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Episode 32. Jason Mizell,MD Transcript

Tarang P  0:02

Hello and welcome to the doctor Money Matters podcast,

The show where we discuss important financial topics that we’ve never covered in med school. I’m your host Dr. Tarang Patel.

Welcome back to another episode of the Doctor Money Matters podcast.

I want to thank you all for continuing to listen to the podcast and continuing to make our numbers growth. And I also want to thank the many of you have recently joined the doctor Money Matters Facebook group, the group has grown by nearly 50% in the last month and the discussions have been spirited. Please continue to add your physician and medical professional colleagues so they can join in the conversation as well.

Some of our most recent popular topics have been determining your retirement number and also Dr. Meru, an orthodontist in Utah, who was recently profiled in the Wall Street Journal about having a million dollars in student loans.

In this episode, I interview Dr. Jason Mizell, a colorectal surgeon at the University of Arkansas Medical Center, he started to teach a class to residents and then fourth year medical students about finances. As I mentioned in the intro to this show, most of us were never taught these topics in medical training and it leaves us left us to figure it out for ourselves often a great expense in terms of fees and financial mistakes. Dr. Mizell, like many of us, felt lost and dealing with these topics. When he first came out of training. We’re going to talk about his experience during the show, but he realized that he he was not alone and decided to do something to help his colleagues and students.

This class has become very popular and hopefully it spreads to other schools. Perhaps we should have some of these topics addressed even before medical schools to avoid Dr. Meru type situation.

Okay, let’s get started with my interview with Dr. Jason Mizell. Okay, welcome back to another episode of the Doctor Money Matters podcast. My guest today is Dr. Jason Mizell, a surgeon and director and creator of the business of medicine course at the University of Arkansas medical school, Dr. Mizell, Welcome to the show.

Jason Mizell  2:17

Thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Tarang P  2:19

So this This podcast is about finance. And there’s a lot of blogs and other physician

financial podcasts and media out there now, but you created this course back I think earlier than most people were thinking about it. I think maybe the white coat investor was the only other person at the time who was blogging about physicians and finance at the time. So tell me a little bit about the course that you’ve developed and the the origins of the business of medicine course.

Jason Mizell  2:53

Okay, so I started here as a new faculty in 2010, I did general surgery and then did a colorectal fellowship. And then came got recruited to come here as colorectal staff. And when I started my belief is my second day here. Our billing and coding department brought me my CPT books and my ICD nine books and drop them off and said, Okay, here’s your here’s your books for CPT and for ICD nine. And I kind of laughed and said, we’re, what are these books. And so they laughed and said, that’s, that’s funny. That’s a good joke. And I was like, Well, I’m not really joking. I really don’t know what these books are for.

And so that was the, the look of horror and, and disdain on their face, for my lack of knowledge was pretty eye opening. And so what I realized is that I I knew a lot about are often you know, for, like a new fair amount about colon rectal surgery, but I didn’t know anything about everything after my training stopped as far as the billing and revenue side of it. So I really felt this desire then at that point, because I was at a teaching hospital that I did not well, my residents graduating with the same knowledge deficit that I had coming out of my residency and fellowship. So I talked to my Chairman, and we were just so happening to in the stage of where we were changing up our grand rounds, and dropping one of our monthly lectures. And so I came to him with the idea and said, I’d really like to start teaching our residents about some business aspects of medicine and finance. And so he was Welcome to give me an hour, once a month in our grand rounds. And so we actually had to faculty members here that were very savvy and business ones, a was actually a surgical oncologist who has his own business, he’s a CFP, as well. And so he would give some of the lectures on some of the investing side of it. And then we had a guy who was very prominent in the American College of Surgeons who knows a lot about the healthcare on a national platform and national level. And so I brought them in, and some other faculty and people that I knew could teach about business. And so we just created this curriculum and would give lectures during Grand Rounds that were mostly focused on business. And then once a month, we would give a lecture on personal finance that was more elective that way of residents wanted to come, they could, they could bring their spouse if they wanted, but I felt like they’re required time, which Grand Rounds that I would make that something very business specific, there’ll be more of their practice. And then if they wanted to learn the personal aspect of it, then they would come in the evenings. So we did that for for a couple years. So that’s kind of how it got started.

Tarang Patel

Okay. And so how, how was the response.

Jason Mizell

So it was quite good. It was, it was very eye opening for them, because they had never had a faculty member that really had that interest in their education, you know, that nobody ever really shown any, any sort of drive to help make sure they knew how to deal with money. So as a little, they thought it was a little funny, I think, at first and then we had a lot of faculty that were very disinterested, you know, they would leave whenever the talks would start. But then as they realized what we were talking on slowly the crowd became a mixture of residents and then our faculty because is most of us know we don’t know anything about it either. So what what started out as resin education became Reza and faculty education, right. And I think that that’s a good point that you bring up because

Tarang P  6:27

it is a it’s not an uncommon situation that you faced, you know what, like you said, when you first got out, and you didn’t know any of this stuff, because as far as, as, I mean, my own personal training, and I would think most physicians, you know, no matter what specialty they’re in, there’s just they don’t get that there’s not enough time. I mean, some of some of them might pick it up a little bit if they’re doing some private practice type rotations or things like that. But it’s there’s very little formal training that I’m aware of, in most specialty. So I think, you know, it’s a it’s definitely a good thing that you brought up and it’s but it but it’s definitely a deficit. And like you said, a lot of your colleagues probably, you know, we’re feeling the same way when when they started, but, but it’s something that traditionally has been kind of, I don’t know, it’s, it’s not something we talked about, you know, in medicine. I mean, we’re supposed to be the the healers, and we’re well paid healers better, but we somehow don’t talk about money. So, you know, what was the response from your other colleagues? I mean, you mentioned a little bit, they initially stayed away, but how did you kind of get them to come around to it?

Jason Mizell  7:41

Yeah, so, so that’s a good question. I still get sort of this, this quizzical, confused look, whenever I mentioned to people that I’m about to go give a talk on business finance, or what have you. I mean, a still, it’s just so foreign, as you mentioned, I mean, nobody, nobody does it. And it’s this kind of taboo topic that nobody likes to talk about, even even the medicine side of it, you know, like the billing and coding and our lack of knowledge, they’re much less everybody’s personal finance, and how they’re doing with managing their own personal money. You know, so it’s, it’s just this funny topic where everybody knows it’s a huge need, but nobody wants to address it. And if you if you try, you get pushed back a little bit, I think people assume that every physician doesn’t know it. And so then when you try to begin to, to make your yourself a little bit more known for they, they doubt you, I think a little bit because they assume that there’s no way that any doctor can only think about money. So so I think I’m, I’m hopefully pass that a little bit around here. But But still, it’s it’s very common, and the other faculty members, like when I gave Grand rounds yesterday, we had a few that stayed and asked very good questions. But, but still, some feel like they’ve got it under control for whatever reason, and sort of move on, but but it’s, it’s fun, the faculty that really show an interest in it, you can get some really, really fun spirited conversations and throw some ideas. And so it gets to be very interesting. And I really like it for the residents. Because they see that it’s not just my thing, when faculty stick around for the talks. And they see that it really is something that’s important, I think, that add some weight to the, you know, the topic as a whole, and they really realized there really is something that really does matter, right.

Tarang Patel 9:32

And I mean, they and for the residents and the medical students, I mean, you know, we get so much thrown at them during training about the, you know, the academic side of surgery, or whatever field they’re in, it’s probably a nice thing in a way to actually turn on a little bit different portion of their brain too, because it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s also vitally important to learn these topics. But it is a little bit different than then obviously, the meaning stuff that they that they’re getting all day.

So right. So So you said, You started this course when you when you first arrived at Arkansas, so how, how is the chorus kind of evolved over over the years that you’ve been doing it.

Jaon Mizell 10:16

So we started off in the surgery department, and it really end up being a pilot, I did not have the intention of branching out and doing a more broad application of it. I what I noticed was that whenever I was teaching this, I can, I can very distinctly remember being in the line, one of the coffee shops here on campus and talking to one of our chief residents and asking her about the course. And she just opened up to me right there in the in the coffee line, and mentioned about how it’s been helpful for her because she was carrying about $40,000 in credit card debt. Just remember that striking the so strongly that, you know, these are these are residents that every day I’m taking an operating room and trying to teach them how to do laparoscopic surgery and cut out cancer and do all these complex things. And in the back of their mind, they’re thinking, am I gonna be able to, you know, pay my credit card bill this month?

Or am I going to be able to, you know, get my my loans paid this month, or, you know, should I really go buy this BMW or not, or whatever. And so, it was things like that, I was like, wow, these, this is a problem that should have been behaviorally addressed before they even started making resident money. Because, because these are, these are some fundamental issues here. So, so what I did is, I decided, rather than making the course surgeries specific and only reaching, you know, 30 or 40 residents and students that I would broaden it and expand it to be available to the whole fourth year medical school class, because I really need they were right on the cusp of a transition into where they would go from, you know, paying to work to actually getting paid or so. So I decided that doing a course in the spring of their fourth year, really, whenever they were pretty much past the interview season, and their minds had shifted away from match and all that to where they could really just settle in and learn stuff that was kind of fun, you know, at that point, and stuff that they really knew was going to really matter, right. So I usually start the course now in about mid January. And it runs through mid April. And rather than the talks being surgery specific, they’re, they’re much broader now. And so it’s a 20 hour course, 20 hours of content spread out over 10 weeks. And with some gaps in there, cuz I don’t make them come to match. We can do some other holidays and things. But, but we do it every Monday night for two hours. So their clinical duties are done. Most students come in their workout clothes, or, you know, scrubs, or whatever, and just sit and they’ll eat food and bring their spouse. Some of them, someone will bring their kids if they can’t find babysitters, or whatever. And we cover your various different topics. this past Monday night was about life and disability insurance and estate planning. And so there’s 20 hours that that we do over the course of the spring. And I really enjoy it. Because whenever I am able to teach a topic such as retirement, I’m able to say look, in two months, whenever you go to your new hospital, somebody’s going to bring a piece of paper in front of you that says pick out your retirement mutual funds and what you want to invest it in and give it back to me tomorrow. And so I’m like, this really does matter you’re about to have to make these decisions in two months. So you need to know this now, you know, because it so it it does, you know, they have a little more skin in the game, I guess, you know, because they know it’s really about to happen rather than teaching a lot of stuff whenever their first years when it doesn’t matter as much. You know,

Tarang P  14:02

you talked about curriculum a little bit, but kind of go into it a little bit more what what what are some of the what are what are what are what are your most popular topics that you’re teaching about?

Jason Mizell  14:06

the curriculum changes a little bit each year. But what I tried to do make sure that the the topics are all relevant to the students that I want to make sure that it’s one of those things where I don’t teach what I think is important. But I teach what I know is important. But then also that they are very interested in so. So what I mean by that is I i survey all of the students at the very beginning of the course each year, and I asked him really two questions on the proposed topics. So I say, all right, how interested Are you in topic x. And then I asked him, What is your knowledge level, self assessed knowledge level. And then at the end of the course, I asked the same questions. And what I have found is the topics that they’re always the most interested in his contract negotiation, because they know, they know, that’s what’s going to help get them paid. But their their knowledge pretty much every year is always the lowest in that topic.

They’re always very interested in retirement planning and investing. They know very little about it, but are very interested. And then after that, some other ones that are interesting to them, or malpractice, things that they are less interested in are things like

Medicare and Medicaid, we did that last year, they didn’t, they didn’t have any interest in that at all, which is kind of fun. You know, because I’m like, that’s how you get paid. So, so very low interest in that they have not very much interest in estate planning, you know, and doing wills and stuff and preparing for their family.

They, they like billing and coding, oddly enough, I think it’s just because this non descriptive thing that they know, they need to know. But they know zero of that but are you are the most boring topics, billing and coding, and they didn’t even have an interest in it. So that’s, that’s encouraging. But, but that’s some of the main topics. We also talk about home buying versus renting, I’ll talk to him about physician recruitment, you know, like, I’ll have a recruiter come and talk to him and say, This is what we already know about you, this is what you should know about yourself. And this is why we’re scouting you out and how we’re gonna try to make money off of you and things like that. And the topic that I think is the most engaging to them. And the one that really gives them the most aha moment is the one about budgeting and the personal personal finance side of it, when one funny thing that we do with that each year is that we divide the class up into four parts, basically. And we, you know, there, we usually have 160 students, each class, about 120 of them sign up for the course as an elective. And so we we divide them up. So it’s about roughly 20 to 30 each group, and we give one the hidden task of car buying one house buying one lifestyle, and one usually kids college and school and we tell them, which car do you want to buy, you know, the, the Nissan the, you know, mid level Toad, or the Lexus or BMW, whatever in the house, do you want the 200,000 to 500,000 or a million dollar, whatever, we sort of give them examples.

And every year so far, when the four groups come back together, and they add up what they want to spend on lifestyle, it’s always always exceeds the theoretical budget, we’ve given them of 300 grand a year. So it’s this, it’s this sort of aha moment for them where they realize, so you’re telling me, I can’t have everything I want. Whenever I become a doctor. It’s like, No, you cannot. But that’s always this, this

lecture that I don’t think they anticipate leaving with that sort of a grasp of reality. But I always like to watch this scenario play out, and the look of sadness on their face when they realize that I can’t have you know, the high end car in the high end house and the high on lifestyle and send my kids to private school. No, sorry, you can’t, you can’t.

So that’s sort of the general overview of it.

Tarang P  18:13

Okay. And, and how, over the years now, you’ve been doing this for for a while, has has the level of like, pre existing knowledge improved at all amongst the fourth year medical students? Or is it still, you know, not as not, not to where you would like it to be?

Jason Mizell  18:33

It’s still quite low. We, one of the questions I asked them is, how many of them have ever taken a finance class ever high school, college, whatever. And usually, about 20% of them have taken at least just a single finance course. So 80% have never taken finance at all. But so they come in very deficient and that’s been consistent over each year. But what I am noticing is that the, the question that I’m getting during the lectures do seem to be a little bit more solid. And you can tell their understanding is a little better. When we first started when the home buying versus renting guys are talking. One of the first questions was, what is a mortgage? Like, they didn’t, they didn’t know the word mortgage. But I don’t get quite as many, quite as many questions about that as much anymore. But, but we still do get some very basic questions. And honestly, I love those questions. Because I just helps reinforce to me how necessary the course is. Absolutely, you know,

Tarang P  19:33

it’s it, despite what’s, you know, for, for yourself, and, and people like myself, who do the podcasts and things like that. But it seems like there’s a lot of people talking about this now. Now, granted, we all have an interest in this, but you’re absolutely right. It, it’s, you know, it’s probably we talk amongst each other. And there’s a huge segment of the not just the medical student and resident population, but the practicing physician population, that’s that’s still woefully deficient in in some of these these areas. And, you know, we’re just, we’re just getting a fraction of them. But anything anything is better than, than, than none. So I totally agree.

Jason Mizell  20:15

Yeah, yeah. And what I’ve, what I’ve noticed is that as more and more blogs rollout and things like that they’re available it is, is getting a little bit to the point, when you do have a student that’s generally interested it, it’s begin to be a little bit where it’s like, wow, where do I go, there are quite a few resources now. So. So I feel like part of my job to is to filter through some of that and give them the stuff that’s is very high yield for them and say,

Look, if you if you’re going to read two books, or if you’re going to read, you know, five blog posts, here’s what you need to read, because I know that they’re tired, they’re at the end of their fourth year of medical school. Absolutely. So I, I don’t want to have a lot of homework for them or anything, but I just want to point them to the stuff like nothing else read this, this and this, and this will get you going. Right, right. So see you started, you know, you started the course of a few years back now,

Tarang P  21:08

have you seen this this type of curriculum, you know, has, has it been developed at any other school? Or have anyone contacted you about kind of doing the same thing, or teaching them how to do this at their medical school?

Jason Mizell  21:23

Yeah, so, so I get probably an email maybe maybe once a month or so from somebody that seen the paper that we published, and the on the initial part of the course. And then my piece that I wrote for the white coat investor, people kind of find me in different ways. And I’ve spoken at a couple, you know, regional meetings, and then, you know, my name would be on the program, so people will find it my Twitter page and things. But so people will email me and say, What did you do? Can you send me the schedule, can you give me an idea of what worked What didn’t, you know, store troubleshoot but process of right now of writing up our results of the four years of the curriculum, and we’re going to try to write that and get that submitted as a research paper. And so I’ve done a pretty extensive lit review, getting ready to write the paper. And there are some programs that will do bits and pieces of our course, you know, they’ll do either just the business aspect of it, or just the personal finance aspect of it, or they’ll cover both topics, but just have like, maybe one one full day, like a weekend retreat, or something like that. But, but nothing really, to the extent of this course to the the depth and the comprehensiveness of it, doing business and finance because it, it ends up being about about 60%, personal finance, about 40% business. And so the, the content is, is pretty comprehensive, and it’s spread out so that they can kind of chew on it, and process it and think through it, and then come back with questions so that they can really be able to really digest it, no, know what they’re dealing with, and what they’re learning.

Tarang P  23:02

Right. And, you know, I was looking at an article from from University of Arkansas, his own you, you ain’t, you know, I don’t know, it’s just a flyer, or a weekly, monthly journal that they put out, but they they mentioned your course specifically. And, you know, it says it’s, the word is spreading amongst the students. And approximately Well, it says up in spring of 2017, 100% of the students rated the course as helpful. And 90% said, the course should be mandatory in medical school. So obviously, it’s something that is necessary and, and wanted by the students. So I One can only hope that, you know, this type of curriculum does make its way to the other medical schools, dental schools, any of these graduate programs, because we are that we get so much stuff that we have to teach, and I, you know, but, but some of the most precious tactical things seem to slip by the cracks. And I’m glad that people like yourself, or are kind of remedying that. Let me ask you this. So you’ve you’ve been doing this for a while. And like you said, when you first got out, you, you you didn’t know anything about the professional side of it, that ICD nine codes and stuff how has this course as it has it had any impact on your own personal finance?

Jason Mizell  24:25

Yeah, so you got this is like our fourth iteration of the course I’ve heard the talk on taxes for different times now, and estate planning for different times, and, you know, the budgeting and cash flow. And every time I sit through these topics, and a lot of our speakers are the same, because we have a pretty solid lineup now that we’ve gotten, I learned stuff every time and always tinker with mo and finances and, and whether it’s a talk on malpractice, just how to protect yourself and or whatever it is, you know, it’s, it’s been very helpful for me. And now as I have going around to some of our residency programs. As I give talks on this, I’m constantly learning because I want to be prepared for questions that may come from the audience and the students. They’re smart people, you know, these are some very smart medical students and they catch on quickly, and they have some in depth questions. And I often feel like who, I’m I’m glad you asked that to the the tax guy and not me, cuz I’m not sure I could answer that question. So I really like having the experts be able to give the lectures and then I can get all this education essentially for free while I sit there. And so I do, I learned stuff all the time, and tinker with my own finances, and, you know, try to make sure that I’m on the right trajectory for good out, you know, successful financial outcomes, too.

Tarang P  25:44 So, and that’s a, you know, honestly, that was one of my goals with with this podcast is similar to be able to speak to people and, and, you know, just kind of get the right information from the experts. So, you know, I think you as kind of the person who kind of filters out some of this information, and then guides the students, in a way is invaluable. Let me ask you this. One more question about the course if you could, you know, so, at the University of Arkansas, the students are lucky to have this course. But if you’re a medical student, let’s say, you know, across the country, and you’re interested in this topic, what would the one takeaway one point that you would like to make to, you know, fourth year medical students? If there’s one idea that you could put in their head?

What would that be about? Finance?

Jason Mizell  26:28

Yeah, that’s a, that’s a great question. You know, I, I feel like, despite really not having any knowledge at all coming out, I felt like while I was a resident, there was so little time to try to self educate. Like, I, I know that I was with my attendings for a limited time, so I needed to learn as much surgery as I possibly could in that amount of time. And that was, honestly that was all I had time for, right. And I knew that whenever I graduated fellowship, that was it, there wasn’t anybody over my shoulder anymore. And fortunately, like you guys and byte code, and like, all these different people have done such a good job of making resources available, you don’t really need to have a mentor, per se, to educate and some of the finance stuff and to have a basic plan. And so I would say there is a little bit more more hype about the finance which I think is amazing and very good. But I want to make sure that while they are in training to be physicians to devote themselves to being amazing it that gleam gleam, what you can offer your mentors. And if you are super bored with your studying under product syndrome, or whatever it is that here you study, and you want to pick up something that I would say pick up the white good investor book on your leisure time, your vacation, or something like that. And, and just you’ll get your basics in order. But don’t feel too pressure to be able to know how the, you know, the finer points of active versus passive investing or all that are because that that can come. But it’s some basic behavioral principles that you’d want to do, you know, contributing to retirement and not, you know, overextending yourself that you can get, I think, by some fairly straightforward simple reading from from you guys podcast, or from like, White Coat investor books, or whatever. And as long as you’ve got that, then you’re, you’re good, don’t don’t do things. Learn what you need to be learning and then you get out, then you can really fine tune in and know some of the deeper points

Tarang P  28:22

Absolutely, I think that’s, that’s it, I think one of the key things is that you, you made it through medical school, or you’re, you’re going through residency, that is the primary reason you’re there and doing a good job at what you’re training for. That’s the best financial decision you’re ever going to make. So make sure like you said, you do great at that. But the other thing that I would add to that is that the rest of this stuff is really not that complicated. As long as you’re doing some simple things. Yes, you get very esoteric into some of the terminology and things but even if you understand those points, it’s it’s only going to be marginally, you know, you might be marginally better. But, but the key thing is, like you said, being the best physician you can be, and, and just not making any heinous financial mistakes. And, and those are the big ones that you can learn about within a very short time. So totally agree. Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s good. Well, I wanna thank you, Dr. myself for for appearing on this podcast. Is there is there any resource obviously, we mentioned, like code investor, but any resources that you might recommend to our listeners about finding out more about your, your own, you know, your curriculum, your course, or just resources that you would recommend?

Jason Mizell  29:41

so I from from my course, I always on Twitter, anytime I try to mention something finance wise, whether it’s our speakers, or when I go to other conferences, always hashtag it with business of medicine. And there’s not many people use that hashtag. So you should be able to find interesting little little points and articles that I’ll try to pluck out and retweet so that’s easy to follow. And then the as far as books, yeah, there’s, I get that question quite a bit. As far as, you know, do you have a syllabus or whatever, I don’t really, I’m actually in the process of trying to accumulate a decent list of articles for different topics. But I think one book but obviously the white coat investor book helped me quite a bit. And but one book of recent that really helped me a lot was how to think about money, the Jonathan Clements book. And that was interesting, because I, as you mentioned earlier, you know, we’re, we are taught to be healers. And that’s what that’s what we’re here for. And we put a lot of hours into making sure we do a good job of that. I think sometimes we can get so lost in our purpose of what we’re supposed to do, we almost forget what we like. And that that book was very interesting for me, because this was sort of things like if you had all the money that you you needed or wanted, what would you do with it? And, and I had almost forgotten what that was like, for me, you know, because you become such a server. And so I think keeping that mindset of of, as much as we don’t like to talk about money, it is very real in our profession, and to not lose yourself so much in the profession. You forget what you really do enjoy and why you’re working this hard. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I think that book is a is a good refocus or of of, you know, if because it does no good to earn a bunch of money but then not really realize how you can use it, you know, further your, your plans and purposes and happiness and so that that book was particularly helpful for me So, oh, good, good. I’ll have to I haven’t read that one off to check that out. It’s good. Yeah. Alright, as far as the the actual courses itself I what I’m hoping is that once we get this last course completed next week, then I’ll actually write it up and then I’ll try to put it out there as far as once the paper gets written just to find out some more details and some of the ways we researched it and I’ll include our surveys and stuff so that people want to try to roll this out of the their own place how they can get started with you know surveys and things to try to make an academic because that’s that’s been a huge benefit to me is in my academic setting it has allowed me to proceed up through the assistant Associate Professor ranks and things and that’s all you know important academics so it’s been it’s been helpful from that standpoint as well.

Tarang P  32:21

I want to thank Dr. Jason Mizell for coming on this show and for starting this conversation and this course for for the medical students at the University of Arkansas it’s great to see someone taking initiative to help educate our younger colleagues doing it in the structured way that he does really brings value to these students maybe some of you are already helping out your students or residents by bringing the these topics up informally if you do please let me know how you’re doing so by you can tweet me or email to me at tarang@doctormoneymatters.com

Sometimes when you start learning about these financial topics the basics such as interest, inflation, compounding seem pretty simple but an article I read recently talked about how the majority of people around the world and they surveyed people in many countries developed and undeveloped and most people could not get even two of these questions right to it to two out of three questions correct. If you don’t understand these fundamental concepts are going to have a hard time getting ahead financially.

Once again, thanks for listening to this podcast. Please let your friends know your colleagues know and just share it with them. And please continue to leave us positive reviews on Apple podcast. It really helps move up move the show up into the rankings and so the appropriate audience can see it.

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Episode 33 Transcription

– Tarang Patel

Hello and welcome to the Dr. Money Matters podcast show where we discuss unfortunate financial topics that never covered in school. I’m your host Dr. Tarang Patel.

Welcome to another episode of The Dr. Money Matters podcast. In this episode I talk with Dr Amy Shah, an allergy specialist in Arizona and good friend who’s turned her passion for nutrition and health into a few solid side games. Before I introduce me I’d like to talk a little bit about why so many doctors are looking for side gigs. It seems crazy that people would undergo about 11 to 17 years of post high school training and then want to look for an additional job after they’ve worked after they worked so hard to achieve the primary goal. It speaks to this. It speaks to the dissatisfaction disillusionment and loss of autonomy that so many in medicine feel now. The Wall Street Journal had an article this past weekend about physician burnout and I’ve addressed the topic on prior episodes but we didn’t get into medicine to have our expertise undermined or questioned by those with less training were also less likely to be allowed to use our creative sides in medicine than generations past. And so some of the desire for side gigs maybe as a part as a way to try to express that. Finally in this era of living in the day and age of side gigs it’s just more common and acceptable thing to do. And also with cheap and easy technologies to help us start our businesses it also facilitates getting involved in more side gigs. Succeeding though is another story and that leads me back to my guest today who is succeeding. Amy Shah is a relative pioneer for physicians and using social media to expand her reach and develop a personal brand.

