Once you go iphone, can you go back?

crispydocUncategorized

I have an embarrassing confession to make. Despite my otherwise frugal instincts, I’m a sucker for a well-designed Apple product.  My brother-in-law, a conscientious consumer, reminds me that the equivalent PC or Android product offers far more flexibility and bang for my buck, but I see a sleek aluminum case and my rational mind turns to mush.  The prospect of …

Don’t Lose Sight of the Small Victories

crispydocUncategorized

Heading into a recent Monday overnight shift, I was greeted by a six rig salute (six ambulances parked fender to fender in the ED drop-off lot). As is my custom, I  bounded down the staircase from the physician parking lot taking two steps at a time. I was psyching myself up for what was sure to be a whopper of …

Obituary

crispydocUncategorized

A recent debate held simultaneously on the WCI forum and PoF blog touched on whether physicians owe a long career in practice as part of a greater debt to society.  As a doc pursuing FI/RE, here’s my contribution to the discussion: When my then girlfriend (now wife) and I moved from the northeast to southern California, we rented an apartment …

Determining Risk Tolerance

crispydocUncategorized

One of the challenges for a new investor is determining your risk tolerance, which is how aggressively to invest your savings.  There are several considerations to factor into determining how much volatility you can handle – in this case volatility means what percent of stocks (vs. bonds) you feel comfortable owning in your asset allocation. 80/20 would be considered aggressive …

The Less I Do, The Wealthier I Become

crispydocUncategorized

One of my favorite attendings in residency used to quip: “Don’t just do something, stand there!”  This was said in the Emergency Department at UCLA, not exactly known as a place of passive observation in the face of chaos, but the underlying Hippocratic rationale was solid: unless your intervention is likely to help the patient, first do no harm. Strangely, …