I think the moral of the story is: to each their own. Some people prefer or at least can tolerate some things about a specialty while others don't or can't. Fair enough, and that's why I'm glad there are different specialties for different people. Although since this is the rads forum, I assume things will likely skew more rads and/or against other specialties or fields (e.g., outpatient medicine). That's understandable. It'd probably be similar in other forums for their own specialties.
However, my original point was about whether an elderly physician (60s) can make it in an outpatient clinic with a decent lifestyle. That depends on a number of factors. Such as the physician (e.g., can they tolerate outpatient work), the patients and pathologies you're seeing, the practice setup, the work load, call burden, perhaps payer mix if people care about money still, good insurance companies to work with, if a physician can work part-time, as well as how one prioritizes each factor and so forth. All these things come into play. It's not a simple yes or no answer applicable to every single physician. That said, if a physician can have most of the factors they most value met, then I don't see why it's not possible to have a decent lifestyle working outpatient medicine as an elderly physician.
As for whether rads offers a better or worse lifestyle than another specialty (e.g., outpatient medicine), I'd like to clarify I never made any comment comparing rads with another specialty in terms of lifestyle. I think rads can offer a very nice lifestyle. But I can't answer whether that's better or worse than another specialty with a nice lifestyle. That's because it depends on what factors different physicians will prioritize in their life. I know some people who couldn't do what radiologists do day after day, no matter how cush life is. Personally, I really wanted to love derm, and did a rotation in it, but at the end of the day I realized it's just not for me, no matter how nice the lifestyle (and money) may be. Again, to each their own.