It’s been great to watch her develop this nontraditional endeavor over the past few years. She’s definitely been an inspiration and source of encouragement as I started my own podcast. In this episode we talk about how she developed an interest in nutrition at an early age. Her mindset about developing your passion into a viable business rather than just a hobby. Some of the fears that she faced while trying to develop her status as an authority on these topics. Her advice for those who are starting this process and her goals for the future of her various endeavors in addition to practicing and as an allergist she does personal wellness consults has developed products including supplements and ear buds that mold to your the shape of your ear called Sound Mole’s in conjunction with physician at her medical practice. Also she’s worked with Bobby Brown in the cosmetics industry and is now working with Genexa, an organic medication company. She’s also starting to do physician webinars and live person coaching to help those physicians interested in starting their own journey in social media and developing sidekicks. OK let’s get started with my interview with Dr. Amy Shah.

Welcome to another episode of The Dr. Money Matters podcast. My guest today is Dr. Amy Shah, a friend of ours from Phoenix who has developed a thriving side gig in the wellness field. Welcome to the show.

– Amy Shah

Thanks. Happy to be here.

– Tarang Patel

So I want to I wanted to talk to you because you’re one of the inspirations for many of us locally to kind of get branch out of our traditional aspects of medicine. And you were one of the pioneers at least you know that I can think of of the physicians in the wellness field. But before we get into that let’s talk a little bit about your background about how you got into medicine and your analogy. So tell us how you ended up choosing that specialty in college.

– Amy Shah

You know when you have all those late night deep discussions with your friends I’m not sure if you guys see this you actually did it with a lot of my guy friends who you know those. What am I going to do with my life. Talks or thoughts. And I came up with nutrition because I thought well it’s how food affects the body. So I ended up going to Cornell which has one of the best nutrition programs in the country. And lo and behold I realized that nutritionists make like 30 thousand dollars a year. And it was it. And you could be a dietitian which was like very similar. And there was all these classes you would have to take. That had nothing to do with health in the body. So I decided that I had to think of a different way to incorporate nutrition because I definitely wanted to be in a challenging career. And I just felt like this is not going to get me where I want to go. So I decided to kind of the premed route where you can combine nutrition health biology and society that was like it was my own major. So I did that and then went to med school because I was like oh this is perfect. I’m a calling like I’m going to combine nutrition and health and do all this stuff. And of course as you know like you know day one of your med school there is nothing to do with nutrition at all. There is not even talk about food and is at least in the way that I thought would be impactful. So I knew that there was something there but I couldn’t decide. And then when it’s time to pick what we wanted to do I picked internal medicine because I thought that was kind of you know the way it actually is deciding between internal medicine radiology. I applied for both actually. I interviewed for both specialties absolutely was because I think I was like a little bit disgruntled with clinical medicine. But then once they interviewed for radiology I realized that was not maybe what I would want to do for the rest of my life only because I’m a people person and I felt like maybe that for certain.

Most radiologists at least at that point.

It seems like you know it wasn’t the right fit for me

– Tarang Patel

Plus it’s not very conducive to nutrition because we’re sitting around a lot and we’re eating you know the snack food of the doctors lounge.

– Amy Shah

I already had thought about my sidekick back then and I was like You know I can do radiology and then on the side they can you know do all this nutrition stuff that was like my plan if I ever did radiology.

– Tarang Patel

Wow. You were ahead of the curve.

– Amy Shah

Yes I did internal medicine and died because I did I was in the Harvard hospital system and it was I thought it was pretty malignant but I guess there there make way more malignant programs and were doing a lot of ice. You and I still really interested. But what I was picking my and fellowship I definitely was thinking along the lines along the lines of nutrition where can you do that. And I didn’t pick G.I. because that was anxious for my husband. For those of you who don’t know is a gastroenterologist and he had decided like day one that he was G.I.. And so there was not going to be. It was a little too much you know competition or strange it would be too much of an overlap. So I picked him up. So that’s basically I knew all along. I mean there is everybody who knew me knew that I was nutrition and health was my thing. It was like from the time I was 10 years old I’m not sure why or what it was. But sometimes as we all see with our children sometimes they have these passions in life and they’re just looking for ways to express them. So that’s basically the long version of the story. And as you can imagine once they started a private practice I had this amazing Private Practice opportunity where I was the only Allergy Immunology specialist in a group of 34 doctors who are ENT and so I had a great referral base and it was amazing. Private practice except that I didn’t do even 1 percent nutrition. Like not even I mean there was nothing there was like maybe one second of talk I was just like a machine, a factory. And so that’s that’s really what prompted me to start thinking outside of the box to think like OK how can I start to do this without completely shutting down my clinical practice. And also up selling you know kind of like that larger need. The other reason was I feel like were such were so tied to these insurance companies as they’re basically determine our our wealth our you know our patient care our costs. And I just felt like wow.

If insurance decides tomorrow that they’re not going to pay for these like five codes because I’m so super super specialized like I said I’m done you know and that was another impetus for me to say I need to lay down the groundwork for when the when the medical system as we know it changes.

– Tarang Patel

Right. Right now let me ask you then specifically on that point when when did that thought occur to you. Because that’s a very it’s a it’s a smart thing to think about but I don’t think a lot of a lot of physicians especially while they’re in medical school training you know think about that type of thing.

– Amy Shah

Well it wasn’t until I was a partner in my practice where I really started to think OK I need to lay down the groundwork for my plan was a 20 year plan. My plan was when my children are you know 15 to 20 years. My children are in college. I don’t want to depend on insurance as you know or the system as we know it for my career. And so it was like I wanted to lay down the groundwork because I know that it takes many years to become independent of me of insurance based medicine so I basically was like let me just start you know start so.

– Tarang Patel

So you took what was a lifelong interest passion in nutrition and you decided to you know you were trying to incorporate that into your practice but in reality you know it was pretty difficult to do.

So you started branching out kind of separate from your existing practice. So talk to me about the time span when you started doing that. How long it’s been about now and and what it was like when you were first starting out.

– Amy Shah

So 2010. Actually like I think of 2012 when I started just thinking like I said that’s when I made partner and I started thinking OK now I have power over my schedule so I can feel like carve out an afternoon here and there to really work on something different. And I knew that I wanted to do something in wellness medicine nutrition but I also knew that if it was going to take over if I was going to switch like I was someday going to switch careers. Then it would have to make money because it couldn’t be just like a passion On-Site passion. I mean I was always nice how. I want to make it into more than that. And so the first thing that happened is when I was reading all these books I was reading I was listening to like books in a car or whatever and I listened to four hour workweek. I’m sure you are embarrassed. And it was so inspirational. And then I listened to the podcast with you know Rich Roll. I don’t know this until our podcast. I thought. He’s like a very inspirational lawyer turned vegan and he has. And he had talked interviewed this. Mind Body Green founder his friend and he said Oh anyway with you that we’re are into wellness you must know mind body green dot com. This is 2012 when I was like literally just started. And they’re always looking for doctors or professionals to write for them. So literally the next day in-between patients I wrote a post and I sent it to like submit at Mind Body Green Dot Com and it was just like a cold post about something patients should know before they go to the doctor or whatever. And I think a couple days later I got an e-mail that said oh your post has been accepted and it really like open these floodgates at me like I was like oh my god I’m I’m going to start doing something. This was like going to be my outlet. So I started writing for them and quite often like once a week in between patients I would just create a post and I would send it. And that was basically how this all started.

– Tarang Patel

1. OK. And so you know you knew that this is something that you wanted to pursue. When when did you like, when did you start seeing results from it? Because anytime someone starts a venture initially it’s always difficult right. You know you’re working hard you’re you’re very passionate about it but then you know you get a setback and it’s very hard for people to then push beyond that.

So what kind of challenges did you have when you first started. And then you know how did you know you were actually going in the right direction?

– Amy Shah

I had every fear that I talk when I talk to people now it’s every single fear that everyone has.

1. You’re afraid your colleagues are going to make fun of you.
2. They’re going to think you’re not a serious doctor anymore.
3. They’re going to critique.

You know it’s all about what with what we think or perceive that other people are going to think of us. Like what if someone reads my article and thinks it’s bad. You know that kind of thing. And also really in medicine you just feel like what if I’m breaking some rule like it’s like I was doing a secret thing and tell you what about it because I didn’t know if it was right or if I was doing the wrong thing or if I was going to get in trouble by I don’t know God knows who I am and it was all these irrational fears that I look back at them like that was holding me back for two years from like 2012 to maybe like 2014. I literally just put I said post for Mind Body green. Like every week or every other week without telling anyone about it. And I didn’t want to like I didn’t want to rock any boats at work. I didn’t want to tell my friends. What if they made fun of me. I don’t know. I was just scared.

– Tarang Patel

Understood.

– Amy Shah

Dipping your toes into something that you’re not really sure what’s going to happen. 2014 Mind body green approached me and said hey a lot of people are asking how to contact you. Do you have a website. And I said No I don’t have a website. And so I looked up you know how to create a website and like five minutes or you know those videos whatever.

And I created a website and then I sent it to them and I said Oh in case they actually didn’t have an e-mail lists originally which I’m kicking myself for but I think 2015 I created an email list on my Web site. And you know Mind Body Green was blowing up at that point. And so I would get you know thousands and thousands of people coming to this like five minute WordPress website and signing up. And it was like really I didn’t realize what a big deal was back then. Because to me it didn’t make any sense like I didn’t know what I was going to do with it anyways. I had no business plan at all I just knew that I was setting up a foundation for something.

– Tarang Patel

And I think that’s a lot of how this starts and and you like I said you were one of the earlier people that I knew.

– Amy Shah

Yeah

– Tarang Patel

in this type of field we see a lot of it now on social media where you know people are describing kind of some of the things that you describe that you felt early on disenfranchised with the traditional practice model looking for outlets looking for their interests and so they’re kind of going through it you know and looking for things that you have already been through. And you know they’re kind of doing it now. So it’s always nice to hear from someone who’s gone do it.

But you know it doesn’t go without challenges and like you said you’ve you’ve experienced some of those and some of the same fears that we all experience when when we’re kind of branching out of our traditional roles that we’ve established in medicine.

So one of the things that I think you posted on I was imposter syndrome and this this is it was a really good post that got I think a lot of people that talking about it and subsequently heard other people would kind of mentioned the same thing.

But what is that

– Amy Shah

it’s like you know when you enter this world of wellness for example or nutrition any any world where there was no formal nobody gave me a degree and wellness hard like nobody told me like I was like we study 25 plus years to become a physician.

And I feel comfortable with the role of physician. But when it comes to expert expert in something in this world I really felt like. Who am I to tell patients what to eat or what to do or who might right. In 2015 mind body green actually awarded me one of the top women to watch in wellness and I really felt it then I’m like wait like how is that me. Or are they talking about someone else. And I would look at these other people and think they’re so amazing. But then when it came to myself I felt like there was I was trying to be someone that you know didn’t deserve the attention or the status. And I think that happens to so many people because I think that we think that maybe we’re always looking for somebody to give us permission. When I talk to physicians all the time and I talk to them about wellness or doing things like this. They ask me you know so what certifications did you get or who, there’s a lot of that imposter syndrome feeling like you don’t feel like you’re going to be able to do it or you deserve to be there.

– Tarang Patel

And I mean you know it’s funny because you spend so much time like you said 20 plus years in training to get your you know your medical degree residency fellowship things like that. And yet we’re still always looking for that additional validation, certification or whatever. And the reality is is that there’s no one better qualified than you or you know physicians in general to to speak on these things. A lot of other people who are not who don’t; who lack these credentials are talking about it.

– Amy Shah

I see the same thing. I always say that you know we think that there is somebody going to like what I for my world. There’s these made up. And I hate to say it but it’s true. Like you know they made up certifications in certain you know things that can be integrative, it can be functional or it can be obesity special and all of them are just someone’s opinion.

It’s literally like one head doctors opinion on how he thinks that nutrition or wellness or whatever lifestyle should be at it but that doesn’t have to be your opinion. And if it’s not you don’t need to go through that certification. So I’ll tell people like you know learn from them like I read those books, take those courses but you don’t need to pay them three thousand dollars so they can give you a stamp like this is not. You know what I mean we we can make our own decisions we can read the literature ourselves we can read the books ourselves. So I think that was a big big realization for me and I still struggle with that I mean I think we all struggle with that I’m sure you do and your podcast for all when people ask you for or think your authority on something you definitely inside feel like wow how did I become the authority on something that I barely knew anything about a year ago or something like that.

– Tarang Patel

Right. Right. No it’s true. And you know I know I talk more about financial stuff but I similarly in the finance world there’s there’s a lot of certifications there’s a lot of pseudo certifications and you know yes I didn’t train 20 plus years for that but I can read a book I can learn things and exactly you know I feel as qualified as some of the people out there not not all of them. But you know I can speak to certain basic things. And so you know I think that I think at this point most of us physicians have spent so much time training that it is you know we’re used to that mentality and then I talk to people about you know they talk about getting their MBA or you know I’m like… No you don’t have to have an MBA, you can start something without that. So  it’s great that you did that and you went for it and you know success or not and early on you know you push through it. And now you are you know very successful in this and you work within you’ve been featured in the national media and you work with celebrities. When you started did you. Did you foresee any of this kind of success that you’re having?

– Amy Shah

No I thought that when my kids go to college I will do this side thing.

You know I went to a conference when I was in Fellowship like a financial conference for fellows and I remember the guy asking the group like how many of you close to retirement are planning a second career or are pursuing it already and the entire group. Almost everyone who was close to retirement age or retirement raised their hands like they people want to do so much more they wanted to have a second career. They were done with that. And I kind of felt sad that a lot of these people waited till their retirement age to pursue something maybe they were wanting to do their whole lives and they’re waiting till they’re retiring. And so that was also another thing I didn’t want to wait till I was about to retire to write a book or do something and while writing a book was always something in my mind because I thought that that was the only way because at that time the Internet was just blooming you know in our college and medschool years. So I thought oh I’ll write a book one day about all the things that I have thoughts about and so on.

That was the plan. The plan was I never thought especially because like I said I have this private practice that I had to work to get into a partnership. And then I was a partner and I have a lot of responsibilities. Clinically and so I never I’m actually in a place really difficult place at this point. Because I have two kind of very demanding things happening at the same time and it’s really hard for me to divide my time now.

– Tarang Patel

 You know I want to I’m going to get back to that in a second. But one of the things you said early on was what the fear is that everyone goes through is like you know I spent all this time and energy becoming a physician.

You know it’s not the normal model that we were you know we’re in that pathway for where you do your residency or fellowship. You go into practice you become partner and that’s that’s the end point. And you know you so you’re kind of branching away from that a little bit. And one of the things you bring up and I think a lot of doctors face this is you know what do what do my colleagues think did you. Once you started doing this I know you said initially you were kind of keeping it you know kind of quiet and you were just doing it.

Have you know now that you’ve gotten a little bit more success a little bit more publicity about it. How has the feedback been from your physician colleagues?

– Amy Shah

Really good actually. So all those irrational fears are really are irrational because honestly when all of this started happening and I started to travel more and do more collaboration with these well-known people they and my colleagues were actually extremely supportive of course there’s definitely some questioning of you know what does this mean for the future kind of thing but very little of that mostly. It was so in fact one of my colleagues pigs Dr. Altman and I actually created a product. And I know you know about it but called Sound Molds because we knew that. Now they have created the other product, the supplement product. I kind of know how to create products although I know I did not know how to create a physical product it was a very very steep learning curve. But he was definitely super interested and in collaborating with me because he has lots of aspirations as we all do you know to do cool things outside of medicine and we should. And so it was it was very very supportive. And I’m I can’t say that it’s been 100 percent like anything right life. Nobody nobody’s going to support you 100 percent. Honestly it didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. I thought I would be so insulted or you know. But really it hasn’t. It’s such a small amount of the feedback that I’ve gotten that it maybe you know makes me feel bad for one minute. But really that’s about it.

– Tarang Patel

No that’s good I think.

I think at least now it seems like more people are kind of open about their feelings and their and their just in general disenchantment with the traditional model of medical practice and I think more and more people are are open to you know branching out and doing something on the site or just completely changing you know the model in general. So you know with that being said now you were talking about how how you know you basically are in two full time situations. Now one with your traditional allergy practice and then with your wellness practice. So how are you balancing that.

– Amy Shah

Yeah good question. Figure that out. Luckily our kids go to school that’s quite long a day long. And so what I’ve been really doing is bashing my work on you know two options a week. Basically I’ve been figuring it out and slowly cutting down my clinical hours just so I can accommodate some more of the Wellness stuff. And I think that this year has been a lot better than last year and I’m doing a little more on the weekends and evenings just to fit it all in and I’m doing a little more travel which is fine because it’s you know it’s fine.

And I really pick and choose. I haven’t been going to everything that I can go to just picking and choosing. You know what. What works for me. The amazing thing about online world. Like for example if I do a wellness consults or collaboration almost everything I do now is online which is amazing. Of course I love interacting with people in real life but all the stuff I can do at home or on the computer on my phone in between. You know when you have like that downtime between patients like I do I take up every minute like there’s no more online shopping there’s no more like it to be like practising you know all that stuff is done like I have to I have to do all my work during that time.

– Tarang Patel

Gotcha. Well I mean you’re doing very very impressive job with it.

So let’s let’s talk about you know like you said a lot of other physicians kind of have aspirations of kind of branching into these type of fields and a lot of them specifically are looking into the wellness sector. So what would your advice be to someone who you know just starting that process.

– Amy Shah

My advice is just to go for it. Go for it. I think you have to match your interests with your strengths and the things that are going to make you money. I think that the biggest hard part. Unless you’re just doing it as a hobby and if it is just as a hobby. More power to you. Great. That’s amazing. But if you’re doing it as you know a you’re putting down the groundwork for a future career or site career. I think that you really need to see OK where’s my strengths where’s my interest and where is the where’s the money in this in strength and interests like where’s that intersection between all of that. Because I think I found that. Otherwise you’re just so in disarray. You’re doing like a million different things. I was like writing for these free blog sites but then I was you know doing this. And once they started to say OK where am I going to concentrate my efforts. I can grow this as a real business. That’s when it started to become clear to me like what I can say yes you I can say no to. And that’s helped a lot.

And that’s where I think you know just start doing what you love and then start to make that congruence that that area where all three meet

– Tarang Patel

that’s that’s good advice because I think a lot of people it’s kind of a vague notion of what they want to do but they’re not really you know they haven’t hammered down details so you really do have to look at it especially like you said if you want to do it as a business you have to do a really good critical analysis like you would do for any business that you’re starting.

– Amy Shah

Yeah for example.

I realize that you know people need to know that the places where you’d actually make this into business are you know smaller it’s a smaller pool of things you can be doing when you’re doing it just as a hobby or a side thing. It’s a huge pool of things that you could be doing but you just have to decide what you want from it. If for me it’s like this I’m studying I I want to do things that set the groundwork for me. It’s like investing in myself because I know that that investment will pay off in the future. So anything I do in this world like this wellness world I want to make sure that it it’s adding to that investment that groundwork that I’m setting and not just kind of like you know wasting 3 hours a day. Right.

– Tarang Patel

Right. And I mean you’ve you’ve done a really good job you’ve developed a brand now. And so you kind of need to make sure that anything you do subsequent to this will add and not detract or you know is contributing to your brand. So I think that’s that’s a very good point. Since you brought up investing this being a financial podcast. Yeah we have to talk about it. So how has Has doing this as a side gig and turning into a full on business impacted you financially.

– Amy Shah

Yes so that’s I’ve thought about that such a good question because there’s you know of course from afar. It’s really it’s gotten me. There’s many many avenues of revenue that I never had there’s so many different investment opportunities that I’ve had because of this for example I’m on I think you know because we were out at those events the Genexa board.

There’s a few things where I’m actually part of these companies and there’s a lot of potential there.

So it’s really exciting and there’s lots.

I think it’s more about than money because I don’t think that it has not yet replaced my clinical income. And I think that. But for me it makes me feel that I feel free like I feel like I do not need insurance based money anymore. If I go if I decide tomorrow that I want to do this as a full time job I took I definitely could. However I feel like a sense of you know commitment to my patients, my practice, the doctors that I work with and I kind of enjoy clinical medicine I feel like I get so much inspiration from there. So I think that my goal is to balance the two so that there are two independent revenue streams that I don’t have to depend on any one of those to you know satisfied

– Tarang Patel

Yeah I think that will I think that’s the thing is it doesn’t.

So a lot of people get with the you know the mindset of oh am I going to you know make money doing this.

And that’s not the only mindset. What you described about you know the freedom that you feel. Yeah that’s that’s that’s you know you can’t put a price on that. Now that being said you have to do it intelligently like you’re describing that you know you have certain you have to approach it like a business you have to do certain things that make sure that you are getting something out of it. But but it’s you know whether you replace your income full from full time clinical practice is probably not the point. The point is that you’re diversifying your revenues like you said and that that gives you a more stable foundation for the future and you’re not susceptible to those risks like you talked about earlier about the coding changes and things like that. So I think that’s something that you know people don’t pay attention to enough and whether it’s in the investment world whether you’re talking about investing in stocks real estate you know passive income from other ventures. I think you know these are the concepts that apply to starting your own business like this.

I think you know

– Amy Shah

yeah just being independent like feeling that if that insurance system change completely tomorrow what is your fallback option or what are you going to be doing. That’s going to make you happy also unsatisfied. So that was kind of that might. And it’s funny I think it’s a very unique. There are some people who have no aspirations outside of mainstream medicine and they just want to do things as a hobby. And that’s totally fine. I think you have to do what you’re passionate about and why you feel like even if there was zero money what you would do just for fun. But I love having the opportunity to do something that I really am passionate about. And it also could be a. Side slashed fallback career for me right now.

– Tarang Patel

Absolutely. I think that’s a great way to approach it and you’re doing a really good job with it. So let’s talk one. One thing you’ve you’ve inspired a lot of us to reach out of our traditional niches and kind of you know branch outside of it but in general you also are an inspiration amongst your followers and then with a lot of your friends locally about just you know becoming more healthy and improving our lifestyles that way.

So a lot of physicians in Arizona I’ve noticed have kind of you know started becoming a little bit more healthy. I myself have have have tried to incorporate some of your intermittent fasting tips but you know I think that a lot of physicians particularly those in training you know still even though we preach healthy lifestyles don’t don’t actually practice it. What would be one tip that you would you would recommend for a physician to kind of just improve their health?.

– Amy Shah

I think I didn’t realize that there is such a big connection between the mind and the body because we don’t really talk about that much in training in med school.

And I think that when I started looking into nutrition wellness and got health present I realized wow it’s not just this weird thing about stress and the brain and the talks you know the things that you are thinking about. And I think I really understood the mind body connection so much more and that’s why I’m so much more into yoga and doing these.

Doing all these like stress relieving activities because I think that physicians as physicians we feel like that’s a waste of time. Our what you know that has nothing to do with your body. And so I think tuning in to your mind your stress levels if you are a person who doesn’t sleep well and then you’re type A and you drink a ton of caffeine like you are not doing your body and he got you need to find at least a 10 minute thing that you enjoy as a release every day. And you know you’ll notice your health improving just from that.

– Tarang Patel

Perfect perfect. I think that’s that’s very good advice. Amy, I want to thank you. Doctor Dr. Shah. I want to thank you for participating in this podcast.

So I want to tell you you have a lot of social media outlets and a lot of endeavors. Let’s talk a little bit about where the listeners can find you and then talk about a little bit about what you are doing in the future as part of your your your different ventures.

Yes so I and most commonly found on Instagram because I’ve decided in the last year and this is a good piece of advice for you too and all the people it’s just don’t dip your toes in the pool or just jump in. You know like hey I think that for a long time I was trying to dip my toes and I just I’m like it is what it is I’m just going to put it out there. And so Instagram is @dramyshah

– Tarang Patel

Link-Up on the show notes for all these.

But yeah go ahead.

– Amy Shah

And then I have my Facebook group. Desi Carb Fix . then I have my Amy Shah MD  Facebook page. And I’ve been doing a lot more.

I started actually just in the last few months doing these mastermind’s for physicians and wellness practitioners because there’s a lot of common topics that come up. One of the biggest thing is law. Like what are the laws around wellness. We’re giving it based on the internet in general. And the second big topic that we talk about is products like how do you make a physical product. How do you make an informational product. How do you do consulting. A lot of these things that I’ve read all these mistakes so many mistakes I can’t even tell you.

I’m going to basically break it down for people because it’s really not that hard especially if you have the right connections

– Tarang Patel

good good and we can we’ll be able to find all these on your Web site the links to different groups and things. Perfect. Perfect. Well thank you. This was informative I think the listeners will get a lot out and I think a lot of it you know the inspiration is the most important thing that you provide and I think that you know it was one of the earlier people in this field but there’s still plenty of room so I hope she inspires you too to you know to kind of branch out of your traditional fields and go forward if you have an interest in whatever venture outside of medicine.

– Amy Shah

Yeah. Happy to help OK.

– Tarang Patel

Thanks for listening to another episode of The Dr. Money Matters podcast. I want to thank my guest today Dr. Amy Shah. I hope you found her story inspirational and as you try to develop your own side gigs her Endeavor’s know that success has not always come immediately but perseverance is the key.

You can follow me on Instagram at Diyar Amisha. That’s D-R am Y S H H or her website Aimee M.D. wellness dot com. She’s also created a popular Facebook group for those interested in healthier South Asian cooking called Bessey carb fix which has over 5000 members now I’ll link to all of those on the show notes and any comments or suggestions for me you can send e-mail.

Comments@doctormoneymatters.com all spelled out or you can you can post them in the Dr. Money Matters Facebook group or you can tweet to me as though put a link up on the show notes

thanks for joining us on another episode of Doctor money matters.

If this is the first episode you have heard. I appreciate you taking the time out and listening and encourage you to listen to our past episodes but also appreciate you leaving me a positive review on Apple podcasts and also recommend you join our Facebook group where we have ongoing discussions about this and other topics in order to help each other reach our financial goals.

Finally I encourage you to subscribe to our e-mail list and also to subscribe to the podcast itself on the various podcast app that you use in order to be kept aware when the latest episode comes out more episodes of this podcast are available. WWE does Dr. Money Matters dot com and on Apple podcasts Google Play stitcher or Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts audio versions are also available on YouTube and Facebook and you can follow me on Twitter at Diyar. Money matters or on Facebook or Instagram at Dr. Money Matters all spelled out. Thanks for listening. And if you get a chance please leave a positive review for this podcast as it helps move the podcast up the rankings on iTunes and get it gets it exposed to a wider audience.

Thanks for listening once again and stay tuned for another episode coming soon.

 

Episode 24 — Physician On Fire

2018, Doctor Money Matters

http://www.doctormoneymatters.com

Please excuse any grammatical errors as this transcript was obtained via Google Voice recognition and not edited.

