel hesitant to ask questions, because I'm very willing to humiliate myself. Maybe the younger people would be hesitant to do that, because they don't want to look like an idiot."

Dr. Emberson said he feels he can understand his patients on a different level than doctors who have known only the medical field.

"It kind of gives you a little different view of life, knowing there are people who work just as hard as we do and don't get the recognition," he said. "And it kind of gives you an appreciation for your patients' position. Sometime you know they can't do everything we advise them to do. ... Maybe it gives me a little more empathy."

Dr. Bishop said she does not intend to retire -- ever.

"It would drive me crazy. What are you going to do, golf all day?" she said. "I want to be able to work until I'm pushing my walker down the hall."

Dr. Hobgood said she doesn't have any definite plan to leave the work force, either.

"Certainly in the job I'm doing now I like it and really don't see that I want to retire," she said.

With a healthy lifestyle, age does not have to be a limitation in the medical field, Dr. Worthington said.

"I think excitement and passion about what you're doing and having the health to do it are the most important factors," he said.

Dr. Emberson's retirement plans still are up in the air, but he expects to take it easier eventually.

"Who knows? I'm 58, and I don't see retiring at any time particularly soon," he said. "I've always wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail, and I think that might be one of the things I'll do when I retire."

Source: Chattanooga Times/Free Press. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. Powered by Yellowbrix.

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