Turning a century last month, Dr. Howard Tucker continues to lavish knowledge and health. Even after being named by the Guinness Book, the book of records, as the oldest doctor in the world, when he was 99 years old, he only stopped seeing patients shortly afterwards.
The neurologist has recently stopped seeing appointments but keeps busy teaching resident physicians at St. Vincent Charity Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States, twice a week.
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In an interview with Today, he claims that his long career is one of the main reasons he has reached longevity. “I see retirement as the enemy of longevity,” he said.
Doctor since 1947
Born in 1922, graduated from the Ohio State University School of Medicine in 1947, he served as a Navy neurologist during the Korean War. “Anyone who was discharged from the Navy for neurological reasons, if he lived east of the Mississippi, I had to have him examined first,” Tucker told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA).
At the time when Dr. Tucker graduated, CT and MRI did not exist. He says that to diagnose patients he used little more than his knowledge of medicine.
“There were no diagnostic tools of this magnitude,” Tucker told the JTA. “We used to agonize over a problem. Is this a pattern of a tumor? Is this a pattern of abnormality with a stroke? Back then, we had to work harder, but it was fun.”
Always active mind
As a neurologist, he continues to argue that staying mentally active is the key to a long life — whether staying in their careers or engaging in mentally challenging hobbies. “I think in order to retire, you can face the potential to wither and end up in a nursing home. It’s fun to stay alive and work,” he told the TODAY.
In his interview, done over a video call, Dr. Tucker also showed that he has his own computer and smartphone, and is often tech-savvy, especially when it comes to work. “It’s delicious work. Every day I learn something new.
A 2016 study of 3,000 adults and published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health found that staying at work for another year reduced the risk of dying from any cause by 11% over the next 20 years.
Dr. Tucker shares this result, but also recognizes that genetics can help, after all his mother and father lived to be 84 and 96, respectively. Another important point, according to him, is not to smoke.
“Study each day as if you were going to live forever and live each day as if you were going to die tomorrow,” he told the WKYC, claiming to be his philosophy of life. “I carry this with me all the time.”
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