Welcome to another Doctor Money Matters episode. This is a great episode. I got to interview one of the superheroes of physicians and finance, the Physician on Fire, the anonymous anesthesiologist who started the very popular financial blog by the same name.

In this episode we talk about how he decided to go down the FIRE (financial independence, retire early) path, his plans now that he has reached FI (financial independence), and his advice for those who are interested in following this path.

We also get into some detail about how he calculated the numbers to determine he had achieved his goal. We also took some questions from social media and discussed his brewery investment and his own personal beer brewing hobby.

A couple of the concepts discussed in this episode:

Geographic arbitrage — Practicing in a low cost of living area while making a great income allows you to save more faster.

Sequence of returns risk — The idea that what happens to your assets (the total returns) around (immediately prior to and immediately after) retirement can determine how comfortably you can withdraw from your overall asset pool.

Savings rate — how much you should be saving as a percentage of post tax income. He challenges people to live on half your take home pay if you want to reach FI sooner. He has now reached a 75% savings rate after reaching FI as he doesn’t have a mortgage or doesn’t need to pay for disability insurance

Donor Advised Fund — An investment account that set up can make charitable contributions to via donated stock or other assets. This account can then continue to grow via the market and you can choose to make your charitable contributions over time.

Clearly this mindset has resonated with many people as the FIRE community has exploded. PoF’s website has demonstrated significant growth over its 2 year existence and he has provided valuable resources for those interested in these topics.

I want to thank PoF for joining us on the podcast. I encourage you to visit his Physician on Fire blog where you can get very valuable information.

Please let your friends know about this podcast by sharing it on text, whatsapp or whatever social media platform you are on.

More episodes of this podcast are available at www.doctormoneymatters.com and Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, etc. All episodes are also now on YouTube (Audio only) and Facebook.

You can follow me on twitter @drmoneymatters

Please consider joining the Doctor Money Matters Facebook group. Thanks for listening and please leave us positive reviews and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues.

Some other physician hosted podcasts that I recommend are: Docs Outside The Box The Hippocratic Hustle The Happy Doc Doctors Unbound The White Coat Investor There are many others, so please support your physician colleagues.

Transcript

Main Intro 

Intro Outro: 
[0:16] Okay welcome back to another episode of the doctor Money Matters podcast before I get started with this episode I want to thank you.

[0:22] For your continued support and the growth numbers have continued to increase significantly especially in the first quarter of this year so.

[0:32] Really want to thank you The Listener for sharing this podcast with your colleagues and I hope you continue to enjoy and learn from what we were talking about.

[0:42] I want to address something I am a real physician I’m a radiologist in Arizona it was apparently some controversy on one of the social media groups that.

[0:52] So they weren’t sure I was a physician I assure you you can Google me.

[0:57] Tarang Patel radiology and you will find I am a practicing physician in Phoenix Arizona.

[1:03] Anyway enough about that I’m excited for this episode it’s a great episode and I got to interview one of the superheroes of the physician Finance space.

[1:16] The physician on fire the anonymous anesthesiologist who started the very popular Financial blog by the same name.

[1:24] And this episode we talked about how he decided to go down the fire financial Independence retire early path his plans now that he’s achieved Financial Independence and his advice for those who are interested in following this.

[1:36] We also get into some detail about how he calculated the numbers to determine it actually achieved his goal.

[1:42] We we also took some questions from the various social media groups.

[1:47] And I we actually discussed some of the topics that people are interested in and also got into a little bit about his.

[1:54] Brewery investment and his his own hobby of brewing beer at his house.

[2:03] Top of the concepts that we talked about in this episode that I think are important Geographic Arbitrage practicing in a low-cost area while allowing you to.

[2:12] Achieve greater savings right sequence of returns risk which is the idea.

[2:19] What happens to your invent your Investments are assets near the time just prior to and just immediately after you retire can really set the stage for how much you’re able to withdraw.

[2:33] How your savings rate which is basically the amount that you should be saving as a percentage of your post-tax income.

[2:42] Physician on fire challenges people to live on half your take-home pay if you want to reach Financial Independence sooner he’s actually been doing 50% of his take-home pay for a long time and recently.

[2:55] After you Achieve Financial Independence says that he’s actually reached gotten up to 75% just because he has lower expenses including his paid off his mortgage and he doesn’t need to purchase disability insurance anymore.

[3:07] Let’s talk about it I had Donor advised fund which is an investment account that you can make.

[3:12] Regular contributions to of money or appreciated stock which can then continue to grow itself and then you can use that account to.

[3:25] Go out charitable contributions as you see fit.

[3:29] He’s reached nearly $250,000 in his Donor advised fund I myself have one but if not quite hit those numbers.

[3:40] Anyway clearly the fire mentality has resonated with many positions and and just people in general as the fire Community has grown a ton of podcasts about this.

[3:52] And his website has grown tremendously and it said in its two-year existence so.

[3:57] Hi there. His website is a valuable resource for those interested in these top.

[4:05] So anyway without further Ado physician on fire.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[4:09] Alright welcome to another episode of the doctor Money Matters podcast my guest today.
Is the physician on fire who runs the well-known physician Finance blog at the name physician on fire. Com.
And has demonstrated some incredible growth in the I think we’re just at the two-year anniversary of his blog now.
And he’s reached out to a lot of Physicians and to a lot of non-physicians as well giving them good tips on achieving early Financial Independence.
So welcome doctor fire how are you.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[4:40] I’m doing great thank you for the invitation. It’s good to be talking to you. I look forward to talking to you and everyone that listens to you.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[4:47] Awesome awesome well you’re one of the Pioneers in the physician Financial blogging space and you’ve given I guess that many of us inspiration to.
Get into blogging and podcasting and also just that many of us said to get our finances in order and I think you’re doing a great service to the position community.
Thank you very much.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[5:11] Yeah you’re welcome but I think you’re too kind to call me of pioneers and sit like you said I’m all of two years in a day doing this.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[5:20] Medi medi Physicians tend to be a little bit behind the curve obviously summer earlier than you but.
The white coat investor but I think most Physicians particularly at least at the colleagues that I have are relatively behind.
The curve in social media presence in fact we’re having a I’m a radiologist and we’re having a Twitter discussion about Radiologists.
Being even further behind the curve 2 in comparison to some of the other Specialties and I brought out a lot of responses and I’m hoping that we get a radiologist to be more involved just because.
We tend to be behind the scenes anyway and I think social media is a good way to.
Get our presents I get are not faces but her ideas and thoughts out there not necessarily just two patients but to other Physicians and kind of you know explain where we are and our thought process in terms of the medical care.
Let’s talk a little bit about you obviously physician on fire is not your real name we’re not going to talk about that because you’ve made a choice to kind of keep your identity on the down-low which I respect.
Tell me a little bit about that and then what got you into medicine and you’re an anesthesiologist and so why you chose that field.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[6:39] I’m sure yes I’m so yeah you can call me doctor fire or POF for whatever you like and I probably will have my name out there at some point but at least says I’m getting started it’s it’s kind of nice to have a little separation between the online Persona and the just my day today,
who I am but I am 42 years old I’m an anesthesiologist like you said and I come from the frozen tundra of,
Minnesota and experiencing that right now we were just talking about how my furnace went out this morning so we can chat a little bit of trouble but that’s all right it’s a balmy 34°.
35 degrees warmer than it was a week ago I came from a family of Mike is Healthcare professional,
my father and his father were dentists and my mother was a nurse and her father was a physician so it was pretty natural to,
can I follow in line I went to the same undergraduate school that my dad and his dad and my mom all went to which was the University of Minnesota and I stay there for medical school.
As far as how I chose anesthesia it wasn’t even on my radar when I started Radiology was actually pretty high.
The technology that you guys deal with this is really neat Imaging all that I enjoy it was one of my first electives and I found that.
Well I enjoy my day a little more than I did maybe the surgery or the OB guy in day where you’re rushing around in your scrubs in 4 hours at a time which I just cannot handle.

[8:09] Haha but I also want more slowly and it was dark and you don’t move around as much.
I realize Interventional and there are there other ways to have it a different 300 Radiology butts I start looking for something else in the,
I was so frightened by it I mean I saw the machine and all the tubes and lines and it looked a little overwhelming and.
And then I kind of got settled into the chair and got comfortable on sat and talked a lot of docs that seems to be pretty happy with their careers.
And I took a second rotation and anesthesia and decided that was the route for me and I I have no regrets.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[8:51] Very good very good so you would keep that you would not change your field if you had to do it all over again.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[8:58] Nope it works well for me it’s a nice mix of patient care talking to people and then maybe a little down time quiet time to I do supervised.
Rooms to go up to three or four rooms most of the time when I’m working now I’ve also worked in a situation where I’m Hands-On in one room and that’s a very different job I think my patients are asleep should follow around for a day because I probably.
5 miles ahead and talk 250 people who know it’s busy but that’s a pretty busy day most of the time.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[9:30] Right right so now what is speaking about your practice so that what kind of what is your practice situation right now are you an employee what type of situation are you in.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[9:41] Yeah I’ve done had been in a variety of situations I started out doing exclusively Locum tenens work and I did that for 2 years partially because my wife was a dietitian who mashed into a,
program it’s just like our matching program where you don’t know where you’re going to go until you get the letter,
that happened about sometime about a year or within a year after my graduating residency so we travel the country I got to try out,
different practice sites I did like I said some Hands-On stuff some big hospital stuff that small critical access stuff,
no it’s all good night I kind of found what worked for me so after that I was an independent contractor,
45 years at a hospital that eventually went bankrupt which was a big ordeal now I am in an employee situation and I’m with a.
Group of Hospital Dyersburg at One hospital and one Surgery Center.
I work 60% of a full-time job which is a relatively recent development.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[10:45] Okay okay so it’s actually it’s going to get into that a little bit and we’ll start out a little bit about the way you you know when did you start your journey of financial Independence talk about some of the Milestones that made you think okay I’m getting a little bit closer to where I’m at and then you know your decision to kind of transition to part-time.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[11:06] Yeah that’s a that’s a great question and I meet people are getting emails and comments from people that are maybe in medical school and residency and any other want to pursue this financial Independence but I feel a little bad for them.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[11:19] It seems a little bit early right.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[11:22] Yeah you know that they’ve been a long way to go and it if you’re just keep your eye on at Finish Line you might miss some of the cool things that happen along the way but.
I did not know the term Financial Independence I thought it meant like that’s when your parents stop paying for your car insurance or so.
You know you’re independent now and it wasn’t until about 3 maybe a little more than three years ago now that I discovered the term online via mr. Money Mustache and most of all fire logs that are out there.
And I kind of thought about that and this is what I was studying for a recertification written exam that was just a huge pain in the rear.
Generally make in a Denali apply the questions were not really.
Relevant to my practice and I was frustrated and I’m going to look at the numbers because.
Blogger things you have about 25 times,
as much money as you typically spend in a year then you can consider yourself financially independent and I,
I figured with the credit card bills being about $5,000 month and then little bit of cash stuff here and checks it right for property taxes I figured we spent maybe 70 75 thousand a year and,
took the number * 25 in and I looked at all of our bank statements are in a broker statements in.
Numbers matched up really well and I was like wow this is incredible I was wondering will have to take this test again in 10 years,
and it looks like maybe I didn’t really even need to take it then if I was truly ready to walk away which of course wasn’t but yeah it wasn’t something I pursued it was really something I discovered and was flabbergasted by.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[13:04] So in a way you’re just your lifestyle before you even thought about it kind of accommodated or our kind of was tired well with developing relatively early Financial Independence even if you weren’t really pursuing it like you said.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[13:19] Rightness happened.
Is about 9 years after I finish residency and I have her pretty hard when I took all the next to call they would give me even when I had permanent jobs I would work awesome locums away on a week’s off,
and I knew I was saving for something I thought it was just to have a big pile of money.
But I figured if they know decent-size piles actually probably data quits or my family and I so yeah Justin.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[13:50] Okay and now you know some of that obviously is a factor of I think good Midwestern values I grew up in the mid.
Yes you know but also obviously the guy assume the low cost of living Where You Are.
Do you think that and obviously.
Rates of spending on housing vary depending on where you’re at in the country and and salaries also very a bit did the term I think that’s been thrown around and I I like it is geographic Arbitrage.
How much do you think that plays a factor in your ability in terms of timing you think it may be.
Improves your ability sped up your ability by you know.
5 years 10 years versus someone out in maybe the Bay Area or Boston or something like that.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[14:40] So it’s huge it’s huge yeah I mean I grew up in the in the Upper Midwest my wife did too and so we want to be here but apparently not everyone does so assertive,
supply-demand issue and so the higher salaries tend to exist in the,
lower cost of living areas in your Middle America and in places that aren’t necessarily,
as sought-after for a place to live and yeah if you Google that term geographic Arbitrage My article on it will be one of the first to,
results so I’ve written about that I think I compared South Dakota to New York City and obviously there are reasons why you might,
rather be in New York City but if you can make it actively triple you know the money you know at least attempt to cost of living.
Outside car you can afford to fly to New York quite often and enjoy some things that it has without being there 24/7.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[15:35] Exactly potentially on your private plane if you’re willing to you know take one of these extremely high paying jobs in South Dakota or something like that.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[15:47] To though you know with that.
The average salary is higher in the all these places Midwest Oklahoma wherever but there are some really good high paying jobs in those high cost of living areas.
And that’s something that readers have pointed out you know it you don’t have to live somewhere that you maybe wouldn’t want to live but you might have to find the right job the right practice it’s probably going to be private practice.
Sirius app.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[16:13] Well yeah I speaking of that there are some extremely high paid physicians at some of the academic centers in New York and I think there was a big article talking about one of the cardiologists said Mount Sinai and the dermatologist said one of the other Ivy League.
Places so yes that but those are I think much fewer and far between and the average physician in those areas is definitely not hurting as much and then also like you said that spending more on just basic living costs so.
That definitely that definitely does play a pretty good Factor.
Okay so let’s try that into another topic that I think I’ve seen discussed on social media recently amongst different positions is.
Savings rates for Physicians what do you think is a good.
Target rate for someone you know coming out of residency starting to pay off their loans.
The numbers should they be targeting the percentage rate I mean I guess it really doesn’t matter in terms of whether their Primary Care over there there’s some super high end specialist.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[17:16] Well I mean it makes it a lot easier if you make more money numerator vs. denominator but,
and it’s also it depends on how you calculate it to because a lot of us are paying a lot of tax are also paying down a lot of debts and so you know the first few years out you might not be putting a whole lot towards retirement so one person’s,
20% maybe someone else is 40% and it just depends on how you calculate it and I’ve got a calculator on my sites savings rate calculator where calculator.
A net savings rate and a girl savings rate so kind of comparing after-tax or or before tax cuz if you’re paying a third of your salary and tax well.
It’s hard to say 50% when you’re down to.
In up 17% after the taxes are paid but it generally not seat 15 20% being tossed around as.
Adequate Torino doing really well and it’s enough to get you financially independent within maybe 30 30 some years.
It’s a really long time especially if burnout enters your life if you have some other Financial setback like.
Divorce or or something horrible along those lines I challenge people I don’t I don’t know what I would I wouldn’t necessarily say I recommend but I challenge people to live on half of their.
Take-home pay half of their after tax money essentially and with the other half you pay down debt you save for retirement and you’re going to be.
Translate dependent that was in about 15-20 years depending on how much that you start out with if you can do that.

[18:50] Now it’s you know you start out with and let’s say you’re making two to three hundred thousand you might be taking home a hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand and you’re living on 75 to a hundred thousand.
You know that doesn’t include what’s going towards your student loans that that can come from the savings,
yeah and I’ve got to live on how challenge that’s another post I’ve written that has a spreadsheet and lays out,
exactly how long it’s going to take you to be able to continue that lifestyle indefinitely as a family independent physician without having to rely on any additional income.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[19:27] And let me just ask you this what do you think it when you were working full-time what would you estimate your own savings rate was.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[19:35] It has varied quite a bit but I would say,
then once we kind of got over the let’s build a huge house and fill it with furniture and buy brand new hot tub.

[19:48] Since then I would say it’s been at least.
50% and now it’s probably 75% because once we became financially independent we had decided to pay down the mortgage about the same time so I don’t have a mortgage since we’re not.
Relying on my income to fund their lifestyle we don’t really need term life insurance or disability insurance those are important when you’re when you rely on your income at once you.
Are financially dependent by definition that you can get by without the income so I would stop,
paying those I have the number cheats like that public schools etcetera so when I was working full-time,
last year I probably saved about 75% of our after-tax pay and it’ll be a bit less this year because I’m working,
part-time so I have less income and the same expenses if not a little bit more cuz we’re traveling quite a bit more.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[20:42] Right okay okay so let’s go into that a little bit so you transitioned at the end of last year into this year you know you’re now 60% at what point do you see yourself kind of full retirement.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[20:55] It’s a work-in-progress I am really loving the schedule that I have right now I work basically a,
four-day weekend or surgery center that’s what 40 hours and then I put in a 72-hour weekend that starts on Friday morning at the hospital and some of that is home calls I’m not,
there should be two hours straight but that’s a really really busy 7 plus days but after that I’m off for the rest of the month so I’m off 3 to 4 weeks at a time.

[21:21] Yeah yeah it’s pretty slick I was that’s kind of the way I wanted to arrange it so we could do a little more of what I would call a slow travel or semi slow travel,
and so I am not in a hurry to walk away from this and actually it turns out there is a young man from the place,
that are the town that I’m living in and he is in The Residency program that I used to be in and he has signed on to return in about 18 months from now so he may be my replacement it could be that there is additional work,
and then I could continue on for a little bit but I’m pretty much committed to the next 18 months and then what kind of see what happens from there I may actually line up some locums work,
even after I leave my last permanent job here but we’ll see how I feel at the time.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[22:05] Right right this would be just based on your desires not necessarily any financial needs or anything like that this is just what do I want to do to kind of keep myself active besides the blog in your travel plans and things.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[22:19] Right it doesn’t hurt to overshoot the Target and we’ve already done that you know where somewhere in the range of any 33 to 35 times now what we normally spending but you know if there’s health insurance that we’re going to cover it somehow there are potential suits cost that we haven’t really considered a thought about so,
yeah I’m uncomfortable doing what I’m doing and doing what I’m doing and if I end up with too much money that’s a much better problem to have,
walking away too soon and then having two samples at Costco although I can imagine worst things to do in retirement.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[22:54] Hey my wife complains that I spend too much time at.
So I guess that’s so we’re going to go have a little bit about some of the more popular topics that you cover actually is Adams beginning of the year so it’s the right time,
the backdoor Roth IRA so let’s let’s talk about I know you have a good instruction guide on your website but just got to explain the terms a little bit.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[23:21] Sure so I just made my six pair of backdoor Roth IRA contributions and the reason I called the back door is if you make a certain amount of money and for a couples,
and now in 2018 that’s $199,000 I think that’s your modified adjusted gross income most positions are physician families are going to come,
and it’s even lower for singles in the gungeon 33,000 so if you earn more than that you cannot contribute directly to a Roth IRA account,
however there is a way to get money into a Roth IRA account and it is a.
Two-step process basically you make a nondeductible contribution to a traditional IRA.
And then you wait a day or week or month or whatever you’re comfortable with as far as I know no one has ever gotten in trouble for,
are there any briefs weight of like a day and then you can put that money to Ross and that’s just a few clicks of the mouse on your broker website.
And now you have what has so far proven to be a legal way to get money into a Roth account and of course of Roth is beneficial in that,
there is no tax drag on at the money in rostros tax-free and there are also no taxes when you take money out later on in retirement and so,
it’s just a way to basically take money that you probably otherwise would have left in a taxable brokerage account.

[24:51] Also has some advantages but will be subject to at least a little bit of tax dragon and potentially capital gains taxes later on when you want to use the money so it.
Hit chips up to $5,500,
for yourself and if you’re married you can also do 5500 for your spouse whether or not they have income you can do a spousal IRA and edit your shipping that from what would have been a taxable investment to a tax-free investment.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[25:17] Good I I know that it’s a topic that seems to come up quite frequently and I referred people,
to your website and will continue to do so but I think I was a good explanation I just had like you said most Physicians this is a very simple way to get some of the benefits of tax-free growth so.
Encourages all of us to to do it so let me ask you this now you know you’ve got you’ve got your.
2535 * savings how do you determine your asset allocation now,
you know that you’re starting part-time work are you changing it at all from being you know when you were accumulating assets.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[25:58] You’re not really miss con two parts to this you know one of you know done a lot of reading on let me know what is the ideal asset allocation at various points in life and then serve the traditional.
Advice for over the years has been to,
slowly transition to having more and more Bonds in your portfolio and some people like to use age in Vons or age minus 10 or minus 20 in bonds as a percentage so if you’re 50 years old.
8-10 would say 40% bonds 60% stocks more recently yet I think there’s been a pretty compelling.
Literature that suggests maybe you could have a study asset allocation or even what the color of reverse guy path wear because and this gets a little bit.
In the thick weeds but.
The first 10 years or so of retirement you could suffer from 1 to call sequence of return risks if things go sharply down when you’re first starting to draw down on your,
retirement assets you need to be protected in that initial. If you get through that first 5 or 10 years without.
Your 2000 crash rate you’re 27 and 2007 crash where everything dropped 40 50% if that does not happen then you’re kind of golden and then you can actually bring.
Your stock allocation wrap down your bond allocation and remain aggressive and that will just allow your money to more than likely grow faster and it really just depends on your your risk tolerance you know what you are comfortable with are you.
Are you going to feel better about yourself and your location and sleep better at night if you are someone that knows you have enough let’s say you can just buy.

[27:38] Inflation protected bonds and ride it out and never run out of money or would you rather kind of let it ride and see it grow much faster and leave a legacy donate,
a lot of money to charity and ran for me and I guess I’m a little more on the aggressive side so I want to have about.
You know at least five years worth of bonds to help write out a big drop in the stock market.
That with the remainder of my assets I like to keep them invested in the type of asset that will give the best very long-term outcome return and that that would be stocks so I’m I’m about 90 10 right now I might,
about 8515 maybe even 80 20 depending on what the numbers look like but then on the other hand.
Isn’t necessarily the same thing as when I retire for medicine as I’m learning.
Having watched the white coat investor state of the blog posts and seeing my own Revenue Canada ramp up here so even my retirement is a bit of a.
Not a very good indicator for others since I will still have some income coming in as long as I continue to before the blocking and do the things I do there online.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[28:50] Right okay so let’s talk a little bit more details sequence of returns letting dad say an important term and that’s when you were saying and let’s just kind of spell that a little bit more so what you’re saying is when.
It’s a series of returns and in this case what we’re talking about is when you first retire or not even when he first retired maybe the years right before you retire.
Did the first three to four years after retirement maybe a seven or eight year span around the retirement time where.
A significant change in your portfolio whether it’s up obviously that’s good but a significant downturn can really impact what happens 20 years.
From now because you’re starting at a much lower point if in fact there is a big downturns I think that’s a very important that you brought up I’ve read that before and then.
Something that I think you know most of the audience is probably not.
Nearing retirement yeah but if they’re thinking about financial Independence and retiring early it is a factor that they should consider because like you said.
What happens in that time span it was basically a very important determining factor in what happens and how long you’re going to be able to retire at a sustained.
Withdrawal rate so.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[30:04] Can a predicated on lock 2 for the most part.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[30:06] Sure sure.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[30:07] Early retirement now is a website to use a PhD economist,
and he does a lot of very in-depth Research into safe withdrawal rates and secrets of return rest and you know that that 4% withdrawal rate or maybe it’s no 3.5 or 3.3 if your little more conservative,
that’s based on basically the worst case scenario of sequence of returns that.
If you come out at a time or you don’t have a particularly bad sequence of returns at the time like you say just before and after retirement.
Then you can probably have a safe withdrawal rate of 5 maybe 6% you know if you were tired a good time even as high as 8% if you were tired of it at an ideal time so the 4% is.
Almost the worst case scenario I was just reading on Bogle heads. Org that’s it for him that has a lot of really smart people.
And someone had posted the results from retirees in the year 2000 who use the 4% safe withdrawal rate in this was a looking back of retrospective look at the result if they.
The 4% that first year.
Increased with inflation that withdrawal every year and where would they be now even though they had a huge drop right away 40% and then another 50% and the stock market in 07 oh 80809.
And actually they’re doing pretty darn pretty darn well it’s surprisingly and then I guess it’s probably because we had a nice run up since the latest drop.
Looks like even for them retiring it probably the worst time in the last 50 years.

[31:41] They are going to make at least the 30 years that the 4% rule is designed to get you and so that does give me some comfort that even if you have a pretty darn bad sequence of returns which,
if I were to retire in the next couple years here that could very well happen and we’re going to have a very Market at some point and.
If it doesn’t happen forever tires probably going to happen shortly thereafter but before somewhere below three and a half percent then I really am not concerned about that.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[32:10] Okay good I sent you know that I think you brought up a good point and this is a discussion that a lot of Physicians particularly those who were in training around the 2000 and 2008 crashes.
They’ve seen this happen twice relatively early in their career and I do actually that’s a good thing because it’s giving you time to buy more assets at lower prices but.
The psychological damage is that they feel like they need a much higher multiple of earnings or a a much lower withdrawal.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[32:42] And anybody even worse it it keeps people out of the stock market well they lost half their money before they’re never going to make that mistake again right but old but now they missed out on almost quadrupling their money since at least.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[32:56] Absolutely.
But I think that’s a very good point tonight I saw something recently thing I was on kites this blog about like what you were talking about even up to an 8% withdrawal rate has been relatively successful given the right timing.
So I think I think people I mean that I’m not recommending that bite.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[33:14] No never never would either.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[33:16] No but.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[33:17] In hindsight you can see that in that could have worked at certain times.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[33:20] Exactly what the.
But the 2% I feel like it’s like wow I mean you know if you want to be very conservative that’s great but I would just like at some point there’s the end of goal for many people.
Is going to be on a Chiva Bowl if they just continue to be that conservative but hate that’s in to each their own and I think being more conservative I guess in in this scenario is better than not being conservative enough.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[33:42] Right and if you have no real interest in retiring you know what you might work until you’re down to a .5% operating you know and have way more money than you need but.
You enjoy what you’re doing and you like watching that balance grow by all means and keypad it.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[33:56] Exact exactly okay so let’s let’s talk a little bit about your lifestyle now that you have transition to part-time,
I think we we discussed a little bit before I start a recording about your travel so you recently spend some time in Mexico tell me a little bit about that.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[34:15] Sure yep that’s something we’ve been looking forward to is just having to,
time to take a vacation that wasn’t a 7-day trip with two travel days and 5 days of squeeze everything in you know that’s kind of what we did earlier in the year we took our boys to Paris France and Reykjavik Iceland in the whole thing was,
done in 10 days we really had 3 travel days and have no it was a whirlwind a lot of fun.
But not the type of travel we’d like to have sex with this new schedule we can disappear for up to 3 weeks at a time,
and we cleared it with her boys principal we got kids in grade school second and third grade and he said yeah you know what you’re talking about sounds awesome so and what we’re talking about is not just,
so damn big for 3 weeks but we went to the central Highlands of Mexico come up in the mountains and we found.
Spanish language school that we could all attend together and we did that for part of the day it did a little bit of the sort of homeschooling in a way it with our kids even though they do go to the public school just to keep up with her.

