Program aims to retrain retired physicians for primary care

In early August, Leonard Glass, MD, a retired reconstructive and plastic surgeon in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., launched Physician Retraining & Reentry, a $7,500 online course designed to help retired specialists make the jump to primary care without requiring a return to medical school. The program, which comprises 100 hours of online instruction, is only for physicians who have maintained their medical licenses. It is designed to refresh and deepen the family medicine skills of physicians who spent their careers in a medical specialty.

Glass, who worked locally in private practice and did a stint as a surgical professor at UC San Diego before retiring in 2005, said he hit on the idea of an online retraining course about two years ago after reading an article in The Wall Street Journal about a pending shortage of primary care physicians. Even though Glass does not think his retraining plan can fix this problem, he said he believes retired physicians are an untapped resource that can help.