July started with a bang, and I thought I'd share it with those few of you who read the blog despite not sharing DNA with me. It was a weird "moons lined up with Jupiter" sort of situation where several of my invisible friends through blogging bestowed kindnesses that happened to occur in roughly the same one week period.
For A Trauma Surgeon, That Didn't Hurt A Bit
First, the trauma surgeon Dr. Nii Darko was kind enough to host me on his excellent podcast, Docs Outside The Box. We bonded over our common experience growing up as the children of first generation immigrant parents, specifically the expectations for high achievement and the weight of needing to establish the family name in the adopted country. (We also both married out of our league, and congratulated one another on our good fortune.)
I met Nii as part of the physician finance contingent at Fin Con 18. While not strictly a physician finance podcast, Nii brings a unique approach to interviewing physicians, breaking stereotypes that there is a single right way to practice medicine. In destroying the image of physicians as golf-on-Wednesday monoliths, he makes space for physicians who are pioneering alternative practice arrangements.
Beyond medicine, these docs pursue creative or business endeavors, participate in hands-on parenting, and maintain a balance that prior generations of physicians never considered possible. Financial Independence as a means to gain control of your time is one important facet Nii highlights through his podcast.
[Nii is one half of a power couple of doctorpreneurs, the other half being his wife, the OB/GYN Dr. Renee Darko, who (among other endeavors) runs a Keeping Up With The Darkos blog that describes their successful battle to overcome tremendous educational debt. If you are a dual-physician, debt-laden couple, this is the blog to follow.]The Artist Formerly Known As Prince Miss Bonnie, MD
Next, a guest post I'd written months earlier for another Fin Con friend, the dermatologist Dr. Bonnie Koo, appeared on her new and improved site Wealthy Mom, MD. Bonnie has been a rising star for some time, and I've taken great pleasure in witnessing her become the go-to source for personal finance information for women physicians.
Bonnie appears regularly with Carrie Reynolds (another Fin Con 18 alumna) in a "Friends Talk Finance" segment on the the Hippocratic Hustle podcast, where they have become the Laverne and Shirley of female physician finance. I say this with high praise as I am more like the Lenny and Squiggy of physician finance.
As if the 1970s sitcom metaphor were not strained enough, the Big Ragu of physician finance, none other than Physician on Fire, highlighted the guest post in last week's Sunday Best.
White Coat Hypertension
The week's final highlight was getting to see my name listed alongside many of my heroes as a featured speaker at the White Coat Investor's upcoming Physician Wellness and Financial Literacy Conference.
It was an unexpected and fortunate confluence of factors that led to my participation, and I'm grateful to both Jim and Vagabond MD for the opportunity.
I expect it to be one of the rare instances where allowing what happens in Vegas to extend to the rest of your life may be beneficial.