[35:16] And then then just got to enjoy the local culture and take will side trips. I was just very relaxing and it was a,
really nice way to travel it’s count felt more like living there then then being application ER.
There and it was awesome and we’re going to do something a little bit simpler in February were disappearing for another,
3-week Adventure although this will be a little bit busier as we’re going to stay on three different Hawaiian islands and can see what that’s all about I’ve been to Hawaii before but but not too.
A couple of the islands that were visiting and I managed to get my flight paid for it because there’s a c m e.
Seminar and so I’ll do that for four of the 23 days that we’re going to be gone.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[36:02] Awesome.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[36:03] Yeah and then bring to meet up with another personal finance blogger Doug Norman at the military guy he’s going to teach us how to surf I was taking one lesson before but.
Affordable than the one I took a Turtle Bay up on the North Shore.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[36:20] Very cool very cool and it’s awesome that your boys principle is you know allowing them to do that cuz I think a lot of schools very regimented and very structured about how they only have this many days. That’s all that’s fantastic.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[36:34] Yeah I didn’t expect him to be so easily swayed he had no issues with it at all so.
I take that back they like to keep the kids in public school and if they think they’re going to lose them and lose the tax dollars that come with them.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[36:46] They’re willing to work right.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[36:50] Yeah yeah and we might also look at doing some Mission work I found it place in Central America that encourages you to bring your families and so you don’t want to bring her kids somewhere you don’t live in Mexico to serve a third world country in a way but,
innocent help them see that we don’t all live so well like they do here in America.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[37:10] NN just the travel in general I think it is a great way to expand their Horizons so that’s that’s that’s great talk to me about some of the future goals you have with the position on fire website.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[37:24] I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing which is right at least one pretty throw blog post that I publish every Tuesday on Thursday I have,
select guest post that I think they’re pretty good and we have the white coat investor Network that dr. Jim Dolly and I started based on his sight the white coat investor,
and we now have added passive income MD to the Mets and so we share each other’s,
articles and we do that on Saturday so I’m sharing something that one of them has polish previously but it’s probably new to my audience or,
if it’s something that you before it probably has been years and on Sunday I do,
recap around up where I share some of the best articles that I’ve read over the past week and then there are some other things I I might want to do anyway,
if I can find the time I might write a book or create course something that is a little more concise because when people come to a Blog you’ve got this just.
Collection of articles but they’re never latest chronologically ordered in the way that they were written and and it’s a little.
More difficult to find exactly what you want if you’re just.
Wine start from scratch figure this stuff out it’s hard to do with the block bonds are great for inspiration and for maybe finding the answer to a particular topic.
But maybe something that brings it all together I would keep recording podcasts like I’m doing with you today and yeah.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[38:54] Cool cool Olivia I have solicited some questions from some of your fans and social media land so we asked you a couple here in Texas.
If we visit Minnesota can we get some beer from your I think are you invested in a brewery or a part-owner or something like that.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[39:14] Indeed yes David you are welcome to to share a beer with me well actually you can have the whole beer and I’ll have them,
I do have investments in two birds and the Upper Midwest here on one is an ownership of Porsha and the other is a little bit of a alone to them and I also grew a beard and so I got a Homebrew setup and I’ve always got something on tap that I enjoy so yes David come on up,
we can we can pour some babies.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[39:43] Nice nice know what what is your what what type of beer do you brew.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[39:46] My go-to is an IPA or pale ale but I’d like to goof around and I’ll make a chocolate porter I do a Sour Patch Kid wheat beer that,
Skype app,
popular I use rhubarb for the sour and actual candies that hit dump in there in the fermenter for the flavor and it it turns out amazingly good.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[40:07] Very nice I’ll have to try the chocolate porter so I’m up in that neck of the woods but.
Let me ask you this actually just got up on the beer topic. Yeah I see a lot of ipas and make them happier and healthier what were your thoughts about that.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[40:24] I applied it I enjoy that and I you know if a beer gets overly bitter but it’s hard to drink a personal,
if you balance it out with the flavor on the back end and when you brew we do that by throwing hops in very very late in the boiler even after the boilers are dry hops or Whirlpool hops is it at the school I’m going to get a lot of flavor and Aroma out of those mess really what I,
like more than that the bitterness and the latest trend is the Northeast IPA over the last year or two is going to take it over and that’s it and Ice hazy,
IPA that that has very little bitterness but lots of the Top flavor.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[40:59] Okay I’ll have to check that out I’ll write another question you from Teresa the creator of Doc wife.com.
Have do you have a date night with your wife and describe a typical one if you do.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[41:14] Okay we do although we don’t get a babysitter all that often at least a few times a year and usually that’s if we have.
Silica.
Fundraiser at charity gala type thing but we don’t have that you know every 2 weeks every 4 weeks that we have a babysitter and go out to eat that sort of thing I’d say more often than not typical date night for us is,
African go to bed which is usually about 7:30 7:45 so we still got you know,
give me two two and a half hours before bedtime and we’ll mail we got a hot tub that we really enjoyed because that year round,
we might just watch a movie together I want to show other we’re not necessarily leaving the house it’s our time and that’s pretty nice.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[41:59] Awesome great Drake from the VAC in Pennsylvania what are your weaknesses or vices in regards to savings.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[42:08] I think I’ve done a pretty good job of eliminating most of those we did mention beer had to buy some expensive beers without a Time although compared to a wine habitats.
I suppose travel would be the big one right now when I book The Hawaii trip.
I was able to get my flight reimbursed that I actually use miles from credit card bonus rewards to book my wife’s and my kids light but once we get there then we’ve got,
Airbnb rental cars in Treasure Island flight so,
even with those advantages and I were still I think I already had about the $78,000 mark and we’re not even there yet.
The Mexico trip cost less than half that for 3 weeks. I was pretty darn good but.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[42:57] Right well Hawaii’s just let me know it’s expensive no matter how you cut it and they’re what you know so but but it’ll be a great trip so that’s that’s all right.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[43:04] Yeah and that’s the place where it’s worth it to spend a bit of money.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[43:07] Exactly exactly alright last question here from Chloe do you have any concerns about getting health care for yourself if you inspire too many Physicians into early retirement.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[43:18] That’s great question yeah I do my interview Izzard are written I do a Christopher Guest post and I had,
JL Collins do one he’s well-known for a his book The Simple path to wealth and his stock series on his blog JL Collins nh.com,
well my goal is to commit to not retire early because I’m pretty old and I got some health problems and I want to be around so if you’re not a doctor you should read my blog.
Ignore all of this you know I’m not too worried about it because I know lots and lots of positions I know that very few are actually going to live up to the same about half Challenge and.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[44:00] Right right.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[44:01] You know I think maybe that it will become more of a popular idea but really what I would like to encourage Physicians to do is not to just outright quit as soon as they can.
Yeah and just use their financial Independence to find the job that is best suited to them and that might be a lower-paying job maybe it’s working less maybe it’s working in academics where you can do,
more research are more teaching and less clinical time maybe it’s taken just a half day every Friday or finding the right geographically,
location maybe you’ve done the Arbitrage thing and I like alright well South Dakota was pretty good,
I want to get back to where my family is in in Miami or wherever so so I,
Financial Independence to help design the lights that you want and for some people that will include not working and medicine at all but,
hopefully we can continue to yours our training for as long as we remain engaged.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[45:01] I think that’s great advice I I completely agree I Feel the Fire part I think focusing on the S5 part and the retiring early is more up to you and you know how you want to do it but the financial Independence let’s III we want to get Physicians to that point so they have more choices and,
people such as yourself and Doctor Dolly and and many of the other blogs and podcasts out there are helping to spread the word so I want to thank you again for coming on this podcast I wanted to ask you one other thing you website you do some charitable stuff tell me a little bit about that.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[45:38] I do have pledged to donate half of my profits from the website to charity and I do that via a Donor advised fund which I’ve written about pretty extensively and that’s the way where you can donate money to an account,
that you can’t get the money back that you can decide when and where it is donated to end so it’s just kind of a nice way to take advantage of,
call tax deduction in your Higher Learning years and then go all that money out over whatever. Of time you choose so yeah so far I got donated a lot more money to charity than ever so I’m kind of paying it forward a little bit.
If the site does continue to grow in the the way that it has high I made end up donating hundreds of thousands of dollars more to charity which would be awesome I’ve already got.
I got a quarter million in that door advice on just from working that I’ve done and that’s most of that was donated deal before but.
Small black and Company website and that continue to grow and then I can get more from every year yeah that would be awesome.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[46:40] Awesome well I want to thank you Doctor fire for participating in this podcast I want to ask one more thing tell those who don’t know where they can connect with you on social media and your website one more time.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[46:53] Sure the website is physician on fire com as physician o n f i r e and I have the same Twitter handle,
and also on Facebook just search position on fire and I need you to find I’ve got paid for the site and they made me change my name as the persona,
physician on fire which is not a real name to something that looks like a real name so if you see a Milo Anderson with two s’s,
my Landers son and it has my POF logo that’s me to.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[47:27] Right actually that one last question because this was brought up when I was asking some people what some for some questions to you is Milo Anderson a anagram from Voldemort I think you got a Harry Potter question I’m not a Harry Potter 4.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[47:42] My kids are reading all of those books and they’ve been read to the novel reading and it’s nothing to do with Harry Potter,
Milo is a family name and Anderson was the name my family had when they came for over from Sweden and then it actually changed it when I got to Minnesota because Minnesota is full of.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[48:00] I can say that’s a very good at that’s a very good Minnesota news.

Dr. Physician On Fire: 
[48:03] Yeah so they change it from Anderson with two s’s to what is now so I just kind of put that together when I was they were going to cut off my Facebook access so I had to throw something together quick.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[48:15] Got you got you thank you. Your fire Milo Anderson appreciate you being on the show.

Intro Outro: 
[48:23] Thanks for listening to this episode of the doctor Money Matters podcast and I want to thank my guest today physician on fire.

[48:29] For joining us I hope you enjoyed the podcast and I encourage you if you already haven’t visited to check out his position on fire blog where.

[48:39] He has tons of valuable.

[48:42] Articles about reaching Financial Independence comparing different doctor Lifestyles a savings rate calculator.

[48:50] How to do your backdoor Roth IRA and many other good topics.

[48:57] Please continue to support this podcast by leaving positive reviews I am getting.

[49:03] Fair amount of positive feedback via instant messaging or.

[49:09] Via email but if you could I would appreciate you leaving.
ITunes reviews with those same comments it continues to help this podcast grow and as I’ve said before police report all of your other all the other physician podcasters out there as well.

[49:29] This podcast is available on Apple podcast Google play Stitcher Spotify etcetera.

[49:37] And once again you can follow me on Twitter at Dr Money Matters and on Facebook or Instagram at dr. Money Matters all spelled out and you can join our private Facebook group doctor Money Matters.

[49:50] From further discussion about some of these topic once again thanks for listening and another episode will be coming out soon.

Main Intro 

Episode 23 Doctor Money Matters.

Eric Tait, MD MBA

Please excuse any errors as this transcript is machine generated by Google Voice recognition services. There has been no editing.

Welcome to another Doctor Money Matters episode. In this episode I talk with Eric Tait, MD, MBA, an internist and asset manager who started his own investment firm. We discuss why physicians need to achieve financial independence. Dr. Tait’s has a very well thought out perspective on the future of medicine and we talk about how he separated his financial success from the practice of medicine. Eric was influenced by his work for an insurance company while obtaining his MBA. This experience helped him realize how physicians are viewed as just another labor cost center. As physicians we generally don’t think about how we are viewed by the people who pay us. (Remember for most of us it’s not the patients who pay.) He then realized he had to become financially independent as soon as possible and developed a systematic approach to achieving this. We do this when doing a procedure or reaching a diagnosis and I think its valuable in the investment world also. Ultimately he chose to use real estate to achieve his goal of financial independence but he talks about how he analyzed different asset classes and arrived at this decision. We also briefly talk about his views on cryptocurrency and then how his fund works. Finally we discuss some of the successes and mistakes he has made as an investor. It’s great to see fellow physicians taking charge of their own financial future rather than having it handed to them. As always the discussion on this show is for your education and entertainment only and is not personalized investment advice. Please do your own diligence prior to investing in anything.

I want to thank Dr. Tait for being my guest on this episode of Doctor Money Matters. I hope he inspired you to analyze your own mindset about your investments and your financial future as a healthcare professional. Ultimately, I will still lean towards simple investment approaches but I enjoy learning about different options.

Eric’s company can be found at Vernoville.com and he just started his own podcast recently called The Physician’s Road. Please be sure to check it out. Please let your friends know about this podcast by sharing it on text, whatsapp or whatever social media platform you are on. More episodes of this podcast are available at www.doctormoneymatters.com and Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, etc. All episodes are also now on YouTube (Audio only) and Facebook. You can follow me on twitter @drmoneymatters Please consider joining the Doctor Money Matters Facebook group. Thanks for listening and please leave us positive reviews and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues. Some other physician hosted podcasts that I recommend are: Docs Outside The Box The Hippocratic Hustle The Happy Doc Doctors Unbound The White Coat Investor There are many others, so please support your physician colleagues.

Transcript

Main Intro 

Intro Outro: 
[0:18] Welcome to another episode of Doctor Money Matters podcast and this episode I talked with Eric Tait MD MBA and internist and asset manager who started his own investment firm.

[0:30] We discuss why Physicians need to Achieve Financial Independence dr. Tate has a very well-thought-out perspective on the future of medicine and we talked about how he separated his financial success from the practice of Medicine.

[0:43] He was greatly influenced influenced by working for an insurance company while he was obtaining his MBA.

[0:49] He realized how Physicians are viewed as just another labor cost centers as Physicians we generally don’t think about how we are viewed by the people who actually pass remember it’s not usually are patients who pay us it’s the insurance company.

[1:04] Eric then realized he had to become financially independent as soon as possible and develop a systematic approach to achieving this.

[1:13] As Physicians we generally do this when doing a procedure or reaching a diagnosis for a patient and I think it’s a valuable skill to transfer over to the investment world as well.

[1:26] Ultimately Eric chose real estate to achieve his goal of financial Independence but he talks about how he analyzed the different asset classes that are available and how he.

[1:36] Came to real estate to achieve this goal.

[1:40] We briefly talked about his views on cryptocurrency and then about how his investment fund works.

[1:48] We finally discuss some of the successes and mistakes that he has had as an investor.

[1:54] It’s great to see our fellow Physicians taking charge of their own financial future rather than having it handed to them and I hope this episode inspires you to do the same.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[2:05] Okay welcome to another episode of The Money Matters podcast today is dr. Eric Tait the practicing internist in Houston Texas who also has its own asset management firm Asset Management.

[2:19] Eric welcome to the show.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[2:21] Thank you so much for having me I appreciate the time.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[2:24] You said I hope hurricane Harvey didn’t affect you too badly.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[2:28] We got lucky kind of an RN House in Houston or garage flooded came up to our door and then received it we were fortunate some of our neighbors ended up getting flooded and our neighborhood is close to Winter by you so it doesn’t usually flows in the streets but not,
into the home so we had some damage in the neighborhood and then some of the investment properties that we have we got very lucky because we have,
fairly spread out geographically in Houston and only one of the homes actually flooded completely but it had flood insurance was in a flood plain so I just got this just got the settlement from that and so we’re in the process of rebuilding that,
everything else is pretty much a fixed at this point.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[3:04] Wow.

[3:05] That’s that’s great because that’s I know a lot of people are going through some hard times they’re obviously Miami Florida and Puerto Rico so I’m glad to hear that you guys kind of you know we’re able to handle it and you guys got the insurance settlement quick that’s that’s awesome.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[3:19] We’re lucky but you stood still has a ways to go pee people don’t really realize it over a hundred thousand properties have been affected in some people lost everything and so the people are still donating please there are so many many needs an in Houston area.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[3:33] Unfortunately all these things happen simultaneously and right after the other and I I think people forget that you likely that a while the damage happened first it was a pretty significant amount of damage so absolutely Houston in the back your mind as well,
so let me ask your background tell me about your training and then what kind of got you into the financial quote.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[3:57] Absolutely sounds really from Mount Vernon New York suburbs of the city went to college in Atlanta at Morehouse College,
then came to Houston to the Dual degree program in MD MBA program at Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University then down to the coast in Galveston for residency at UTMB Galveston and then practicing internist and,
really it all started in business school when I take my first kind of accounting classes and really learn how the stock market works and Kyle,
we practice capitals of United States and it left me wanting and so I really want on a journey into really,
invest my own money that’s really why I went to business school wasn’t really any more complicated then,
and I was going to be a doctor my wife is a position and where we going to put this money that was going to ultimately benefit us as soon as possible and so it really wasn’t no more complicated than it really just.
A biology major trying to learn Finance Adam on the Fly.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[4:55] So you have the interest positions are notorious for not being very financially savvy so he went to business school concurrently with your training.

[5:04] To talk a little bit about what you learned there that gives you an advantage over the average position.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[5:10] Not so much Advantage I would say more reality check so my concentration was in Healthcare Management and Entrepreneurship and so one of the things that I worked on when I was,
between first and second your business school when you were doing internship as I work for a large well-known Insurance Company.
Back in the Northeast and I worked as a network medical director and actually got published doing some of the early paper performance trials and so this was a.
Summer 2001 and so if you understood where the tea leaves were you understood,
what was happening in medicine and so the biggest thing that I realize was that if it isn’t we tend to be in our own bubble and we tend to be a captains of the ship.
But to the outside world especially when it comes to resources resource usage resource allocation amount of GDP this being spent in our field.

[6:06] Our importance as a relates to the system is not.
Either understood or respected outside of medicine and that to me was the biggest eye opener and let me down the pathway of how I look at finances because.
I was going to be a position I’m going to college want to be a physician my uncle wanted same color as he was in position we have other family members that go back or Physicians and sold that did not change for me.
But the understanding that Physicians don’t control the system even though the system doesn’t work without us I knew that I couldn’t be financially tied to that kind of model which,
usually meant I had to divorce my financial life.
To my professional life and that’s not something the most Physicians have ever historically had to consider and one that ultimately because we’re not training it could be very disconcerting.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[7:00] Absolutely so this is a very interesting mindshift that position now are really starting to feel a little bit more but you had this realization probably at a much earlier stage is it most of us do because like you said.
What’s the weather so focused in on getting through the medical school part getting through your residency and you see that it’s sometimes hard to grasp the external factors that are occurring outside of of your little Silo that you’re in so.

[7:29] Once you realize that this is the new reality for Physicians of the whole.

[7:35] Were you in your career and what kind of steps could you take at that point.

[7:40] To what you said you divorced the financial aspects from the reality that you discovered there.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[7:46] It was pretty,
early on in so I was fortunate that I had mentors early on and between my first and second year of medical school we had a lot of collective time so I didn’t elect it with a community-based position next week I meant or mine I actually went to practice with him for many years I had a residency and,
I watch basically his life trajectory and kind of how would that unfolded always with a backdrop in the back of my mind understanding that okay,
he was a pretty good life but I see these forces that he can’t control that are around him and the greatest thing that.
Physical gave me what’s an understanding of systems right systemic thinking when it relates to just.

[8:27] Providing services for people and the biggest light bulb was really the understanding that.
If your client patient whomever is not the person paying you then the market itself everybody wants to know about Maroon forces.
Then the market doesn’t really matter because the people who are the beneficiary of your service don’t determine your value which is worth what it is in any other business,
and that’s why I tell people medicine is not a business at best it’s an indentured servitude because as long as you’re in a third-party payment model someone else is always in a determine your financial worth and someone else is going to determine how you practice.
And so most of us went into medicine with very idealistic.
Ambitions and in points and it’s not just about the financial side it’s also about the actual how we practice and how we have to take care of patients is really dictated.

[9:22] Through finances to the payment model and so understanding that and,
getting early introduction to that as a med student always let me understand as I was going to training I always watched what was happening,
on the insurance side on Medicare side on the Medicaid side because I knew was going to have direct impact on how we were going to ultimately practice.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[9:43] Let’s talk about that because the early on so what kind of steps did you take maybe while you were in residency or you know when you first got out.
To ensure that you would not be necessarily tied to his practicing medicine as the way you’re going to make money the rest of your life.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[10:02] So what I did was,
during business school I went on a quest for what I say business models so what business models out there could,
keep me financially stable while being a position I meant to say his medicine is a jealous mistress most of us don’t have a whole lot of extra time.

[10:21] If we’re going full-bore in the practice and so you know,
I had to look at and figure out okay if that’s the same I’m practicing hundred percent of my time 60 hours a week my wife and I what ways could we invest and make money.
In that process so we went down the stock trading side of things right but I just come into the school so I had to learn kind of how the stock market works and realizing that underline Market fundamentals of business,
does not determine stock price then you learn about the capital asset pricing model and you learn about all the in efficiencies it there there that really emotion.
Rules just as much as our company’s actually doing and sector rotation and what money. Money is moving into what sectors and how that moves the market so to me that you were actually didn’t make a lot of sense to put a lot of my wolf there any look it okay.
What about franchises and things of that nature but if you look at some of the,
major franchises if they have a lot of initial net worth and then used to spend a lot of time figuring out and being in there so I won’t name brand names but many of them have their own schools and universities that you have to go through like while after I can work,
and so then I just said okay where in the world is most of the wealth held and so for me the easiest and lowest hanging fruit was just real estate in so I had happened to buy a condo when I was in medical school and then I just said well let me just write it out while I’m in residency,
and once you get that first check that you don’t actually have to work for it’s very addicting I should say and so,
once you begin to get paid without you having to constantly put your labor in and don’t get me wrong we work hard and trying to find project in those kind of things but when you can get paid.

[12:02] And you don’t have to keep putting in labor inputs for on consistent basis at least that is a full-time have a job.

[12:09] Completely shut your mind and so then I went to search for things where I could either leverage my medicine degree.
Vino, physician that allows me access to these particular projects that will generate income or,
hey what other kinds of businesses and what real estate released have two things can I invest in that are going to generate income without me having to physically do that work on a consistent basis and so it really just do with a two bedroom one bath condominium but I want to listen to.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[12:35] Okay the real estate freshly single family homes or condominium things like that is a pretty common for people to think about as alternatives to stock market investing and traditional equity.
But then you mentioned something else I things interesting you mention what you could do as a physician what kind of access that you had as a position.
Tell me a little more about that because anyone can get into traditional real estate investing.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[13:01] Let me do the Caveat Emptor on the front end so many physician projects.
Where the dumb money in the deal meeting the you know that the dumb doctor deals right out that the good the greatest thing I’ll be honest with you the greatest thing about business school was learning income statement balance sheet and cash flow state.
You don’t need to go to business school to know how to read though so you can basically get it off of YouTube but.
I don’t want doctors to run headlong into doctor deals right that just there’s more money lost and probably nothing else in the world but there were the ability to leverage when I like to say is leverage our labor.
Because I like to divorce my life doll from my labor which is why I like passive income.
But if we’re going to be Physicians there ways that we can move up the economic value chain it’s hard or nowadays than it used to be but when I had the ability to invest in the main hospital where I was practicing and I did this when I Lewis first got out,
looking back it was the greatest deal in the world,
but it did give me ex back brakes give me some of the things that were beneficial and gave me some experience as well so,
being a physician at the hospital or we have the ability to invest in that facility in based upon the original management team and what their plan was which they were able to accomplish but based upon the plan,
I was willing to take that risk now I’m not saying go out there and then invested Hospital especially full-service acute care hospitals near Capitol sucks in terms of the amount of capital they need to keep running but,
I was early in my investment World they gave me experience to understand that and so that was put on to my experience resume.

[14:33] There was an insurance plan that came into the city they wanted to party with Physicians which allowed us to sit at the table and see the money come in from,
it was a Medicare Advantage plan to be able to see the money come in and filter through the plan and then be distributed and so we had a direct hand and being able to create our own networks and,
that wasn’t. That’s probably the best investment I’ve ever made in my life in all honesty in terms of the total return that I’ve gotten to the amount of money we put in and so,
I was going to see those patients ID way I was still going to send the patient to the hospital I was going to do anyway I looked at project that did not change the way that I practice medicine.
To try to lever up my ability to move up the value chain now I was not one brought in new service lines into the practice just to make more money I don’t like changing my practice patterns,
Revenue say I don’t regret anybody else who does that as long as they’re within guidelines but anytime you have the ability to take the labor you’re already doing,
and because as Physicians where the bottom of the food chain economical we get what’s left over after everybody else is eating at the trough in all honesty.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[15:40] Going to a little bit more about that because I think that is a difficult concept for most positions particularly ones who are just fresh out of training or entrained understand so tell me a little bit more detail about the.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[15:52] Since they were labor now we have a professional code we say an old I mean there’s all those things right but ultimately at the end of the day we are labor and we are labor and the people who Avail themselves of our services do not,
so that means there’s a massive disconnect because we do not control the dollars that flow into the industry so if you’re a business person you control the dollars that flow into your company we as Physicians no longer control the dollar is it fluid that’s,
our predecessors control those doubts and the abuse that the government,
in private insurers took the persons away from positions we’re never getting the person’s back right and so because of that.
We will pay labor but we are laboring on the list and especially as we think about these payment models in the future they are not going to revolve around 3 for service and so if we’re talking about a bun.

[16:41] I mean you know Cole Global Capital payments are Global Payments that surgeons get that’s a form of rationing right as form of economic rest so.
Listing the ACO models the acos and money comes into the system and then it filters through and if there’s anything left over at the end then that will get kind of distributed.
Well imagine that old model across all of Medicine.
I’m hurt and I have no inside or knowledge of this but I’m personally convinced and if you look at the tea leaves then.
We are being pushed into employment models to better control our Behavior we’re going out to all pick teams were going to be on.
Each of the major cities are regions are going to team up with a large entity of some kind some of the movie physician run some of them will not be and the money is going to come in and fill out the top and then it would have to be distributed based upon some Valium system.
To take care of all the patients so it’s going to really move to a population base model I think.
I can’t tell you is going to happen tomorrow but ultimately the end we are just part of the team in that process we are not going to drive that process.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[17:45] Can you explain it very well I think that’s one of the toughest thing because as you said we all went into medical school idealistically to take care of patients and that’s the course what we still are doing.

