New focus and investment after clinical retirement

The post-retirement adventures of Dr Rouzier include world travel and a bike journey down the West Coast of America. However, we want to share with you a more transcendent journey Dr Rouzier has taken, one in which combines so many of the threads of our profession: deep affection for the patient–physician relationship, love of physical activity and a passion for service. This journey began 15 years ago. His son Anthony had embraced yoga, and Dr Rouzier joined him in the practice. He immediately recognised the benefits and became fascinated with this low cost/minimal equipment means for conditioning the body and the mind. The practice of yoga became a family fixture, with father and son enjoying the practice in each other’s company.

Dr Rouzier was so enthused with yoga that he pursued becoming an instructor in the discipline. Prior to becoming a physician, Dr Rouzier had been a high school teacher and coach, and throughout his career he had enjoyed coaching people on lifestyle interventions to lead a healthier life.

Finding the practice of teaching yoga rewarding, he looked for ways to bring this education to his community. In 2022, while taking a class taught by his other son, Nicholas, the ‘Eureka moment’ arrived. Outside the studio there were several homeless people. Dr Rouzier told his son ‘You ought to teach yoga to the homeless’. Nicholas responded: ‘That would be tough to arrange, however it would be equally meaningful to teach yoga in a prison’.

Finding purpose: serving a marginalised community

The USA has more incarcerated individuals per capita than any other country in the world. In fact, 11 million individuals were admitted to prisons or jails in the USA in 2016.2 The experience of incarceration affects more than the individual. Parental incarceration can now be considered a common adverse child experience in the USA, affecting 1 in 14 children before the age of 18. Astoundingly, in the USA more children (5.3 million) will experience this adverse child experience than will have asthma (5.1 million).3

The US Supreme Court has established that incarcerated individuals have a constitutional right to ‘reasonably adequate’ healthcare. There is a debate, however, over the definition of ‘reasonably adequate’, and disparity persists in the quality of care related to comfort, health privacy, and informed decision-making for incarcerated patients versus non-incarcerated patients.4–6

A conversation with Dr Rouzier and a lawyer friend about the Massachusetts correctional system ensued. This led to conversations with the county sheriff about entering a local jail and leading a class of inmates. The idea was well received and blossomed into actuality in January 2023. Dr Rouzier now teaches yoga two times a week at Hampshire County Jail as a volunteer, and he works with two other instructors who can cover when he is absent (figure 1).

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Figure 1

Yoga instructor Dr Pierre Rouzier.

When asked what teaching yoga gives him, Dr Rouzier replied: ‘LOTS of satisfaction! When I retired I kind of lost my sense of purpose’. We also asked Dr Rouzier what he thinks yoga may give to incarcerated individuals and he shared several thoughts on the matter, considering the theme of ‘breathing and relaxing under stress’ the most important. He will have his students do a physically stressful pose such as a forearm plank. When he can tell they’re tired he’ll say: ‘Imagine someone’s yelling at you, getting in your face, or honking their horn at you and you just want to snap—now just breathe it away’. Adding a meditative component to help them relax and sleep is also key. And he makes the class physically difficult, so the participants can improve their conditioning. Recently, one of the participants told him after class ‘today it just made sense’.

Beyond the body

Another anecdote Dr Rouzier shared demonstrates the power and potential of yoga for true reform within the penal system. Two men were particularly devoted to his classes. One day one of the individuals was absent, and when Dr Rouzier asked his friend about his whereabouts, the latter said: ‘Good news and bad news—the bad news is that he’s not coming to class anymore; the good news is that he’s been released to a community program’. Dr Rouzier received this news with conflicting emotions: happy for the individual but also and somewhat strangely sad to not have him in class anymore. Prior to this somewhat unexpected departure, the individual had even asked Dr Rouzier about the process to become a yoga instructor and about careers in health and wellness fields.

Over the course of a sports medicine career, many of us will have cared for individuals who have had friends in jail or who themselves have had problems with the law. Each of us reading this piece may reflect on an athlete who has experienced prison time or has had a loved one live this experience. We applaud Dr Pierre Rouzier for making a difference in the world beyond his chosen career, for his commitment to a marginalised group that may often be forgotten, and for showing us how to bring a passion for service and advocacy into retirement. Dr Rouzier has demonstrated another powerful and very special expression of the notion that exercise is indeed medicine—for the body, mind, and spirit.