Docs Who Cut Back #7: Loonie Doc

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Editor’s note: My wife likes to quote an old world saying that there’s a lid for every pot (usually used in the context of dating). Similarly, I want every reader of this blog to find at least one interviewee that reflects the reader’s peculiar circumstances and compulsions. This interviewee qualifies, in the best of ways, as both peculiar and compulsive. …

A Service For Doctors To Assume Control Over Their Finances

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Teach Me To Fish I want you to own your financial life, because I used to be you. I always had an excuse why now was not the right time to learn about money. Maybe you accumulated debt from your education, a home, a car, or credit cards. On a doctor’s high income, you’ll always have enough. Maybe your career …

Docs Who Cut Back #5: Wealthy Doc

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Wealthy Doc was possibly the first physician finance blogger, generously helping us learn financial literacy back when Al Gore had barely invented the internet. In those days, the White Coat Investor had not yet started his blog, skinny ties were all the rage, and we docs were doing stupid things with our money. Nearly a decade later, WCI might clear …

Strategies For Cutting Back: Group Policy Change

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But we’ve always done it this way! Medicine is a conservative profession, where change is viewed with suspicion and the reason, “But we’ve always done it this way!” is as unquestionable as, “I’m the mommy, that’s why!” was in childhood. (Incidentally, the latter was the bumper sticker on the station wagon that served as my first car, which made meeting …

Docs Who Cut Back #1: Vagabond MD

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You don’t have to become a refugee from medicine. Welcome to the first installment in what I hope will become a shared playbook for physicians who seek role models: docs who cut back to improve work-life balance. Mime in a shrinking box, anyone? When burnout strikes, the reflex is to desperately search for an escape hatch from medicine as quickly …

A Review of The Doctors Guide To Smart Career Alternatives And Retirement by Dr. Cory S. Fawcett

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Dr. Cory S. Fawcett describes himself as a repurposed physician, which is one of the more delightful descriptions of a retiree’s encore career I’ve heard to date. I had the pleasure of meeting Cory (forgive my Californian’s desire to remain on informal terms) at FinCon18, and he was far more than I expected: former rock star Stanford student (as a …

Don’t Let Someone Else’s Script Narrate Your Story

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Sometimes the people we love are those most likely to sabotage us by insisting on forcing our unconventional narrative to fit within their traditional story framework. My wife’s grandmother, a widow, had developed dementia and moved to an assisted living facility. My wife’s aunt, a successful attorney in her 50s who happened to be single, had come from out of …

Are You Having A Career ALTE?

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Alternate Title: The Father, The Son And The Holy Crap! Careers in medicine have evolved over time. It’s always been a hard path, but previously, you knew what you were getting when you signed up. Recent changes have eliminated significant autonomy and prestige from a medical career. Increased debt conspires with decreased satisfaction until we unexpectedly encounter an Apparent Longevity …

Convergence

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Alternate Title: Carolina In My Mind This weekend was spent in North Carolina strengthening ties with people we love but see less often than we’d like. BT is one of those people. He was not a typical emergency medicine resident Most of us were single. BT was married with a kid. Most of us had family in California BT was …

A Priority We Pursue vs. A Luxury We Can Uniquely Afford

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Pursuing financial independence, especially as a physician, can inadvertently bring about feelings of resentment from colleagues. Taking cues from bloggers far smarter and more experienced than I am, I’ve learned not to bring up the subject of finances around co-workers, although if asked I’ll volunteer that I geeked out on finance a few years back and took over managing our …