[17:55] Traditionally we were AA much more.

[18:00] Valued part of the team not just financially and I think that’s being denigrated a little bit and also.

[18:07] The control aspect is obviously being taken away and I think that,
has contributed a lot to not just the financial issues that business in space but also a lot of it burn out that position to facing because that those powers and the control aspect is being eroded away,
overtime but I want to get too far along into into that bar because I have had other shows about that aspect but,
you basically mentioned it that’s why it’s very important for positions to achieve.
Financial Independence as early in their career as they can and and real estate is one way that you done it.

[18:45] Let’s talk a little bit about your experience as well as you found it burning Vlasic management your investment company what you’ve done with that and then some of the deals and things like that that you’ve done that’s part of that company.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[18:57] Absolutely and it’s not just real estate because we have other Investments as well really my mind it was more so one of.
Casual and I don’t want people to think that oh my god I’ve got to replace all of my income before I can be financially free that’s not the case I always argue it if I can cut positions basically they were closed by a quarter,
is replacing whatever that missed income would have been that you would reduce an epidemic of burnout,
immensely right so it’s not like you’re trying to replace all of your income because if we just could ratchet down the amount of work that we’re doing as Physicians you have a happy or populous of Physicians and I think that that would translate,
John a metaphysical level to a healthier Society because what did you say about society when it’s Healers,
are all disgruntled and more than half of them would would lie depression if they could and I also want to say on the real estate side real estate is just a means to an end right in the end there’s no magical quality to it the magical qualities about it is,
that there are,
tax laws written specific waste banks will give you 80% of the money to buy these assets and you can put your individual investment dollars can go further.
And the Natural Market forces of inflation help.
So if I can do the same thing with stocks if I do the same thing with bonds and there was a kind of know you that allow that then I’d be all in those things really it’s just for me real estate is the highest and best use,
the dollar to achieve income replacement.

[20:27] But if you can find a business to get into do that and you have the requisite knowledge of understanding how to evaluate that business,
and do that again I just think it really is the easiest thing right because all of us have a have a passing familiarity with it we’ve all lived in something that can be rented and so that’s how I started it was just you know I wasn’t,
a tech guy that say hey let’s go do DC stuff I was like well you know I can understand this want to do it so we just bought single family homes about small apartments,
12 to the downturn when people running from Real Estate.
That’s what understanding what you’re investing in is so important because during the economic downturn was The Best Time Ever to buy pretty much anything that had.
Solid economic footing Americans have to buy everything on sale except for Real Estate so,
we back at the truck now in hindsight I would have backed up the truck on apartment complex not on single family homes but you know hindsight is 20/20 and so we did single family homes apartments and then in roughly 20,
13 2014 and we just have to visit in college wanted to,
join us and see what we were doing and talk to Security attorneys today just all you do is look at ICC no University to make x amount of dollars which,
as Physicians it’s really not an issue that’s the whole accredited investor peace and we can go into that if you want to and,
we just decided to start doing larger projects because what I found was a larger project,
actually tend to be safer because you have more eyes on the deal any of us can go out there and buy a single-family home or condo or even a small apartment complex when you’re buying a hundred apartment complex when you’re doing a 300 Hotel.

[22:06] You got a lot of experts in the room looking at it to say hey,
what’s happening what are the numbers look like what are your contingency plans and so you have a built-in team of people who are already going to be looking over your shoulder in that process and so that’s really kind of the natural progression of most.
Real Estate Investors they start kind of only small individual things realize I don’t want a million rules to deal with an AC units in those kind of things I’d rather just be in a larger project that has better,
economies of scale so we just took that natural progression up and then brought in outside investors along with us but,
ultimately running real is how I invest my family’s money I just allow the people to come and join us on the ride.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[22:49] So you mentioned that you basically went from like a lot of people start out with single family homes smaller apartment deals in any has your acid-base is increase your own as well as outside investor you started getting involved in these.
Can you talk.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[23:07] Oh yeah I mean so we are larger apartment so I will say to have professional management at least in the markets that were in you need to have 85 units or hire someone even argue 200 but,
you don’t have to go that high and then also right now because real estate United States is,
pretty well fairly valued it’s not really a bubble but you’re not going to get a discount but if you’re looking for something to get a discount you have to buy something that’s crappy and you can fix it up we’re in the process of a major renovation on an apartment complex here in Houston.
And you know that’s that’s one model right and that just great tax breaks it has the ability to deliver that up but then you always want to be in heavy lifting kind of projects for me I didn’t,
also want to be just tied to the United States you know some people think investing outside the US is risky I would argue that having all of your economics,
eggs in one country basket one political systems basket and one currency basket.
Is it risky as well we started to look across the globe to see where we could invest that has basically the same,
laws around properties the u.s. does and that’s pretty common law countries and then also were on an earlier growth trajectory because in the end.

[24:19] You know if you’re only going to go for 5% return you might as well just by AT&T and get there for sand do in a call today if you want to get it higher.
Risk-adjusted return you’re gonna have to go into markets that are growing faster than the United States for us.
We wanted to get exposure outside of the us as well because we diversify across asset classes I don’t know what’s wrong and say hey I’m in the stock market here and then I like,
real estate and private businesses so I’m going to diversify in those assets across geographies and,
political systems and monetary systems and so,
so we’re in the hotel brought it down the Caribbean and we’re also doing Farmland down in Central America in companies in Farmland we try to spread our.
Assets.
Cross mini geographies and across many asset classes as long as we can own land and there’s a good cash flow stream behind what it is we’re doing.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[25:15] Let me ask you this because this is a tough thing for Physicians to be like you would mention earlier,
any deals for Physicians where you said dumb money but basically the capital and whether it’s a good investment or not we just don’t know really how to evaluate that,
so when you’re looking at mean and then you you’re adding another complicating factor which is.
Not in the u.s. necessarily which is I agree with you which is great for diversification of risk services and probably a much better chance to get a good return.

[25:46] How are you able to evaluate those kind of deals.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[25:53] It’s actually one that I’ve turned his head to let me turn it on his head then I’ll tell you how we do the evaluation process so.
If most docs if they’re doing the traditional boglehead or white coat investor those things there in index funds well 60% of the money that’s made.
And the S&P 500 is made overseas so by default you’re already invested overseas that’s number one,
more than half of your earnings coming over seas you’re already a foreign investor right many of these companies are not even domicile here anymore so people already doing it.
Do you understand if they’re doing it that’s number one number two.
There’s nothing that I invest in that I myself have not gone to either the country the place would have you multiple times to actually walk.
And B and spend and,
do parody market analysis there’s no project that I have myself and not walked and I’m not gone to that place and then in that place or have ties to that place,
in some way shape form or fashion and so I end up doing more to deal gence then the person who owns an index fun most of the time and I’m talking to investors I know more about the portfolio that they own,
then they know themselves because I went to business school stock market because I have to be well-versed in everything my investors are doing.
So when they come to me and say what what’s going on here what’s Happening Here I tell people all the time don’t put your money in anything that you can’t fairly value yourself.

[27:21] So you can’t tell me what price you’re paying for something why are you investing it that’s why I turn the Assumption on his head,
I can give the valuation pretty probably we do I can show you what the valuations are I do a,
an hour-long presentation to any investors to what it is what the inputs are with revenues coming from with the threats of it are would like to call a sensitivity analysis is so we’re looking at these occupancy versus so in the end.
I always tell people you’re going to know more about a product that you’re not even in then what’s probably in your own portfolio right now and that’s a coming up on me.
As a person putting the project together.

[27:58] To teach and I would say anybody who was asking for your money or anybody was saying hey yes you can come in and join us if they can’t give you that confidence,
it’s clear,
did you understand how it’s going to work and how might not work and what the threats are and what the opportunities are you shouldn’t be investing your money and I believe that for your 401k or IRA and all of those things.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[28:20] Pratt right that’s that’s a that’s a good answer I think you’re right.
Bad place to put your money in the stock market in index funds and I think it’s the best on average if you don’t want to have much to do with it and don’t want to do anything I still think that’s a good place to be but.

[28:36] I do think that most people don’t realize the risks and most people don’t realize what they’re holding it just kind of what they’ve been told to do so.
That’s very very good answer let’s go into a little bit more about your you mentioned you don’t just do real estate and some of what you do is what’s considered alternative investment what is the term alternative investment mean.
What place does that have in most positions portfolio.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[29:03] It’s actually an oxymoron statement right so historically anything that’s not.
Typically in a public market stocks or bonds is considered alternative but let’s think about that realistically okay so when I say we’re going to buy farmland for a home if you really think about it.

[29:21] That’s kind of real right it’s not all turn if it’s only thing that you know 5000 years ago the things that were talking about buying people bought.
I don’t remind stocks they were it’s really what I call the Wall Street indoctrination process right so they want everyone to think that just passively investing in these paper slips.
Is what’s normal and what is safe and that anything else that is not that is alternative and it’s risky.
And so it’s really a marketing play more than anything else.
In my estimation about how they set up in people’s minds the ability to continue to keep capital for themselves and not allow people to have control over their own capital and so pretty much anything that’s not.
Stocks and bonds.
Is considered alternative so we’re so I can go talk about Commodities we’re talking about real estate private Equity DC investing all those things are considered quote-unquote alternative now the ironic thing about it is.

[30:22] All the times to be able to invest in those portable Alternatives you have to be at a certain wealth or income status.

[30:29] And so interesting Lee enough and it’s and it’s funny the person just put out a tweet you also in case you’re not going to be touched great middle class vehicle.

[30:38] I got in trouble because that’s exactly what it is it’s a great middle-class vehicle because wealthy people don’t use it.

[30:45] And so from that standpoint the wealthy are all in all Targets right if you look at the tiger 21 club which is a,
professional investment club with branches around the country based in New York if you look at their allocation for the third they was in the third quarter.

[31:00] It’s 54% real estate and private businesses it’s less than 20% Publix.

[31:08] Can people with investable assets of 10 million or more.

[31:12] I’m so fancy look at and it’s 21. Com they looked at before the allegations and you know the really wealthy.

[31:22] Do not do what the middle-class and upper-middle-class do.
And that’s just a simple fact right so I’m you know I’m not that smart so I didn’t do it real with people do right I’m just going to I’m going to I’m going to marry their asset allocation and for me it’s so far as work.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[31:38] Okay so let’s go a little bit into that because it’s bad for you,
what’s a I’m a couple years out in a primary care field making by middle-class income is obviously not delete level money.

[31:54] I still think that investing you know in your 401k and things like that for the tax purposes is a good idea what point should I start looking into these alternative quote-unquote alternative Investments to be made but maybe.
They may not want me because I’m not quite at that level yet so how do I look for these things obviously your company is one but how do I look for these things and what.

[32:18] Time for me to start investing in.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[32:21] I Got This Were Meant to remind you guys are with your personal investment philosophy you got to figure out what you want your financial life to look like what do you want your resources in your assets to do for you,
you start there because I don’t we why don’t I don’t ever tell people what to do I can just show people what I do.
And give them a rationale behind why I do it and if it resonates with them cool come along we’ll see if you were going to get from a personal standpoint if you fit right we’re not going to fit personality-wise I can’t,
we’re not going to close so we can start there right what do you want to do because you can’t get somebody who grew up.
Either working class or lower middle class we now comes into money so now money has a whole lot of connotations around it there’s a whole lot of psychological bags and if you have a spouse there’s a bag is on that side potential is well good and bad right,
and so ultimately it’s about going within yourself one trusting yourself I’m big on.
Potential investors trust in themselves and trusting their guts not.
Turning a raw we’re all very highly School professionals with decent amount of common sense of humor we are so I won’t be able to trust themselves first and foremost and then really sit and figure out what it is they wanted and if what they want.
Is not going to be accomplished by doing what they’ve been told to do they have to decide that if the ultimate outcome of that.

[33:48] Is psychologically scarring enough to want to change into something different because to do if it’s what we do we have to stand alone right.
I don’t have 401k I don’t have our break but they look at me like I have three heads and so you have to be willing to stand apart from everyone else,
to say you know what, that’s not the road I’m going right and so I don’t cuz you know I don’t know what he’s doing me so I’m not telling people.
But having a clear understanding what I wanted to do what I said this we have a baseline expense ratio in our household we’re not going to go above that if we want to improve our lifestyle then we’re going to have to buy assets that increase our income without us having to work harder.

[34:29] And so every dollar that was above that Baseline expensive just you know Pandora loans and pay our mortgage is it doing that.
Goes towards increasing our income.

[34:40] And that’s just our personal investment philosophy right so you just get the tax breaks we keep more money we’re going to generate income that’s just our philosophy start with a philosophy before you go to financial planner before you start doing anything.
Figure out what you want your money to do for you because people do the mental fallacy of of mental accounting that’s a.
Economic accounting fallacy you don’t have 401K money in 529 money in savings account and checking account you have a capital.

[35:12] And that capital is all the same you’re just categorizing two different things and singing a different job so it really doesn’t it’s all the same time.
And it could all do the same things for you now course you need to have a savings you need and I tow my busted you can invest with me if you don’t have disability insurance if you have kids if you don’t have term life insurance.
You must protect your income first before you can do anything else but after that it’s completely up to you.
It’s completely up to you and so that’s how I built my life and then.
I think every investor should do that before they do anything with your money is figure out what they want their money to do for them and what kind of Life they ultimately want to live how long do you want to be working how long do you want to be working full-time,
all of those things and figure out are you putting yourself in a vehicle that can make that actually happen or not.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[36:02] That’s I think that’s a great answer I’m it so it’s really important to get the mindset like that you describing before you do anything because,
most of us are just so you know if you come out you do your training you do your work and you save a certain percentage and blah blah blah and you know that’s it but you’re absolutely right.

[36:20] The thought process that you’re describing there is invaluable and I think that most of us would do well to really understand what we’re doing what we’re working for why we’re doing what we’re doing.

[36:32] Before we just commit ourselves to career of doing that and just kind of blindly following it so I really and I like the way you described that because if I listen to take one key points from this I think.
Think about what you doing while you’re doing it how you’re doing it and where you want to be I think those are the things that you describe that you know.

[36:52] Key to financial success successful life and in it and many with.

[37:04] Where to buy listeners event people I like.

[37:08] Been talking about recently and that’s all this talk about.

[37:17] Appreciation of cryptocurrencies what are your thoughts about that.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[37:22] I have not studied it in-depth so let’s start there so I don’t like acid have a super informed opinion but I always try to look at,
the world through principles right and so specific principles and things of that nature I have different thoughts around cryptocurrencies based upon what someone is trying to accomplish with them right,
I believe they’re probably great trading Vehicles you can trade them kind of like a quantitative Trader on price action so I think they’re great for that I don’t think that they’re,
a long-term investment and my rational around that is there’s really no limit to how many cryptocurrencies can be created,
so you have no natural Supply breakpoint that I like to see an investment I like to invest in things where there’s an increasing demand,
and a decreasing or static Supply and I just don’t know enough around like I’m talking to a friend who’s a minor and he says essentially blockchain and Bitcoin are.
Have to go hand-in-hand.
I’m not convinced of that necessarily I don’t know blockchain technology has to but he’s an expert more than I am so he tells me that then I may have to go with it but when I see all of these big companies saying that they want to create,
platforms and the issues computing power which you know if we know what is Moore’s law so all I need is,
a ton of network computers around the globe and a power that I can create a same kind of model then it’s like okay there is no natural breakpoint.

[38:51] I don’t see it as a worldwide usable currency usable money because money has some very specific characteristics.
Baby won’t go into here but one of them being intrinsic value and so there’s no intrinsic value their of any kind whatsoever and so I think it’s perfectly fine to trade the stuff.
And just speculating it but in terms of just putting it and setting it up for getting it I don’t really believe in any setting and forgetting it unless you’re getting paid on a cash basis so I don’t even believe instead of getting it for stops right.
What was someone real estate but even then you know we can get paid to write out dips so.
From that standpoint I don’t think it’s an investment I don’t think it’s money I think it can be currency and I think it can be traded.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[39:34] I agree with you in the sense that I don’t invest in myself I don’t have a very strong understanding of that I understand a Bitcoin the currency itself has some theoretical limit but I just can’t see why there is.
Bitcoin or one of these above.

[39:55] Each other and so I’m sure you were a newer cryptocurrencies will probably have additional features and and so I just don’t see the inherent value of a yet I like the idea of a decentralized currency and and digital.

[40:09] Transactions but I just don’t see that one of these has a dominant.
Position but like you said it can be traded people who have bought it the last few years I’ve done incredibly well but as far as long-term goes I I just have no idea what.
The future hold in terms of cryptocurrency.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[40:24] Yes hopefully hopefully doesn’t have made money taken in one of the table and they’re just playing with house money.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[40:28] I put agree I would agree with you should totally about that go to Alaska I want to talk a little bit about your your phone or your asset management company Burnsville.
Since you.
Started it you started it in 2007 as a private investment for you and your wife and then you open it up like you said later to outside positions your colleagues what kind of performance have you had since since you opened it up to other investors.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[40:58] Turn outside investors most apart that we have done at this point in time have been kind of either new bills or renovation projects so the returns are mostly going to be capital gain wise and so it’s not you know.
I don’t discount capital gains but we tend to lead with cash flow in terms of what we put out there and so I would say it’s a hotel project for the early investors were probably up.

[41:23] Unknown 35 40% on a capital gains basis so that’s probably 12 to 14% from that standpoint if we count the little bit of tax laws we’ve been able to give just from appreciation,
maybe a little couple take higher than that on our apartment projects what capital gain standpoint I would say,
I so I so don’t tell me all the games I have to go back on a tax basis is not a 27% return last year just from the tax law cereal to give from that standpoint,
and then we just don’t need the farm farm fun and so we have had our first harvested with that so that nothing there that is open Maybe,
two or three months ago.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[42:08] Okay it’s our people investing as a you know just as a set amount into vernonville and then divided up or are they investing in individual projects with in Burnsville.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[42:20] Great question so,
right now because we’re relatively early and I’m not asking for that much trust for my investors shit we are not doing what would be considered a semi blind where the money just comes in the road enville and then I allocate it as I see best that’s,
yep. That’s a lot of faith now granted that’s what people do with mutual funds but we won’t talk about that,
no actually invested get to choose so we create actual Vernon Hills the management company,
are there actual individual investment funds under a grown adult so you get to decide yes hey I want to be in that hotel project I don’t want to be in the farm yes I want to be in the apartment so people get to choose what they’re in so,
it’s very much a menu can say yes this no yes,
kind of situation so you know exactly what you’re investing in I don’t have that much latitude in terms of taking the money and saying we’re going to X Y and Z we do you know in a min max raise on a very specific thing.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[43:12] And also on the flipside let me let me ask you this what’s.
What is a financial mistake whether it’s a stock trade or a real estate Investments that you learned something from the sky changed your philosophy of worship.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[43:29] Got how long do we have Okay so,
the hospital project that we didn’t put a fun together that was my money into a project I learn about Capital efficiency and the lack thereof for in hospitals and big kind of projects like that and so you’re always going to be competing.
With dividends versus Capital capex are capital expenditures to maintain the facility so I learn to be,
to look at parties that had Capital efficiency in them in terms of what we’re doing from from a real estate perspective so not a lot of extra incremental dollars to maintain the acid.
Then we had a real estate deal didn’t go well no outside investor money this was my own money right.
peak of the market we were buying condos and we were using as kind of Personal Care Homes for people who are drug addicts or or mentally challenged and so that projects.
Couple of mistakes on that project one the person we’re buying from Pat’s of other Financial issues that cross collateralized the property with other projects and so as we were buying it he lost control of it was control of the insurance.
Our insurance went through the roof it just it just got crazy from that standpoint on the flip side the person who we were using as the,
manager to bring new clients in she wasn’t very reliable and didn’t have a good source of steady clients and so that let me understand from an operational standpoint one you need to control you need to control the hold of you from from outside,
so on the top side the bottom side is you have to have experienced operators if you’re going to be an operations type business so.

[45:07] Apartment complex really isn’t operations heavy,
hotel in Airbnb is operations heavy going into those projects you can make sure that your operator has a platform on which,
to really get clients through the door and then stock trade we invested in a private bank that was targeting Hispanic community in North Carolina right before the downturn so once.
Real estate dried up that make dried up got some soon to buy another again just wanted something I put outside investors in from that standpoint so I can go on days and days and days.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[45:39] Garibaldi.
Learning from failure is the failure then I think that’s an important trait in a investor.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[46:00] Absolutely and I will tell you I asked that question of of my prospective investors,
because they have to understand that they’re going to be ups and downs in this and so I’m very upfront I ask them what has been your biggest failure in your life and how have you overcome that because I’ve known as had a major failure I don’t want you in my prayers.
Because we’re going to have issues they’re going to come up right and I need to know how you react,
in the downturn right now you know how you’re going to ultimately be what is your temperament like and how you answer that question and so I think so anyone who knows me who’s invented knows that I ask that question back of a potential investors.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[46:34] I think that’s actually a really good point is bad we want to know from you but you also like you had mentioned earlier.
When you’re talking about developing that mindset that’s a question that you should definitely ask yourself before you do anything else but a little bit.

[46:53] For the average investor for every position what’s more important.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[47:00] Lori question pens on what they’re trying to accomplish in so if you got a in Ojai income-earning physician who loves their love their lifestyle and is an act like a cash-based business associate dermatologist or plastic surgeon. Grading come and they’re like well I’m really trying to set up for my kids and great-grandkids inside my state together,
and it’s going to be appreciation all day long,
and we would put them in a project and appreciation heavy project and if it’s the everyday person who hates their job and was like listening to get as free as possible and it’s going to be cash flow and so it really is,
you talk to me understand in my company is not about me and our projects,
it’s about the prospective investor what they’re trying to accomplish because often times we won’t have something at and I was at the referral into my friends were also syndicators and say hey this is what they looking for look at this call them they’ll have something for you because in the end it’s all going to come around,
and so that’s why personal investment philosophy and looking at your whole financial pictures a whole,
is much more important in trying to find a deal deals are ubiquitous right what what I would argue investor the trying to find is someone that they can.
Mentally Vibe with,
that is going to give them what it is they’re looking for in terms of help learning about finances and learning about those types of things to me it’s more important that you’re going to find someone that you can grow with.
Then it is to say pierce the best deal out there in this what I think the best product is and use the number this is a relationship game in the end,
what miners have is the ability to call me up on the phone and ask what’s going on and then also have my Rolodex at their disposal.

[48:37] And so that’s very different kind of situation then kind of sight unseen type of investing.
And so that’s why I would say it’s really about what you’re trying to accomplish and then you will then gravitate towards the projects that will give you that,
and the first nursing a cross with a p a financial planner or an independent person like me should be going through this with you to say listen what is this look like what do you want to do what is it where is it that you owe somebody want to be and then we’ll put you in the thing that does that.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[49:06] Good good I think that’s some great advice there outside of the financial World in your clinical practice and you’re also running Burnsville what are you doing.

[49:21] Do you have any free time.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[49:23] I want if I should tell on myself.
Right now I’m sitting in my pajamas looking out the window talking to you after I leave here I’m going to go exercise and then the next with my calendar what do I have less than I have a meeting at 6 so I see places one day we.
And then because I have income coming from multiple sources I don’t have to do investment projects to make money.
So I only do investment projects that move me and where I want to replace my money.
And so I don’t think I’m going to take one of the project for the rest of the year we’ve got a couple of friends are going to finish funding through the end of the year and then we’re going to.
2018 and a bunch of strategic plan and figure out what it is we want to do for 2018 so I end up having I’m busy but I’m busy based upon my own schedule I set up when I’m going to.

[50:13] For me the whole point of investing was to have time Freedom was it didn’t mean I was going to retire didn’t mean I wasn’t going to still work hard what it meant was I could structure my life in a way that I wanted to structure.

[50:27] And so that’s really for me I’m you know I have the ability to I was at my house when coming to bed weekend going on New Orleans from New Orleans investment conference going to see what’s going on in the mining and metals space and so,
I’m busy but I’m busy in the things that I want to be busy in.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[50:42] Awesome we’ll dr. Tate I think that’s where a lot of us are trying to get congratulate you,
for being able to achieve that in a very.

[50:58] Will definitely benefit from 10.

[51:01] Adjusting your mindset to thinking about where they want to be and how they want to get there more about you and Fernando.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[51:11] Oh absolutely bear with me cuz I know Hernando’s a funny name but I’ll spell it out so it’s easy to email me at Eric Eric,
at vernonville. Com in and let me spell that for you vernonville is V as in Victor he is an Eric r as in Robert,
it is a Nancy always an octagon and as in Nancy V as in Victor,
eyes and indigo Ellison Larry Ellison Larry and Eric. Com so going to go.com and you can go to run to go.com.
Or you can just Google my name Eric Eric tasty AIT I’m sure I’ll come up and married ways so easy and then if you want to call the office it’s one eight seven seven.
66833.
11 again +1-877-668-3311.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[52:05] Perfect links to your website your email on your phone number on the show notes so any of our listeners can just easily access apparel or like you said Google you as well,
I want to thank you Eric really great information great advice and we look forward to seeing what’s happening with vernonville in the future I’ll definitely come back and check in with you in a few months and see what what’s new and exciting up there.

Eric Tait Md Mba: 
[52:27] Okay well I appreciate the time hopefully this was been helpful for your listeners again we just try to try to add value to the world as much as possible.

Tarang Patel Do: 
[52:34] Awesome all right.

Intro Outro: 
[52:36] Okay thanks for listening to another episode of the doctor Money Matters podcast I want to thank dr. Eric Tait for being my guest I hope he inspired you to analyze your own mindset about your Investments and your financial future as a healthcare professional.

[52:51] Eric has a very well-thought-out philosophy and I appreciate it getting to pick his brain a little bit about how he achieve that philosophy so.

[53:05] Ultimately for myself I still believe lean towards simple investment approaches but I do enjoy learning about the different options out there.

[53:14] Eric’s company can be found at Vernon Vernon Ville, and I’ll put a link on my show notes and he recently started his own podcast called The Physicians road which will also be linked on the show notes please be sure to check it out.

[53:28] Please let your friends know about this podcast by sharing it on WhatsApp or any social media that you’re on.

[53:35] Again please join our Facebook group and Doctor Money Matters.

[53:39] And remember the show can be found on Apple podcast Google play Stitcher and YouTube now.

[53:48] You can follow us on Twitter at Dr Money Matters and on Instagram as well at Doctor Money Matters so thanks for listening please support all of our fellow physician podcasters including air right now.

[54:00] And leave all of his positive reviews on iTunes it really helps get us.

[54:06] How to move up higher on the iTunes ranking list so thanks again and another episode will be coming soon.

Main Intro 

Episode 22 Doctor Money Matters. 

Ali Chaudhary, MD

Please excuse any transcription errors as this is a Google Voice Recognition machine generated transcript and has not been edited.

Welcome to another Doctor Money Matters episode. This episode is about taking control as a physician and learning your value. Many doctors don’t understand their dollar value as practicing physicians. It’s not discussed formally in most training situations and we generally are happy with the increase in salary we get from residency/fellowship to becoming attendings. My guest today Dr. Ali Chaudhary had similar experiences as many of us as he transitioned from training. However, he decided to do something about and start his own locums company when he realized how much these agencies were making on top of what they were paying him. In this episode we talk about how he did this, why he did this and how his experience can help other physicians discover their own value. We also discuss the pros and cons of going independent. Whether you are happy with your current employment situation or are itching for a change, being aware of your value will place you in a better position for the future. We also talk briefly about angel investing and Ali’s experience with it. He is from the Silicon Valley area and so it comes in his DNA. It’s a high risk, high reward type situation that has become more accessible for physicians recently. I’m not recommending it for most of us, but we should be aware of all the investment possibilities out there.

 

I want to thank Dr. Chaudhary for being my guest on this episode of Doctor Money Matters. I hope he inspired you to take control of your own career and learn more about your financial value as a physician. Doctors need to help make the healthcare system more efficient. This is one way to bring down overall healthcare costs while keeping those who provide the care paid appropriately.

Ali’s company can be found at locumsunited.com

Please let your friends know about this podcast by sharing it on text, whatsapp or whatever social media platform you are on.

More episodes of this podcast are available at www.doctormoneymatters.com and Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, etc. All episodes are also now on YouTube (Audio only) and Facebook. You can follow me on twitter @drmoneymatters Please consider joining the Doctor Money Matters Facebook group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/doctormoneymatters/ Thanks for listening and please leave us positive reviews and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues. Some other physician hosted podcasts that I recommend are: Docs Outside The Box The Hippocratic Hustle The Happy Doc Doctors Unbound The White Coat Investor There are many others, so please support your physician colleagues.

Transcript

Main Intro 

Intro Outro: 
[0:15] Okay welcome to another episode of the doctor Money Matters podcast this episode is about taking control as a position and learning the value that you bring to the Healthcare System.

[0:26] Many doctors don’t understand their dollar value is practicing Physicians it’s not discussed formally in most training situations and generally were pretty happy with the increase that we get in salary from residency and fellowship to when we become attendings.

[0:39] I guess today dr. Ali Chaudhary had similar experiences that many of us did when he transition from training however.

[0:47] He decided to do something about it and start his own locums company when he realized how much these agencies were making on top of what they were paying him.

[0:56] So this episode we talked about how he started his own company why he did this in and along the way I hope his experience can help other Physicians discover their own value.

[1:07] We discuss the pros and cons of going independent and.

[1:12] We also briefly touch on his interest in Angel Investing he’s from Silicon Valley so it comes with the DNA out there.

[1:19] Angel Investing is high-risk high-reward that has become more accessible for most positions.

[1:25] Recently and I’m not recommending it for everyone but we should be aware of these investment Avenues his services from the dollar value that he was paid.

[1:35] In relation to the dollar value that the locums company and his employers were actually billing out at.

[1:41] I think most of us don’t necessarily realize the true value of the services that we provide rather we mostly just focus on the take-home pay that we get.

[1:52] And while it’s important to understand that and I’m a big advocate of understanding personal finance.

[1:57] I also think it’s important to understand the the value of the health care that you provide how it actually is being billed out as the more information that you understand about this side of it the better off.

[2:10] You will be on a personal financial level as well.

Tarang Patel: 
[2:14] Okay welcome to another episode of the doctor Money Matters podcast my guess today is dr. Ali Chaudhary and emergency medicine physician who is the president and chief medical officer of Locum Physicians United.

[2:27] We’re going to be talking today about his experience transitioning from.

[2:31] Traditional practice into his own independent model Ali welcome to the podcast.

[2:38] So tell me a little bit about yourself and a little bit about your educational in training back then.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[2:45] Sure I went to Ross University in the Caribbean in Dominica small island which.
What’s unfortunate devastated by the recent hurricanes and so I graduated from Ross at 2011,
and then proceed started residency in Akron Ohio at Akron City Hospital for emergency medicine.

[3:04] Completed that in 2014 and then was hoping to go back to California which is where I’m from the bay area but,
you know the cost of living such as prohibitively expensive and so it didn’t make sense with me with my,
huge student debt to start out living in the place I was going to be so expensive so that moving to to Pennsylvania to Allentown or we had some friends so I’ve been in Allentown since then.
Read works as an employee at a pretty large hospital system not too far from here to the highest volume ERS in the country.

[3:41] So great grapes in pathology Greystar ask where people work with Greg Heights love my job and then.

Tarang Patel: 
[3:52] Okay so now the Alyssa let’s go into the recent graduate and most Physicians who.

[4:00] Got out of training recently one of the knocks from the older generation has been that they don’t think in terms of the independent model that they’re mostly.
Tend to be employees and like you mention one of the driving factors I think is the reality is that the loan that is so high.

[4:16] Can you and then on top of that you’re saying that you know you really like this job and it was a good job so so what made you transition.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[4:23] Yeah that’s a good question unless I worked there for 2 years and honestly just love my family like,
on way from Palm I really felt comfortable in my in my surroundings but at the same time I felt a couple of myself as well I guess.
I looked around me in and saw people who I’ve been working for 5 10 15 20 years and we’re sort of in the same system and.
Something about that for me just died I could envision myself doing the same thing so next 20 years not that don’t like what I do.
But I believe I started to develop myself and did some sort of soul-searching and and felt like I want to do something.
Addition to medicine that was something completely different what that was I didn’t know.
But I knew that I could envision myself working full-time,
when we go to medical school or before we go to medical school.
And how life is going to be when we reach the light at the end of the tunnel you know.
And spy got there it was kind of like she knows it versus dog excitement and their paycheck after laws you know that things easy,
the infrastructure of of healthcare and end in the way that your practice is dictated by things beyond your control so sort of started to kind of notes,
put a damper on the whole thing for me and made me feel a little bit.

[5:55] Trade it I guess so I kind of was like this isn’t what I thought I was going to be doing you know I can mean a lot of Physicians I kind of feel.
Similarly jaded not necessarily because they hate their jobs or whatever but I think there’s a lot of red tape to thought of you know that administrators,
administrative God constrains Center strange that can make decisions practice in ways that may not be the way that they would prefer to practice.

[6:27] So I think those are some of the things that look like me to come starts thinking about okay well what am I going to do in addition to this that can help me feel more fulfilled.

Tarang Patel: 
[6:36] So how long were you in to Yonkers you say you just trained you finish training in 2014 how long into your job did you eat before you first started noticing those kind of feelings.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[6:48] Who’s going to win a half I mean,
initially was trying to get myself comfortable coming out of residency was texting by myself and develop this style and not having attending looking over my shoulder,
so just got to getting used to the practice of medicine which you obviously it’s it’s a lifelong Pursuits,
things are starting to take out just noticed some of these ideas and then things got to start to turn in my head about a year and a half or so into the job.

Tarang Patel: 
[7:16] Is out about the time you started this company or.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[7:18] So the company started because I guy I started doing locums about,
about a year into my full-time job as a way to help pay off my student debt a little bit quicker. A good salary but I feel like I want to be like.
Am I have three hydras low so I didn’t want to be in debt for too long so I started pick up some on the side through the standard that are out there.
How to tell book Spanish my first welcome job and then fortunate to have any ideas experience,
next couple of ones but I quickly realized that after working you know about a week or so at one of the sites that I enjoy working at,
I was making as much money as I was making it a whole month in a whole month at my full-time job so that definitely pick my interest I was like huh.

Tarang Patel: 
[8:07] And this was during I mean you are still working.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[8:11] I was still working full-time I’ll still working full-time I look into other agencies right and is acting my cousin who I didn’t encourage me,
just to look until welcome to cuz he had left his full-time job at a large hospital system in California provides great benefits and and all that stuff,
he ended up doing locums full Tyson Nelson ER physician in Upstate New York and was telling me he was,
doing much much much better financially than he was in in California so that I can actually first of all I didn’t make a whole lot of sense for me to stay at my full-time job anymore,
just out of time that I’m spending you know working 1416 shifts a month full time.

[8:56] 882 hour shifts I could work maybe 67% of that and make more than I was making my full-time job so just on the numbers and time standpoint it didn’t add up,
and also as I was going to miss the Locum citing a locums I start to realize that there’s many in efficiencies within the system itself,
and I also start to learn about the amount of money.
I’ll just give example like well let me put it in in just percentages about 50%.
Per hour of what I was making so for example if I was making like I said I have my math may not come out right here but so if I was making XML,
per hour to an hour for example they were making a hundred bucks an hour and when I learned about that was like wait a minute.
I’m the one that’s doing all the work here like idea of course they found the job they got the contract and they had somebody sent some e-mails back and forth,
but like you know I’m the one seeing patients my malpractice is on the line in a my career and all that stuff is is I’m the one on the back and forth and making things happen and making half.

Tarang Patel: 
[10:14] Okay sweetie. Just a little bit because the numbers are exactly what people are unaware of traditional a finder’s fee.
Sometimes usually 10% maybe a little bit more and you know if you had an agent if you’re an actor it’s also about 10% these guys were making 50% for every hour basically that you were working.
And so it’s over the course of the week you filled out at $10,000 for the week they actually charge $15,000 to the hospital.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[10:51] Right and that’s not very says there’s not a standard 50% a day that for every company across the board that the Dentistry averages around 23 to like 35% or so how to depend on how.
Price of doctor knows to ask for in the beginning I just didn’t know if you know how much my value was Asian and so I didn’t really ask for much but then I started going to realize and learn along,
and the way that you list my value I can ask for a lot higher than what they’re telling me because you member.
And there are sales people in the way that they earn money is by Commission on what they take home.
Otherwise I don’t get paid so that the goal is to build a hospital as much as I possibly can and then pay the physician the least amount that they can that’s reasonable that the doctor will take it so they can have a large portion the middle they can take home or percentage of that you know.

Tarang Patel: 
[11:40] No I think that that’s critical I think you you know you you just Express something that a lot of positions particularly those who are coming out of training don’t really understand is what their value is and as you learn that.
Obviously you know for most people at it’s taking you know takes years to really understand the value of the monetary value that they provide and so you know I’m glad that you’re in sand and kind of.
Album disseminate this information more readily because honestly.

[12:11] That’s what this is about is that you know we positions have a certain value and these companies provide a service and that and they should get.
Compensated for that but I do think that when we forget the realizes that then it’s negotiable everything is negotiable so I’m glad that you bring that.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[12:27] And you know that’s a good point that you mention about the value and I think that is an employee often times you know you don’t really get a sense for your market value,
because I think that the doctors get paid like you know 40 50 Grand a year jumping that end if you triple or quadruple that or more you’ll take it.
You’re not going to argue hoe like my shop around little bit here and there but you don’t really get your understanding market value well.
Become a free agent I guess I called it and I started kind of shop around doing Independence stuff at the locums I’ve been started to really realize what my market value really was I think part was employed model.

[13:07] Make sure it’s awesome benefits at you and then say behave here’s a modest salary salary then and then let’s not talk about that too much side of that is when you kind of see no.
Get to see the other side of the coin in your like wait a minute this is I’m a lot more potential than I thought I ever had and this isn’t just my experience has been several people that I know personally who had a similar experience as well.

Tarang Patel: 
[13:32] Right and so what’s all these are our good point that I think the numbers.
You said you were making more you were working you know 60 to 70% in comparison to what you were as a full-time employee tell you were employed when you were you in a private Hospital in play previous.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[13:54] As a Hospital employee.

Tarang Patel: 
[13:55] Okay so you were at that point you were pretty much it wasn’t like a partnership track where you were on a graded salary increase I mean how how did you get compensated previously was it a salary was a model it was a salary.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[14:06] It was a salary it was salary with sent me know what’s the percentage of that being a bonus based on your performance and all that but.

Tarang Patel: 
[14:16] And so when you made the transition when you left that practice what kind of feedback did you get from your calling for it where they saying you’re crazy or like I wish I could do this.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[14:29] I think it’s interesting people think it it takes some level of courage and bravery to go out and do something like this and.
Ali hilarious because like I miss you more money now than I ever did.
Get out so like it’s almost like there’s there’s no I’m not I didn’t skip a beat as a matter of fact I’ve been better off I’m better off now that I was you know in terms of financially and then having the time,
start my own business and do other things I have to do want you to always do so yeah people take is okay maybe I will join Hospital’s employee,
it’s like I did or you’ll you get you know your old trade-in ended by the group and you’ll have some equity in it after you,
yarn. For every couple years of somebody in and all that or you’ll join like a large contract manager includes like the team health and carols.
Large corporations those are pretty much the only,
continue as you know they’re they’re making it more difficult for private practices to exist and there are some out there still but I think even these Democratic groups are going to find it harder and harder to compete.
Does all the money that’s out there with these big corporations so they’re Dee the locals model is is very,
it does it’s not much information about it it’s kind of an unknown people tend to fear what they don’t know so people meet it was skepticism they weren’t really sure if this was a good decision from.
These questions and you know I wouldn’t have done it just all of a sudden go in blindly myself before I started doing it.

[16:07] Alongside my full-time job,
so I think that helped me kind of get clarity on okay this is a path I can take that is not that hard as there’s not a whole lot of town you just have to come and go but differently but I totally prefer this because I,
I have way more flexibility I can choose my schedule I can choose to do no more nice for the rest of my life I want to and I I can earn more.

Tarang Patel: 
[16:29] So let’s let’s talk about it a little bit more about this they so when you when you.

[16:34] Decided okay I’m going to do this and you were doing in addition to your full-time employee position you were doing this.
Yeah you initially we’re getting locums recruiters asking you to work and you were doing that when you decided okay you know what I’m not going to use them I’m going to try to do this on my own.

[16:52] How did you do did you contact Hospital’s yourself. Did you set up a male practice yourself how did you do that.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[16:58] Yeah so I’ve been fortunate you having come from the Bay Area that’s my brother he is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur used it in finance and instead.
Start his own accelerator in Berkeley in the CEO for about a year and then recently started up his own seat van will invest in real estate companies so he’s at the business start-up guy,
how to see what he was getting involved in and what he was doing with the startups and all that.
Just a world that I had no.
Salary of a formation or knowledge about before because so focused on new residency in boards not stuff,
I I I found that the culture of the Bay Area Is So Tan Valley in an entrepreneurship and Innovation that is is is there to be very motivating and in kind of,
motivated me to do something as well so that I started talking to my brother about what I was doing and what not.
Slow it backwards day to fish in the whole celino’s dentistry in this whole system,
introduce technology to make this whole thing work fishing for smoothing and just different.

[18:21] Okay that’s interesting idea 7 months we spent you know just.
All the time that we had to talk to people on the inside outside we have been there we could online about everything that we could get our hands on and,
send away with the conference that we could do that so we could do.
It was at that point I kind of decided okay I think that you know instead of me going to other companies I should do some of my own with my brother of course that’s a co-founder of the company is truthful.
Done alcohol this background I’d never entertain doing any business but you’re having his.
In my in my corner definitely helps to kind of that starts in Denver.

Tarang Patel: 
[19:07] What are you doing monthly Infinity your clinical work now.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[19:11] Yeah so I could back I work anywhere from like 6 to 8 to 9 shift a month you are shift.

Tarang Patel: 
[19:19] And what’s the standard for a full-time ER physician.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[19:22] They work around a hundred 40 plus hours of all I’m working full-time.
So I guess just like you can break it down depending on how many how long your shifts are so I I cut back to about 6 to 8 shift on average.
And so let’s am I still right now is a little bit hectic.
I would have 24 to 12 22 22 24 days off a month.
And said I could do whatever I want to do is which foods do to start the company so.
I’m a little bit busy. I was working my full-time job because I’m doing the company is all but I think that’s a fair payoff Elitches of the fair she off their side.
We’re pretty much Monday through Friday on an average week on the company,
business development in contracts Taco doctors and getting placements done and then I’ll work every other weekend like 3 or 4 days every other weekend and maybe shift or two here and there throughout the month.

[20:21] There’s some travel involved in that as well of course I probably will once once or twice a month for about a week on average for business development and whatnot.

Tarang Patel: 
[20:28] I’m going to ask you a little bit about it you’re coming specifically and just a second but one of the things I think that that prevents Physicians from going you know Independence.
Is benefits and insurance and on our Facebook conversation you would mention that at that’s not that difficult so to explain to me.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[20:50] Sure why don’t you let people have a misconception about it so low on my work Pace my benefits.
Thanks for your benefits still do your work and your employer is taking that money out of your paycheck and giving the rest of you.
So it’s not like you don’t all of a sudden so I can give you a bunch of benefits for free I mean you’re working for those benefits so.
I look at it like this I mean I’ve had the same concerns that transition but I had luckily some people who had,
dentless before me who can come and get me right direction so I have.
God companies positions,
call Skinner disability life insurance they can basically do that all for you I went through a company called Northwest Mutual and I met somebody who’s been very very helpful there they help me get health insurance,
billion life’s I’m choosing not to put money into my retirement right now because I have other investment that I have my money in that they are guilty but I return,
so I meant I’m using my my my money for that but.

Tarang Patel: 
[22:00] But if you wanted to you would have.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[22:02] I’ll tell him all that set up for you so it’s it’s not like I mean you don’t want to be like oh my God I just lost all my benefits.
Now what do I do who do I call so sometimes you would rather just go with an employee whose.
the benefits on her own it almost seems like it’s such a daunting of you rather just not do it but it’s totally easy I could you know,
Immortal people are friends of mine to these different resources and they’ve been happy with with the benefits of their getting,
so I’m going to give you such a corporation LLC or s-corp.
And you can get your benefits to your company and then that can be a tax deduction as well so,
but all things like a cargo home office part of your your bills that you’re paying for your house so I can electricity and all cell phone bill mileage and all that stuff.

Tarang Patel: 
[23:05] Yeah that’s absolutely any more tax benefits for being an employee.

[23:13] In this case an independent contractor than employees insurance.
You know with the proposed changes to the Affordable Care Act.
Possible repeal but you know that’s the part that is a little bit tenuous but honestly as it has benefits but it’s not like it’s going to.
Get cheaper Insurance just continues to get more expensive and it might be more expensive as.
As an independent contractor but on the flip side like you said you can write off more things so it.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[23:51] You can write it off right I know people that it’s at their jobs who are unhappy with their current employer so it’s not like it’s a great,
you know more flexible in the type of you know you want to listen and get the type of cover that you want,
question best.

Tarang Patel: 
[24:14] I think it’s great that you were able to do this and I think that I hope the positions at least.
Start thinking more about this actually with the Advent of technology and end and more telemedicine things will be more options for.
Physicians to become independent whether it’s part time or whether it’s you know full time.
I think it’s it’s it’s great that you’re able to kind of explain how you did it.
Now let’s talk about your you’re coming so you said you’re spending you know the big chunk of your time and running and then set up a list of your Logan’s coming so it’s let’s talk about it what are you guys doing when did you start and where are you guys now.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[24:58] Yeah so we technically Incorporated the company last year so I think June 2016,
I was still working full-time until I think September October last year so I didn’t get a chance to spend too much time on it because I was still working full-time and you know we had,
babies last year as well so I was,
I’m so busy with that and then it was around this year when I get to the company.
So yeah I do we started last year so we were in full swing,
died in January of this year it’s a tough business because you’re just so much competition that’s out there there’s literally like hundred plus hundreds of the locums companies out there doing the exact same thing in the thing that.
Maybe want to get into it was I felt that there was two things that primarily wanted to dress one was,
the lack of efficiency and just the way the thing to being done just so old school in Antiquated down just like that having no no,
and knowing what my brother’s been doing in Silicon Valley in in the things on there I’m just like there’s no reason why.

Tarang Patel: 
[26:08] Give me give me an example of what you mean by old school.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[26:11] So I mean we have to fill out multiple applications so for free.
How to fill out the same information like a demographics of you who are you at the school where you graduated from you know what year your step scores were like at least two or three times the same stuff.
Same for the same information and then I’ll send you a pic.
Turn it out and I’ll fill it out take a picture of it or scan it send it back and this is like from 20 to 20 years ago.
2017 there’s a lot of that has happened since then and I think that part of it because.
Yeah the look of industry and it hasn’t been challenged Under the Stairs of the players and the thermostats at Ace him having these big.
Companies in lots of people running it but like nowadays the trend is it’s just doing more with less.

[27:18] And so especially having but exposure to that side that from Silicon Valley. My brother’s been doing it kind of got to start thinking about what things can we do,
to minimize the amount of overhead in the people that work that we’re doing.
So you know the details where were implementing some ideas from the get from the beginning from.
And we have a lot more things in the pipeline that’s going to really really Tara around things up.

Tarang Patel: 
[27:53] Good good end and so you guys are currently providing services in obviously emergency medicine I’m assuming.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[28:05] Yeah so we had we do have I mean hospice medicine and er are so different but right now just because that’s where most of my personal contacts.
But I’m your we do have connections and then doctors from the spot every specialty who want to work with us you have no surgery we have Saab CT surgery we have Dermatology vascular surgery.
Cardiology I are so just about every specialty of people we’re not heavy and in any one of those just yet that’s not where we you know dinner the most Revenue but you know we’re definitely.
Pretty diverse into Lavar our positions that work with us.

Tarang Patel: 
[28:41] Okay and then tell me basically obviously the technology part of it you’re mentioning position in the hospital maybe I’m not getting.
From the other companies.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[28:57] Yeah. That’s a great point I mean on the surface everything else kind of seems the same way we provide Staffing and so is like.
Several days are the company so what’s different right now owned and operated.
I think that makes a big difference nearest you met with a say that the CMO of a pretty well nationally-recognized hospital system and.

[29:18] Explain to them the old is too risky communicate well with see Hospital the program that needs help,
and get a sense of what is it that they’re looking for I think on what these companies do,
yeah they took me to the hospital that was a terrible situation it was understaffed you know they were his presence all over the place on the motor saying to me some medication,
for sure sound like I’m not going back there and the guy the recruiters like yeah we were having some difficulty,
but whatever I like to give you a heads-up about the executive,
locums companies across the board they say in this is date of 121 and tell me he’s like yeah.
The quality of Canada’s that they’re presenting you know so there’s not too much of a vetting process done.
The sales people are looking at it from the seal stamp or look at 3% a doctor over and make some money that’s but I’m not sending it October to making no money because it’s tied to that particular placement,
but we know we look at things differently I think that if we bring that work relations out before able to accept the flick come on and that we place because you don’t just take anybody if we have any process that we are able to provide our,
science and and an awful that were working with just.
Good solid candidates and that prevents them to have to like no get rid of them 2 months later it’s not so process again which is time-consuming is costly for them and so they we’ve had success.

[30:55] And in our discussions with Sutter hospital system that we’re currently connected with the daylight the model of us in a big example and I have a doctor who is Dr but maybe he’s here she’s worked,
will medicine for the past 20 years I’ve probably would want to throw put the doctor in that level 1 Trauma Center.
Dial Stella because I work in the ER in the Stanley of the flow and then and the challenges that that would best represent but.
That’s not necessarily the case of somebody who doesn’t have that kind of experience so you know.
practice of medicine that we understand on a day-to-day basis on what goes on in the ER to the waiting room the patient ECU Staffing you know unless you’re in the trenches you don’t have the understanding.
We we understand and I think I can definitely an edge over the other companies in a lot of Executives like the fact that we’re doing things differently that regard.

Tarang Patel: 
[31:52] Episode that explains the you know how you can present to the hospital system and I’m assuming your retention rate and and and Physicians.
You know taking a second assignment and let you know maybe a recurring assignment at a particular place is better but what about on the position side of me.
The overhead cost at these staffing agencies will take is it better from you guys.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[32:20] Yeah they were very leaving right now we have about 5 people including myself and my co-founder and so you don’t worry about to do a lot more with lot less and so in doing that were able to,
doctors and end process little bit less painful for them,
you know I think that doctors find you want to maintain Poise that I had doing.
I love myself with just how long it took for me to just get a pet you can fill it out and send it back.
And if we’re able to do this do do parts of these things some some of these things but we’re looking to you know saved our doctor’s appointment. I mean I understand we don’t have to.

[33:04] If we’re not working 2nd shift so we don’t want to be doing other stuff in so that like crappy paperwork in the same stuff. Where you done 10 times that you know before so if we can make that process less painful.
And it sent to other doctors more than you know just connecting with people.
Like I said you’re the first possible that was place that was a complete disaster.
And so we don’t just take any hospital system or any time just because of the business either so we do it careful vetting to make sure this is something I’m about to physician side and on the hospital side to make sure that we’re only partnering up with,
the doctors and hospitals stats are going to give each other a great experience.

Tarang Patel: 
[33:46] Sure sure okay last question what do you see as the downsides of someone going independent obviously we’ve talked a lot about the positives and things like that but what are some of the downsides.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[33:59] The downside is potentially that you’ll have to travel and I’m depending on where you are away from home,
that made me to just spend maybe sometime we have some days away from home for example myself I’ll spend by me six to eight days a month. I’m not at home at all I ask Adele tell her I’m going for like 2 or 3 days at a time and then come back on the flip side.
I just have no time off overall.
But that’s what you choose to do with your time so that I don’t really see that but some people do because they don’t really see that picture the other negatives I guess you don’t necessarily get to have that sort of,
long-term relationship with a.
You know what they what they predict your hospital or group of people although the last welcome locums job I’m the one I’m currently I’ve been there for about a year-and-a-half so I’ve definitely felt that.
Long-term or I’m going somewhere much shorter but then she thinks thing is that people think that has no stability in locums you know.
Physicians we really just need to understand that you know this is such a massive shortage of doctors across this country that just such a message shortage that.
The hospitals and an indie set up more than we need them,
still wants you to get that understanding sort of firmly grounded to you and I member was that kind of hit me it kind of makes you feel empowered, I feel like a needle all of a sudden from it’s from The Matrix for your kind of like,
you feel like I can do anything. Like this is this is the boss of my court and I can dictate the terms on my own a kid how I want them.

[35:31] Not be told I could give extra shift every month and you know so I think that,
that’s kind of it’s a bit it’s a bit of a shift from being told what to do to not wear Nike you’re the boss when you want to work how much you want to work so it’s a bit of a shift ended up getting used to because you,
Medical School residency your total to do an employee you’re pretty much told what to do when you do something is on your right as an independent contractor now.
You have to kind of people of a different so they can be available any curve there I think before you should write all the kids I can use it to my advantage.

Tarang Patel: 
[36:08] You mentioned a little bit about the stability Factor do you see any downside me I would imagine that locums if all the sudden less a year you’re doing a local assignment in a place.
Had a hard time attracting a qualified Physicians there to work for them or for their covering less stability.
Maybe someone does come there and then maybe you’ll lose that assignment is that a concern.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[36:35] Yeah I mean you always want to keep your eye out because of the hospital these hassles don’t want local Simon that’s kind of Fate you’re a they want to have fun.
An employee’s or whatever working there because you know it’s just an additional cost expensive for them to bring locums on that they buy their employees so that’s understood but the same time over like 90% of hospitals in the last year.
I think it’s the last last you have you utilize locums so the need is extremely high and so.
The weather usually do is to have your foot in the door at at least two,
hospitals and be on good terms with with the scheduler and and then the directory sites that way you know you let them know,
that doesn’t mean anything comes up if you guys are hiring if you decide if things seem like the kind of winding down here just give us a heads up so that way.
Anticipate that if things are.
Longer versus shorter they’ll give you a heads-up okay looks like somebody’s going to get a few candidates to start working here in a couple months when they start,
I had to stop where you can start planning for looking for other jobs as well so that’s I guess a potential downside if you don’t know how to.
Play Within that system but if you understand how it works you you’ll you’ll you’ll set up you’ll start looking for other jobs in in the area or elsewhere.

Tarang Patel: 
[37:59] Sure and and to be honest I mean there’s really not much to build he left well let you know even if you’re an employee or if you’re in private practice so.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[38:07] A great point and then people may have heard of Akron City Hospital on this ride my training you know this is a fantastic group of doctors at least I work with on that train me with the training effect 30 plus years.
Overnight the contract and I’m not going to get into the specifics of what happened this everywhere but,
so there’s a false sense of security in employee positions doctors are kind of Stay Up Late.
And then the other is a false sense of insecurity and local that people don’t really understand because it don’t know how it’s done.

Tarang Patel: 
[38:47] Right and I think I think that’s the mentality that was you know and 20 years ago there is a perception of you know if you’re low come to just give me moving around and and and if your private practice you have stability.
If anything instability of Locum has probably.
Out by hospitals and by corporate entities and stuff like that so.
I mean at least you’re better off getting paid now and doing the right thing with your money now because there’s no guarantee.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[39:25] Just don’t guarantee the Lights Future exactly I’m with you.

Tarang Patel: 
[39:28] I think that was the decision that you made and I hope.
This episode can Inspire some of our listeners to you know at least look at a locums or just going independent in situations where they were even there.
Current situation so.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[39:47] Exactly what is the oldest say this to end the local sing is that in one of the things I really want to do and it’s it’s part of my mission of this company is to redeem a locums.
Lifestyle to be more mainstream.
I don’t want this to become something that becomes more acceptable people know more about it I think the more you’re knowledgeable about something the more easy easy will be free to make an informed decision about it right,
you don’t need it that you’re very unlikely to dimension on a passport or surgeon in California who after his training shortly after that started the only locals.

[40:21] It would work a week on and then take a whole week off and I take no call nothing and then work another week,
remember he told me that this was so so liberating for him because he had like two weeks of his like a month where he had absolutely no clinical the possibility and was able to do things that he never thought he had time to do,
initial East College Nursery colleagues were looking at.

Tarang Patel: 
[40:47] That’s true because you never expect to have a life if you’re a neurosurgeon and it’s very liberating.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[40:54] Exactly so that’s I just wanted to end on that that I think that is the style that this is out there that’s a lot of doctors were seeking when they left I just not there.

[41:08] Myself and several people that I know who have gone looking full time at found it so I think it’s something I feel she doesn’t consider.

Tarang Patel: 
[41:14] Let me just add something to that because I think that you know one of the issues that a lot of Physicians talk about is in a burnout and and things like that and I think that.
This type of this type of Freedom that you’re able to get from a locums or an independent type of career would probably mitigate a lot of that because you have more flexibility.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[41:37] That’s a huge point it’s wrong because like.
Ask you Joy going to work I know why when I was working my full-time and locums I was kind of getting,
total burnt out myself it was a bird and you know the shift work and all that stuff but now that I work less I actually look forward to going to the ER cuz I never have I felt that excited to go to work.
So now I can have a very sort of positive relationship in the end,
sort of attitude towards going to work which I think when I was stuck sort of an employee model and I was just working a ton and it kind of Beast into the other Nadia.

Tarang Patel: 
[42:15] And you probably just feel valued more at this point because it mean you you command a higher value at this point so internally I think that that encourages you a little bit as well.

[42:25] I want people to think about all these other options that you know we just don’t think about when we come out of medical school residency and and there is a way that we can kind of.
Customized.

[42:41] The wife that we wanted medicine and my gosh if a neurosurgeon can do it then it’s probably accessible for those the rest of us as well testing in the course you you’re from the Bay Area so it’s kind of ingrained in your car.
In the people from there so tell me a little bit about what you’re doing.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[43:01] So like I’ll be honest I didn’t know what it was until about maybe.
Yoga like I had no idea that I had no.
Clue whatsoever what any of that was but then again like I mentioned having.
Made by several trips back to the Bay Area to visit my family my parents out there and my brother who lives there and is involved a lot of startups and then does just that kind of got me privy to this whole idea of investing in,
Angel Investing in a 10 companies in Tech startups and all that stuff that I had no exposure to before and so,
you know she like I mentioned that he started his own seat fun with several investors and he’s meeting up with like startup Founders all the time like you a couple several times a week he’ll decide whether,
it’s a good investment or not it’s basically in a nutshell you’re putting in a amount of cash could be anywhere from $1,000 to $7,000 into an early stage company,
percentage of equity in into the company and the goal is like you should think of that money is pretty much gone that you’re using that you need on a.
Took to pay your bills or anything like that it’s usually that is somewhat if you lose it you’re not going to be.
Stripes that sucks my dad is if you lose it you’re not going to worry about it but the goal is the idea is to invest in his company and hope for a.
Delphi 5 10 20 x return and then the next 5-10 years which is when the company will be able to you know either Exit or get bought out or do IPL so you know I’ve been doing that for about the past year now.

[44:39] In conjunction with our brother who started his company,
let’s talk until it’s a lot of doctor friends of mine and it seems a lot of doctors are interested in this and so I can finish and everything kind of,
you’re kidding right in terms of the language and and the opportunities that represent specifically for Physicians and so.
Yeah we we thought that was a good idea and so he’s developing that idea curly as we speak actually kind of allow doctors and insight into Silicon Valley and to be able to invest in companies that maybe Tuesday didn’t have access to,
because truthfully I would have no access to these companies if I didn’t have my brother doing this resource and I want to be able to share that with other people who think they’re going to necessarily,
inside a lottery ticket that has winning numbers on it but it could be.
And it’s making investment in people and then teams that have already shown some level of success and inner continue to kind of show growth so the other there’s ways to do that as well to make sure that you maximize your,
opportunity that you’re an anaconda that you’re investing in.

Tarang Patel: 
[45:49] No I think it’s it’s a it’s a important thing that Physicians get educated about all the variety of investment options and and for the average physician I would say that this would be.
You know after you have you know you can best in your retirement after you’ve.
Created a decent taxable account and are comfortable paying your obligations your student loans and mortgages your kids college accounts again.
It should be in in conjunction with that and like you said you gave you have to be prepared to lose all of it but if it does hit.
It can be massive but you shouldn’t you you should use a very small percentage of your overall net worth in in in this type of investment.
Two positions but but the caveat is that I don’t think a lot of Physicians truly understand.
How long some of these companies investing in medical space because.

[46:46] There’s all kinds of regulations that startups in Tech don’t have to face so it just may be a longer Runway. Before you actually gain anything.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[46:56] Definitely definitely.

Tarang Patel: 
[46:57] Stop the show.

[47:07] If we can educate Physicians on on their value and their options then then I think we’ve done a good thing and I hope that more Physicians.
Can I follow your lead in in in doing this.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[47:20] Thank You song it’s my pleasure I enjoy this I I have several this conversation today with doctor’s so this is,
the lifestyle you have two choices even if you want to work for us or not.
Great if you don’t want to that I’m fine with that too but as long as I’m a resource for us doctors in and out and if anybody wants to talk to me about anything you can post my email website whatever I’m happy I’m happy to talk to people.

Tarang Patel: 
[47:47] Tell our listeners a year your website and where they can come to.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[47:53] Great my email is Allie at locums united.com that’s a l i at locums United. One word. Com and the website is local news united.com.

Tarang Patel: 
[48:06] Okay great well we look forward to seeing how your your company and everything goes for you and we will talk again in the future.

Ali Chaudhary: 
[48:16] Great thanks a lot man thanks having appreciate.

Intro Outro: 
[48:18] I want to thank dr. Chaudhry for being my guest on this episode of Doctor Money Matters I hope he inspired you to take control of your own career and learn about learn more about your own Financial value as a physician.

[48:30] Doctors need to help make the Healthcare System more efficient this is one way to bring down overall health care costs while keeping those of us who provide the care paid appropriately.

[48:42] Ollie’s company can be found at Logan’s united.com there’s a link on the show notes.

[48:47] Please continue to share this podcast with your friends and colleagues on Facebook Twitter and you can follow me on Twitter at Dr Money Matters.

[48:57] And I encourage you to join our Facebook group if you do a search on Facebook for Doctor Money Matters it’s a group or we discuss different Financial topics including those that we address on this show.

[49:08] And hopefully you’ll gain some value out of it with the connecting with other listeners and Physicians who are interested in these Financial Topix.

[49:18] Another episode of Doctor Money Matters will be coming out soon but I want to thank you again.

Main Intro 

Episode 21. Peter Kim, MD — Purchasing Your Home

Remember this is voice recognition by Google and the grammar and transcription is not completely accurate. No one has edited this content.

 

2018, Doctor Money Matters
T P’s Album
http://www.doctormoneymatters.com

Welcome to another Doctor Money Matters episode. I would like to thank you for listening. It’s been a year since I started this podcast and creating it has been a great educational experience for me. I really appreciate all my guests for participating and joining me on this journey and I hope you the listener have gotten something out of it as well and my ultimate goal is to help physicians and other health care professionals reach financial independence earlier by avoiding the usual pitfalls that has tripped them up previously. I have made many of these mistakes including buying a house in Las Vegas right out of residency at the height of the real estate bubble. I didn’t listen to my own instincts and bought a house even though I knew the price was too high. Well within a few months, the prices dropped and kept dropping for 4 years till prices were 60% less than my purchase price and 70% less than the peak. It was an expensive lesson that has definitely affected my views on personal real estate. My guest on this episode is Dr. Peter Kim, an anesthesiologist, entrepreneur who helps physicians with one of the biggest purchases they have, their home. Peter is the founder of Curbside real estate which we will talk about on the show. We discuss his approach to buying your own home, what a physician loan is, the status of the real estate market. We also discuss how is able to juggle being a physician, father, entrepreneur and his advice for medical students and residents. I want to thank Dr. Peter Kim for being my guest on this episode of Doctor Money Matters. Buying a home is one of the largest purchases most of us will make, but it can be made easier by getting good advice. My advice is that a personal residence is not an investment but rather an expense item. It can turn out profitable but I wouldn’t rely on it to appreciate. Peter’s company can be found at Curbsiderealestate.com Please let your friends know about this podcast by sharing it on text, whatsapp or whatever social media platform you are on. More episodes of this podcast are available at www.doctormoneymatters.com and Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, etc. All episodes are also now on YouTube (Audio only) and Facebook. You can follow me on twitter @drmoneymatters Please consider joining the Doctor Money Matters Facebook group. Thanks for listening and please leave us positive reviews and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues. Some other physician hosted podcasts that I recommend are: Docs Outside The Box The Hippocratic Hustle The Happy Doc Doctors Unbound The White Coat Investor There are many others, so please support your physician colleagues.

Transcript

Main Intro 

Intro Outro: 
[0:17] Okay welcome back to another episode of the doctor Money Matters podcast I want to thank you for listening it’s been a year since I started this podcast and creating it has been a great educational experience for me.

[0:28] I really appreciate all my guests for participating in joining me on this journey and I hope you The Listener have gotten something out of it as well my ultimate goal is to help Physicians and other Healthcare professionals.

[0:41] Reach Financial Independence earlier by avoiding the usual pitfalls that has tripped them up previously.

[0:47] I’ve made many of these mistakes myself including buying a house in Las Vegas right out of residency at the height of the real estate bubble.

[0:56] I didn’t listen to my own instincts and bought a house even though I knew the price was too high.

[1:00] Within a few months of my purchase the prices dropped and kept dropping for four straight years till they were 60% less than one my original purchase price and 70% less than the.

[1:11] Was an expensive lesson that is definitely affected my own views on real estate.

[1:16] I bring this up today because our episode today is a home purchasing which is one of the biggest perch purchases that most people make in their lives.

[1:25] My guess today is dr. Peter Kim an anesthesiologist and entrepreneur who helps positions with the with home purchasing with his company curbside real estate.

[1:36] We’re going to talk about what he does and how he can help you purchasing a home or understanding the loan process on this episode.

[1:47] We’re also going to discuss how he’s able to juggle being a father physician and entrepreneur and his advice for medical students and resident and also discuss a little bit about the social mission that curbside real estate has.

[2:01] So without further Ado Doctor Peter Kim.

Tarang Patel: 
[2:06] Alright welcome back to another episode of the doctor Money Matters podcast my guess today is dr. Peter Kim of curbside real estate in Southern California dr. Kim is at practicing anesthesiologist.
Also created this company curbside real estate that helps positions with their home purchasing process and questions.

Peter Kim: 
[2:27] Cool I’ll just be here thanks for having me.

Tarang Patel: 
[2:29] So tell me a little bit about your background and look at you in the medicine and anesthesiology and then we’ll talk about your company in a little bit.

Peter Kim: 
[2:36] Yeah so like you mentioned I mean anesthesiologist I live in work out here in Los Angeles.
Show me East Coast so I did all my schooling back in the east coast I I’m at my wife out there and ended up following her out west and do residency out here and,
I just end up settling here I mean I definitely when I was in Middle School I definitely,
didn’t think I was going to be an anesthesiologist necessarily but I didn’t go into it thinking I do that I mean my father is a surgeon and so some reason I thought they follow in his footsteps but I mean turns out I had interest in so many different fields it was really hard for.
Me to differentiate you know based purely on my level of Interest.
So really I mean I’m also feels I was interested in my profession based on the lifestyle I want that.
So I guess I became an anesthesiologist.

Tarang Patel: 
[3:25] Nice Avenue Radiologists is that common acronym that you I’m sure you’ve heard the road Fields Radiology Ophthalmology anesthesia in Durham so.

Peter Kim: 
[3:38] The good thing is my wife I mean she’s a physician as well as she’s an awesome all this so for that cover right there.

Tarang Patel: 
[3:45] Nice okay so let’s talk about your company tell me a little bit about curbside real estate and what made you get into the real estate this.

Peter Kim: 
[3:53] Sure every it’s a company that I started about 2 to 3 years ago and when people ask me about it I just tell him to look for a company with with two missions I mean the first that you mentioned this already it’s too early to help Physicians.
Navigate to home buying process confidently efficiently I mean no one teaches you to stuff and you know medical school and you know we get to the stuff a little bit later in life and as a physician is not like you have a good deal of time to figure it all out.
So that’s where we step in and we act as a personalized concierge service to really shed some light on the whole process.
Divided ucation if you need it and then connect you to good people and we connect you to the best home loans available to you.
And also to our network of carefully better real estate agents Nationwide if you need it in the second mission it’s our social mission,
we really wouldn’t be running this business without it I mean it’s really become so integral important to what we do but we’re really trying to take what we do with the business,
with the funds that we have with the research that we’ve been able to have as a result of this business and we try to make it impact on children around the world by dressing some housing food educational needs,
yeah it started a couple years ago really bored out of my own difficulty in buying a home you know I was just like anybody else I just finished my fellowship.
I want to buy a home I just thought that I felt like that was kind of a Rite of Passage.

Tarang Patel: 
[5:19] Right right I know one really tells you about this stuff right here about it from your car.
I talk a little bit about the process that you had when you were you know just starting out.

Peter Kim: 
[5:36] Play let me know it tells you about this stuff I was just as kind of a weird time when I came out of fellowship and that was about 5 or 6 years ago initially and the housing market was totally different than it is today,
but they were trying to sell houses and they couldn’t really so my wife and I just happened to walk into an open house one day.
And it was one of these new construction places there’s a sales person to sit in there and he said look at you I think we have a great home for you my wife and I we fell in love with it at first sight we negotiate a little bit on the spot.
We really ain’t no idea what that meant as so the number seems fine and so you know he said look bunches get some financing and figure it out and then let us out.
And so again you know I went straight to Google Now look up online I said how do I find a home loan.
And so I started calling around started trying to figure out how to talk to I ask my parents I have some friends ultimately just ended up that basically dead end after Dead End come out of training didn’t have a lot saved up.
Decent amount of student loans you myself my wife and so basically everyone said look we can’t help you out come back in about 2 years.

[6:41] Add so it’s very frustrating you know when we probably there’s really nobody to help us out on the process until I happen to just talk to one of my colleagues.
In the OR randomly and he said lucky going to find a physician home up and at that time I never even heard of such a thing I no idea they were specific home loans for Physicians.
I said that you got to look at a physician online who help out you know you on your situation and I said who did you get to help you out and he’s refer me to somebody and end up being another dead end,
internet search calling researching this actually found one guy who could help me out and so he did and of course I’ll let you know it’s really grateful,
in the process I just send you a lot of my friends would be in the same situation so I just reached out to all my friends brought them in email said,
if you’re going to go through this process don’t waste your time,
just talk to me and I’ll come to tell you what I know and maybe I’ll get you this one guy if it’s the right situation and that kind of led to my friends reaching out to me some of their friends her to reach out to me,
and then you know a little light bulb went off and I said look this needs to be something out there for Physicians as a service.

[7:48] And I’m not thinking about monetizing it I just was trying to be helpful.
And to that processor really grew to love the whole real estate home buying process and up getting my real estate license and that kind of we don’t fast forward a couple years later and that’s what it is.

Tarang Patel: 
[8:05] So you have your own license and but you work with people in all 50 states like you said.

Peter Kim: 
[8:11] Right I mean I learned that limited unfortunately interest of my time I reach I hope they actually represented a few of my friends and their home buying process.
But once people started telling me I’m moving out of state I’m doing this can you actually help me find somebody.
You know I realize that okay there’s another opportunity for me to help right and that’s the way that I can ultimately scale this business and I want to help people not only just in my little local area I want to tell people Nationwide,
and so I figured on the next best thing,
which was it wasn’t me that was going to go to do your deal find somebody else that you can trust how about in terms of real estate side.

Tarang Patel: 
[8:48] Right so how are you getting the people let’s say you have a friend that’s moving to Atlanta how are you finding the people that you’re working with out there.

Peter Kim: 
[8:56] Actually that’s to referral and word-of-mouth so I eat at this point luckily we’ve been doing this enough years we have a lot of connections to,
financial advisors we have a lot of connections through lenders right we have a lot of real estate agents that we have good connections to and so I personally whenever I get a list of names of people in a certain area.
It hasn’t been an area where I have been able to connect somebody to,
but luckily the other network especially the internet today and everything we have a network that we can work through I actually called him myself and I got them out personally I make sure that they’re comfortable working with these physician Home Loans in particular,
you don’t know how to work through a loan and highlight your physician,
who is putting down 5 or 10% skill be hard for them to win any sort of offering today’s fireman so make sure they’re comfortable with that and that they work with Physicians understand the lifestyle Physicians and.
Honestly some of the challenges in working with Physicians.

Tarang Patel: 
[10:00] Okay so let me mention the physician home loan so just go to a little bit more detail what what is a physician home loan.

Peter Kim: 
[10:08] Well I’ve got exactly when it started but I think Bank of America was the first bank to offer this type of lawn where they realize look as big Market,
potential buyers in Dallas physicians in particular that didn’t really fit the basic mold right you know these guys they don’t have a lot saved up.
But that pretty big incomes coming straight out and they’re very trustworthy day at extremely low default rate.
And their biscuits with swings of economy the economy I mean especially there still a jobs so they were going to be fine so they created a specialized product.
Where they sell certain loan limits maybe the position one has to come in with as much straight from the down payment but they can still lend a decent amount to them and so they allow people to particular.
To buy homes with lower down payment loans in spite of some of their student loans they treat them a little bit differently than a conventional loan would where they might not qualify otherwise let’s go fishing online they would.

[11:09] I know that’s pretty much a dead so just basically relax is the qualification specifically for doctors and Physicians.

Tarang Patel: 
[11:15] Right right right so now I mean obviously there’s a lot more lenders that offer these is that correct.

Peter Kim: 
[11:20] Yeah it’s I mean we like to think that were the most on top of this out there and so we’re kind of constantly scaring the market for him but new ones are popping out honestly feels like on a monthly basis.

Tarang Patel: 
[11:31] Okay okay is it in terms of physician home loans that are they geared towards basically new Physicians coming out or can any physician who’s been practicing for a while would also qualify.

Peter Kim: 
[11:43] I’m a lot of them are geared towards the younger physician right the younger fishing that can’t put as much down but again that’s changed over time too and now a lot of them,
they’re going after wire audience here that’s a lot of them will depending on the actual lender will allow you to qualify even 5-10 years out of practice maybe 15 years.

Tarang Patel: 
[12:02] Okay okay so now just in general and talking about purchasing a home what are some of the tips that you would give positions especially those who.
Christina younger in their career what time is a good time for a position to buy a home should I buy one in residency should they buy one right out of Fellowship what are your thoughts.

Peter Kim: 
[12:21] I mean I tend to think everybody situation is really unique I mean I got really lucky I think Mei came out.

[12:28] I came out of training five six years ago when the housing market was again totally different.
I got unlike most people I probably felt like look when I finish my training I want to get home address in my life as a rite of passage buying a home and getting settled this just one of those things you’re supposed to do right and it was fortunate to buy what I bought.
Now when I tell people when they’re going to the process I tell them I should kind of the opposite I tell him look it’s not something you have to do.
You have to kind of look at your whole financial picture and see if it makes sense right and you have to be able to weather some of the swings.
Housing cycle right so in which you want to do is be able to have to sell your home for a loss right so I tell people look expect to be in your home at least 3 to 5 years.
And if you feel yourself that you’re the point of transition as they may not be the best time to buy.
And suffer a lot of people in residency that it Specialties maybe 3 or residencies for your residencies and they’re going through this time of transition I mean it may not be the best time to buy now.
I try not to really convince people to go one way or the other I just tried to provide the education and let them make the best informed decision.
But ultimately I think for most people residencies not the greatest have to buy all right will you first start out of your practice for the best time to buy either.
Because again I know a lot of my friends have already changed jobs and switch locations even switch States.

[14:02] Usually I tell people to hold off for a little bit.

Tarang Patel: 
[14:05] Yeah I think I think that’s good advice I mean like you said residency and fellowship a lot of people that you know you’re only in that geographic area for a limited time and you might be lucky with the market like you said when you got out you happen to have good timing.
But if someone was coming in now or someone was coming in in 2006 2007.
They would have been the opposite type of situation so I agree I think a good rule of thumb is probably not.

[14:28] It can depend on your situation if you’re going into neurosurgery and you going to be there for 7 years maybe it’s okay to buy but like you said it’s it’s situation dependent but I think those are some pretty good.

[14:40] Kind of going along that line. What do you think is an appropriate loan to income ratio and again I know it’s different in LA versus Iowa.
I just just kind of some rules of thumb for younger dog show more loans coming out so.
If someone’s coming to you just kind of trying to get some advice and they’re looking for have ballpark or just some guidance what would you tell them.

Peter Kim: 
[15:05] Search for the bank right in the bank kind of day they start they put up some numbers out there that do they yell usually number somewhere else like 43% as you know that your maximum debt-to-income ratio sometimes you’ll see 36%,
there’s different rules of thumb out there for,
people buying a home you should buy at Max three times your yearly income and you’ll see those things out there,
you got to look at your whole financial picture in front of financial goals,
right again I think you need to save some money to put towards some other Investments right on that and so that just tells you you can,
buy home that’s 2.5 million dollars doesn’t mean you should buy home the $6 right.
That’s why I think it really helps to have either yourself or honestly I mean I use financial advisor I do and I know there’s a lot of back and forth about that out there but something else really helpful for me is locked.

[16:05] What do you think it appropriate amount for me to purchase based on here my goals boom boom boom you know they gave me a basic ballpark figure number and I was able to work within.
and so I can’t tell people to saying you got to put pen to paper look at your numbers out there and look at your financial goals and ultimately you’ll be able to come over something that’s reasonable for you.

Tarang Patel: 
[16:23] Right I think yeah I think those are good answers because like you said it’s dependent on your situation but you know whether you’re a high and Specialists of dual-position couple.
Primary Care where you’re the solo Breadwinner it out everything is different but at the same time.
You can’t be house poor I think that’s great advice from some of the real estate markets and the country seem to be getting to that point case in point California it always seems to be at that point.

[16:47] Does seem to be higher now as much of Europe in the Bay Area you know you trying to buy a house is a newly minted attending a good luck I can’t imagine you could really do it.

Peter Kim: 
[16:57] Yeah I mean even down here in Los Angeles again I just is the average home it seems like when people are trying to buy out here.
Assorted million dollars right and so you just go by strict numbers and Ed formulas and all that honestly nobody will ever be able to buy a home and I see how sure how I think.
Based on the numbers alone but sometimes it might make sense for you so it’s hard to say.

Tarang Patel: 
[17:19] Yeah so talk about what do you think the real estate market is like in your area you think we’re at a high point or Eric’s have to say.

Peter Kim: 
[17:30] Tell me the suffix cyclical just like the stock market and they somewhat everyone’s telling me in the Lenny world the real estate world or definitely nearing the late part of the cycle.
Inevitably there will be some sort of Correction and no one knows exactly how much that will be and I look at the market quite a bit out here at.
You know you didn’t see price reductions a year-and-a-half ago but and now you’re starting to see ice reductions houses sitting on the market for more than 30 days and things like that so there are signs.
Right of things shifting and changing but again you can’t really time it that well I have friends were sitting and waiting and they’re waiting for the so-called correction they be waiting for 2 years.

[18:13] Unfortunately hey everyone of them this point they feel like they waited long enough to have to keep continue to wait you know it’s it’s hard to say but again I think overtime play the quick-flip.
If you think your to be in that home 5 6 7 10 years and you won’t have to sell it I think you’ll be all right.

Tarang Patel: 
[18:35] Yeah it is true I think what you say about waiting at the same thing people been waiting for that stock market correction for the last two three years as well and it seems to continue to go up so you’re absolutely right.
Just trying to get the short-term mentality I was probably the best advice and so like you said if you’re going for the longer time span.
You should be okay but it’s that short term that we should have made that two-year deal where other people think I like having to live in the house for short-term and.
Make some capital gains and then take a $500,000 profit exempt from taxes.
And move to the next right I think that’s where you start getting into the dangerous line of thinking but you’re right you no longer term probably should be okay at least historically you would have been okay.

Peter Kim: 
[19:15] Right I mean if if the exit strategy I mean may not be to sell that place for some people they say look I want to buy this place and ultimately I wanted to become a rental,
right and then ultimately by my next to be saving up in the meeting while putting the down payment I think that’s what about strategy,
that allow you kind of weather any sort of ups and downs.

Tarang Patel: 
[19:35] Okay so let’s talk about your company a little bit more you mentioned the social Mission so tell me a little bit about that.

Peter Kim: 
[19:41] Yeah I mean that’s a really important part of what we do and honestly I like I said before it we wouldn’t be doing this business without it it definitely hit a point.
What year and a half two years ago where it was just taking up a lot of my time energy and effort and I really got to a point where I was thinking is this worth it.
And it’s funny at that time I just read a book.
By the founder of TOMS Shoes Blake mycoskie and Anna. He talked about his need to feel like to be connected his business to greater good.
Now create a for-profit business that does basically nonprofit get put through funding of social projects.
It’s always really felt like I want to do the same thing with my business here and so I really made it a goal of ours to say look for every transaction that we do is really going to take the life of one child.
At 141 type model right that’s basically the times up and so on and so we discovered look.
What we can do is with the funds that were able to collect from doing a transaction with one of our Realtors able to take that and turn it around and affect the life of one child.
And really I said it looked nice and I want to meet are especially the needs of housing.
Sweden education and so we’ve been able to do that and so last year we able to build our first.
Rescue home or orphanage in India where orphans are actually taught a trade right and they’re putting Academy for 3 years.
Out of this Academy they come out of it on the other side having some sort of trade or profession and able to provide for themselves economically provide for their siblings that is really an amazing thing.

[21:19] And so with every loan with every home that we actually participate in somehow.
We make sure that one child is either funded in terms of the economy or a given a home.

Tarang Patel: 
[21:31] That’s great I think that’s one of the nice things about Physicians Who start businesses or even position to become leaders in their Hospital whatever.
They still at least an 18 a little bit more of the caring attitude not that others don’t necessarily but I feel like it’s just more within Physicians and nurses and other health professionals because that’s what we’ve been doing.
So that’s great I really expect that you’ve taken something that is profitable but also have added to your mission and helping out others in need so.
Congratulations and thanks to you for doing that anymore of us could learn from people like you doing that so thank you again.
You were saying you’re busy guy you’ve got kids of position wife practice and now you got all Service Company and now you know social part on top of that how are you managing your time how are you doing all this.

Peter Kim: 
[22:19] That’s a good question the thing is I found a busier you get I mean the more organized and efficient you out to get right.
You have to be extremely attentional with your time the busier you are and that’s something I’ve learned over the last couple years just get better at it the other thing I’ve learned is that you know if it’s important to you you’ll make time for it.
And so before I used to make excuses all the time like I’m too busy I’m too busy but I seen a different light now basically I think it’s if you’re too busy for something it just really means I poured two.
So yeah I found a way to kind of I started actually introducing my time a little bit clinically.
To pick up some more time working on this business actually I’m able to have benefited financially from this business.
So again that been able to really just the step away a little bit clinically.
And yeah that’s give me a little bit more freedom to put towards things like this and passionate about.

Tarang Patel: 
[23:14] That’s great so your business I’m assuming is done growing because if you’re able to cut back a little bit I mean and it’s benefiting others in need so you know that’s tremendous but where do you anticipate her cellular State going what is what are your goals with that.

[23:28] And then 5 years or so.

Peter Kim: 
[23:30] Person wants a free service.

Tarang Patel: 
[23:36] You know you didn’t mention that it’s pretty important so that’s good.

Peter Kim: 
[23:39] Yeah it’s a free service for Physicians and so I hope that all Physicians will feel like they can benefit from this and so I hope that,
it’s recognized as a service for all positions whenever they want to buy home Alfredo think about curbside,
and using it and obviously the more Physicians that we help them or social good we can do and so I just want to continue grow it.

Tarang Patel: 
[24:07] All right.
Well that’s that’s great last I always ask my guess what advice they would give financially to younger Physicians Medical students Dental students whatever what are some of the things that you wish you would have learned about when you were at their stage.

Peter Kim: 
[24:22] That’s a good question something that I never thought about doing a medical school,
was pursuing other source of income and that’s the red vestments other businesses and it’s only in the last couple years that I’ve started learning about it and there you know obviously there’s some websites that and some blogs out there that kind of,
I’ll people to think about these kind of things but it’s something that I wish I would have started learning about a lot earlier I think I would have made some smarter than Asians maybe even in terms of my loans even when I first came out of practice especially that first couple years the financial decisions I would have set me up a little bit better for the future so when I do tell people is,
early on there are these other things start learning about him early and hold some time and energy towards anybody.

Tarang Patel: 
[25:12] Yeah absolutely I agree with that one caveat to that is and this is from mistakes that I’ve made to is that you will be approached by a lot of people once you become an attending and then even your colleagues will probably have someone that they know that you know may have an investment.
Be very careful not to say you don’t do it but just just realized that a lot of things aren’t as easy as they seem but you know but I would say.
Definitely learn about those things.

Peter Kim: 
[25:38] Yeah the more you learn about them I mean the better equipped you are.

Tarang Patel: 
[25:48] Good alright well.
Thank you teacher for a cabin on the show and I want to encourage our listeners to take a look at your ad say curbside realestate.com.
And learn about the services that you guys offer and more about your social Mission then again I want to thank you very much for doing that I think.
These type of things are what helps combat a little bit of the urine out that Physicians are feeling because you need to know whether you’re doing it.
A direct patient care or whether you doing it in disrespect I think those are the things that automatically will keep you going for the long run so thanks again.

Peter Kim: 
[26:22] Hey thanks for having me.

Intro Outro: 
[26:23] I want to thank dr. Peter Kim for being my guest on this episode of dr. Money Matters buying a home is one of the largest purchases most of us will make but it can be made easier by getting good advice.

[26:35] My own advice is that a personal residence is not an investment would rather an expense item which can turn out profitable but you can’t rely on that.

[26:45] Peter’s company can be found at curbside realestate.com.

[26:50] And once again please share the doctor Money Matters podcast with your friends and colleagues and.

[26:58] We are available on Apple podcast Google play Stitcher and also a doctor money matters.com and on YouTube and Facebook.

[27:08] You can follow me on Twitter at Dr Money Matters and you can join our doctor Money Matters Facebook group.

[27:15] Where we discuss other topics besides just the episodes on the show.

[27:20] And once again thanks for listening and please continue to leave as positive reviews which helped this podcast and any other podcast that you listen to move up the charts on iTune more episodes will be released shortly.

Episode 20

2018, Doctor Money Matters

http://www.doctormoneymatters.com

Episode 20. Kevin Pho, MD — Kevin MD This episode is about using social media to spread your voice beyond the your local area. Obviously social media has had a tremendous impact on our lives in its relatively short existence from connecting with friends and families to how we get our news to professional development. But how can physicians and other healthcare professionals really take advantage of it and should they? I discuss this with my guest Dr. Kevin Pho. He started this website KevinMD long ago (in Internet time). He talks about how he started and how it has grown and allowed him to also become a leading physician voice. I want to thank Dr. Pho, because he agreed to do this podcast at a time when I had just started out and really had no audience. I purposely delayed releasing this episode in order to build up the audience on my own a little and I want to thank you the listeners for being part of that growth. One of the great things about social media that has allowed us to get into contact with other people like Kevin who are generous with their time and expertise. I hope he inspired you to get out there and get your voice heard on social media. It’s vitally important that people with real scientific expertise engage the public and not be drowned out by the celebrity pseudoscience. Dr. Pho’s website is at KevinMD He started a Physician Speaking Facebook group recently for physicians interested in becoming speakers. Please let your friends know about this podcast by sharing it on text, whatsapp or whatever social media platform you are on. More episodes of this podcast are available at www.doctormoneymatters.com and Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, etc. All episodes are also now on YouTube (Audio only) and Facebook. Twitter @drmoneymatters Instagram @doctormoneymatters Please consider joining the Doctor Money Matters Facebook group. Thanks for listening and please leave us positive reviews and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues. Some other physician hosted podcasts that I recommend are: Docs Outside The Box The Hippocratic Hustle The Happy Doc Doctors Unbound The White Coat Investor There are many others, so please support your physician colleagues.

Transcript

Main Intro 

Intro Outro: 
[0:16] Welcome to this episode of deduct Money Matters podcast today’s episode is about using social media to spread your voice beyond your local reach.

[0:25] Obviously social media has had a tremendous impact on our lives and it’s relatively short existence from connecting with friends and Families 2 how we get our news to professional development.

[0:36] How can Physicians and other Healthcare professionals really take advantage of it and should they.

[0:40] I discussed this with my guest Doctor Kevin PO he started the Kevin MD website long ago and he talks about how he got started and how it’s grown and allowed him to become a leading Physicians.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[0:52] Okay welcome to another episode of the doctor Money Matters podcast I’m excited to welcome our guest today dr. Kevin Poe many of you will know him from the website.
Doctor po12 undergrad and med school and residency at the Boston University in the Boston University Medical Center in Nashua New Hampshire.

[1:14] Is Kevin MD website is one of the leading platforms on the internet for healthcare professionals to share their perspective on matters relating to their profession.

[1:23] He’s also on the editorial board of USA Today and has been interviewed by CBS News and given many addresses to physician groups and conferences.

[1:32] He’s also co-authored a book establishing managing and protecting your online reputation is social media guide to Physicians and medical practices.
Doctor Phil welcome to the podcast and thank you for coming on.

Kevin Pho, Md: 
[1:44] Thanks for having me it’s great to be here.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[1:46] So what’s this talk a bit about your background what got you into medicine and then talk a little bit after that about.

Kevin Pho, Md: 
[1:55] Sure so what are the reasons why going to medicine is because I wanted to really give patients a voice and whenever they come see a doctor there at the most vulnerable,
and we have such a dysfunctional Health Care System where patients are often silenced or they don’t have a say in terms of what happens to them so as a physician I wanted to give patient,
that voice as they navigate are dysfunctional Health Care system,
add Shirley. Has evolve throughout my career in terms of giving not only patients a voice but Physicians of voice and we’re going to be talking about the house social media gives us a platform where everyone can have a voice but it really started,
because I wanted to give patients. Voice when they’re at the most want her Bowl when they enter our Healthcare System.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[2:38] I so talk about when you started the Kevin MD site and the green said you’ve had over the years.

Kevin Pho, Md: 
[2:44] Sure be back in the spring of 2004 so that was 13 years ago when it comes to social media.
I’m pretty much a dinosaur when it comes to Health Care social media,
Acumen blogging was in its infancy back then and I really had no idea what to expect or where this was going,
so I think it started back in 2004 there was a major drug we called it was a medicine called vioxx which is Burke’s anti-inflammatory.
And I remember writing a column on that on my site talking about what patients should do what kind of questions they should ask their doctors.

[3:31] Add a few days after I publish a post I remember a patient and example I walk into the exam room in the first thing she said to me this morning and it was comforting,
to read what you had to say and now I know what kind of questions to ask and I think that was the proverbial lightbulb moment for me where I realize that,
I had a voice outside the exam room and with my blog I was able to interact with. Only one patient exam,
many patients at once and having this power.
As a physician just having this publishing power was tremendously liberating and tremendously powerful.
Obviously that has evolved over the years we not only have blogs but we also have Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube we have dozens and dozens of social media platforms and it’s tremendously powerful.
Or doctors to utilize these tools. Only to connect with patients but,
will be talking about it certainly how they can use it to find her online reputations and really how to make their voices heard as our Healthcare System is evolving and I think these tools.
I’ve given this type of publishing power to the every person and of course that translate to all of us it in healthcare as well.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[4:48] And so you mentioned obviously your blog is exploded in the medical community and lots of positions now post on it and read it and see how does that change your professional life or you still practice medicine correct.

Kevin Pho, Md: 
[5:02] I do I have a primary care clinic in Nashua New Hampshire and I see patients 4 days a week still and it’s something I still have corset I love to do,
the blog gives me a balance I think that,
physician burnout certainly is a topic that is very prominent right now especially on my site and.
There are so many pressures when it comes to practicing medicine you know you do see patients every 10 to 15 minutes we’re dealing with clunky electronic medical records and one of the things I always talk to doctors what I do talk about what is that,
Physicians need to have a passion outside of clinical medicine that parallels their clinical medicine journey and for me it’s my family of course but also,
what I do on Kevin MD and having these patches really gives me that balance were,
I can only do things outside of clinical medicine but it will help me maintain my passion for clinical Madison so.
It’s been so gratifying. Not only to read what these thousands of voices have to say about what they are going through and I’ve learned so much by reading. Only their stories by patients,
but stores are patients as well if you gain their perspective so I think that having my site is really and richte I view of Medicine,
and it’s really opened up a window into the larger Healthcare world and some of the stories that they’re sharing as well.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[6:25] And so let’s talk about social media so your blog obviously started before the explosion of social media and.
Your blog is still up on the web.com also have or your side has accounts for Twitter Facebook how has social media changed your blog and then also.
How is it change your actual medical practice.

Kevin Pho, Md: 
[6:50] Sure so.

[6:53] The block has certainly evolved and I think that information consumption as a whole has also involve evolve as well people don’t just go to the website now to read information,
they consume information from different silos for instance you could either go to New York Times to read the website and you can get the New York Times feed on Facebook on Twitter you can read various New York Times podcast.
So I think that information consumption has become siloed and I’ve kind of mirror that on my side.
Obviously I have the stories on my side 68 times per day but I also broadcast those post on different silos as well specifically face,
Twitter LinkedIn I’ve Google plus I’ve Pinterest because different people consume that information in different ways,
so I think that Kevin MD is no longer doesn’t block I like to call it a day social media platform where a lot of my posts are only consumed on Kevin nd.com but also on the various social media platform as well so how does it.
Change my practice I think. I’m certainly found easier if you look at some recent studies.
About half of caitians they Google their doctors before they see them and when my name is Google. Obviously my various online assets come up.
Not only but also on Facebook and Twitter so people can proverbially meet me before they see me in the exam room and it’s also giving me a semblance of control over how I appear online I’m no longer just defined by a.

[8:23] Random physician rating site but by being active in social media it’s may be proactive in terms of how I appear online I can have some semblance of control of what my Google,
present is and I think going forward that’s tremendously powerful because one more doctors are going to be online whether you like it or not,
and 1 more patients are going to be Googling their doctor so I think it’s important for everyone and health care whether you’re a doctor or a dentist or at Allied Health professional to have that control your online presence because,
whether you like it or not if they don’t do themselves other people are going to do it for them.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[8:58] The average physician today sees that okay it may have a personal Facebook account.
Certain about Twitter profile other than just sharing their typical Facebook friends and family post.
How do you encourage them to actually get more professionally involved.

Kevin Pho, Md: 
[9:22] I talked to doctors.
There are a little bit apprehensive about social media they always hear social media from her perspective of risk I’m sure they get talks at the hospital or at the clinic from Risk Managers and lawyers and,
they always show stories front page headlines about doctors and nurses getting fired because they’re taking pictures of,
people’s body parts in the operating room in the emergency room right is it so you can hear stories like that all the time so if you’re a practicing physician.

[9:51] You ask yourself why the heck am I going to be using social media has nothing positive could ever come of it,
so what I do is I try to present social media from a perspective of a more positive perspective and I think it does have tremendous positives for physician I normally start by Googling a physician’s name,
and a lot of them are surprised because they already have it all in present.
And that’s in the form of East physician rating sites like ratemds or health grades are vitals whether doctors like it or not they already have that type of all my presents and they could be populated by less-than-stellar rating so.
For a lot of doctors that’s really the type of lightbulb moment they say Hey you know I already have it all in present but I’m not in control of it so what should they do to take control their online presence.
I always recommend LinkedIn first LinkedIn is as you know a professional social network and simply.
Filling out a LinkedIn profile is just a digital translation of one’s CV so just put in your CV in a LinkedIn and,
and put in a nice picture and you put in a summary and you have a complete LinkedIn profile that gets ranked high on Google searches and in a lot of cases can even above things like healthgrades these and push them lower down on the search page so they become less visible.
So that’s number one and number two I recommend doximity doximity is a physician social network,
add again a profile there is just a translation of your CV in fact you could even upload to see Vita doximity and they will have staff members enter it in into their profile for you so those.

[11:30] Start off with at a minimum and doing that probably takes a few hours to do at most and then I have to do that position should stop.

[11:39] Awesome sauce what did he want to use social media for and if the answer is nothing.
Then that’s better than nothing I think that what they’ve done already by creating a profile on LinkedIn and doximity is.
Plenty powerful enough I will put them ahead of the game compared to the majority of their peers.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[11:57] And how about goes that may want to go a little bit further what platforms would you.

[12:03] As far as professional development goes what platforms besides like you said doximity in LinkedIn would you establish your md present as your personal Facebook page.

[12:15] Any recommendations that way or.

Kevin Pho, Md: 
[12:18] I’m going to refrain that question I’m going to ask.
What’s their ultimate goal when they come to use social media to use social media to connect and educate patients.
Do you want to use social media to connect with your colleagues.
Social media to advocate for a cause or Health Care reform topics and depending on what their goals are there are specific social media platforms that fit those goals.
For Cynthia physician are interested in connecting with patients.
I think having a professional Facebook page is tremendously powerful if you want to do video to connect with patients they can certainly do YouTube or,
again a Facebook page if you want to connect with colleagues I think Twitter is probably better suited for that because there’s a lot of professional conversations that happened on Twitter or they can start a blog.

[13:07] But if you want to cry I think is really the ultimate social media and point then they should certainly start a blog created videos on YouTube or Facebook I think and then.
They could do what I do and disseminate information on the various social media silos that’s around that so.

[13:27] The answer to that is really what did he want to use social media for and depending on those goals they are various platforms that best fit those specific goals and Physicians are going to realize that the more social media platforms that they engaging,
the bigger their online presence will be anyway so rather than approaching it from a question what social media platform should be engaging start with a goals first.
And then the presents would sort itself out as usual should be to fit those goals.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[13:54] And depending on what your goal would be would you recommend doing it yourself hiring a social media marketing person what are your thoughts on that.

Kevin Pho, Md: 
[14:04] So I think that there are pros and cons to both obviously when you do social media yourself it does take a little bit of time but I think that if you can do yourself you should because you should educate yourself,
with these tools because social media isn’t going away patients are going to be used to a certain amount of transparency,
if you see out of their Industries whether you go to Amazon whether you book a hotel Airline restaurant is a certain amount of transparency to other industries that.
People are going to expect.
Eventually Healthcare going to catch up to that so there’s a certain expectation that patients are going to have so I think as Physicians we do need to educate ourselves with the various tools that are available to us,
call Sabor Portland that if is this themselves you social media isn’t there a voice it’s a more authentic voice rather than Outsourcing it to,
a social media marketer so it’s best that position learn how to use these tools and speak with their own voice.

[15:02] That being said if you’re a busy doctor and you really don’t have the time for this yes spending the money and Outsourcing it to a social media consultant is better than nothing is better than having no social media presence so if your choices are.
Not doing it all versus Outsourcing it then yes Outsourcing it probably would be better than nothing.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[15:20] And I think a lot of people think they well I can understand for those positions or dentist if you don’t have their own practice or trying to promote their private practice but.

[15:31] What about for those who are employed and they don’t really trying to drum up business do you still think that it’s important to establish a presence.

Kevin Pho, Md: 
[15:41] I do because even if you work for a hospital or a large employer when a patient sees a particular doctor they’re not necessarily going to Google.
Calle De Mayo Clinic and I’m going to Google the Kaiser Permanente they’re going to still Google that individual doctor you know I’m seeing dr. Poe.

[15:57] I would have Google that doctor and I what comes up is still,
information specifically. Physicians name is not going to be specific that institution so I do think that is important for every physician whether they work independently or work for a large Healthcare conglomerate to take charge of their individual online presence also you may not be with that same employer.

[16:19] Forever right people change jobs so I think that’s also important that you take control of your own individual online presence in you don’t want to leave that in the hands of your employer.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[16:27] So now let’s flip to the other side of things that you see many young medical students residence pre-meds they have large social media following.

[16:38] What cautions advice would you have for them before they even really are into their prime practice here is about social media.

Kevin Pho, Md: 
[16:46] I think that they should evaluate what’s been written to pass and assume that residency directors and credentialing committees are Googling them.
Because they are and I know for a fact that hospital credentialing committees Google every applicant I know residency directors a Google applicants so it’s tremendously important to be aware of what comes up when your name is Google. What’s public on your Facebook profile what’s public on,
Instagram you want to be aware of that in and cleaned it up obviously because,
Stoli is that going to cost you when you apply for residency or apply for a job but also prospective patients are going to be seeing this as well when they Google Google you looking for a physician so.

[17:28] I always have a rule of thumb when I talk to every position weather do young and old it’s called the elevator test and it goes like this whatever is posted online.
It needs to be appropriate if you say it aloud in the crowd at hospital elevator,
so I think you want that to be the minimum standard when it comes to your public presence is on every social media Network.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[17:49] I think I just got a good base line for anything because I feel.
A lot of people social media and then on the flip side a lot of people have social media.
Sometimes a little bit to open but then that just maybe the sign of the times.

Kevin Pho, Md: 
[18:13] Absolutely and I think that position they need to realize that fair or not we are held to a higher standard in the public compared to,
anyone else so what we say or do obviously reflection not only are cells but of the profession,
of who we work for as well and the consequences that Physicians face is greater than most every profession so whether that’s fair or not. That’s part of the burden of responsibility of being a physician so I think that’s something that we all have to keep in mind.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[18:42] I do want to talk about your coaching program that you have and what Physicians can gain from that.

Kevin Pho, Md: 
[18:50] Church so I recently started a physician,
coaching program because I realize that a lot of the skills that we talked about in this podcast latest not known by a lot of doctors,
specifically using social media to Define your online reputation I went over some Basics but you’re certainly more to do than that,
are there a lot of doctors who want to step outside of their clinical work and they wanted to be a speaker they want to Keynote medical conferences and in order to do that you have to build an online platform,
so I’ve been doing this for 13 years now and,
I can say that annoying and learning all of this stuff online that’s almost like having another degree almost right in the actually don’t teach this in medical school and residency,
so I definitely wanted to give other Physicians and health professionals an opportunity where I can share my knowledge and Coach them one or one.
To realize our goals.
I would work with some Internet only to find her all the reputation but if they want I can expand their social media platform and I could share exactly what I do too,
help some of my pieces go viral and be heard and also I can certainly coach him in terms of,
being a speaker and what event organizers are looking for when you’re looking for a physician keynote speaker how to structure 2 talks how to deliver talks how to work on your visuals what are some of the Cutting Edge trends when it comes to Keynote speaking,
because this is stuff that no one taught me I had to.
Do a lot of research and other Industries in and take my own lumps on to Chino circuit as well and I think that this is valuable information to pass on to.

[20:25] Position because this type of stuff isn’t readily available.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[20:29] I think you know there’s so much to learn in medical school.
Unfortunately so much gets crowded out and aside from just the medical knowledge that we have to continuously educate ourselves on.
There’s an entire other realm of business and personal knowledge and things like that that kind of get pushed aside but also need to be put in the curriculum whether it’s a medical school residency or what not so it’s great that they sell for doing these kind of things and helping.
Other Physicians out.
Doctor but I want to thank you for appearing on the podcast I did have another quick question. What do you see in the next 5 or 10 years or a Kevin MD.

Kevin Pho, Md: 
[21:06] I’m certainly happy with my current trajectory it’s now platform where thousands of healthcare,
voices can tell their stories and get their voices heard and as you know with our Healthcare System there’s always going to be,
topics to talk about so I see continued growth I see the platform enlarging and I see that this is a needed platform because doctors,
often don’t have a voice when you read New York Times on the editorial Pages you see a lot of doctors who unnecessarily Frontline clinician,
they don’t necessarily see patients and I think it’s important to have the voice of the practicing physician out there because if we don’t have a say if we don’t make decisions,
these decisions will be imposed on us by politicians and non practicing clinicians,
so I think Kevin MD is going to grow in importance I think that it’s one of the few if only platforms where doctors can have that prominent publishing space where they can tell their Frontline stories and I think about voice is going to be tremendously.
Important as we move forward because as Physicians we cannot be marginalizing to healthcare debate.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[22:12] City of our listeners one to get an article or something published on Kevin & Bean how do they do that.

Kevin Pho, Md: 
[22:19] Go to Kevin md.com and I’ll stop there is a contribution tab with a specific instructions on what type of articles I like.
I can tell you right off the bat I like stories I think stories are very powerful and I think that the public.
They don’t have access to a lot of physician story so I am partial to some of the stories that positions face everyday but they can go to Kevin nd.com and go to the Contra butab and will be instructions there and how they can contribute.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[22:49] And if they wanted to get your book that we mentioned earlier about social media is that available on your website as well.

Kevin Pho, Md: 
[22:57] It is available on the website as well as Amazon so you go to Kevin md.com and click the book top and it’s establishing managing and protecting your online reputation and also if you’re interested in coaching as well it’s all on coming to me.com so it’s easier.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[23:12] Alright well thank you very much I appreciate you coming on the podcast and we look forward to it more great things from Kevin MD and end yourself in the future.

Kevin Pho, Md: 
[23:20] Fantastic thanks for having me on.

Intro Outro: 
[23:23] I want to thank dr. PO for agreeing to do this podcast.

[23:29] He had agreed to do this podcast of the time when I just started out and really had no audience I purposely delayed releasing this episode in order to build up the audience on my own a little bit and I want to thank you the listeners for being part of that growth.

[23:41] What are the great things about social media is that it’s allowed us to get into contact with people like dr. Poe who are generous with their time and expertise I hope he inspired you to get out there and get your voice heard on social media.

[23:55] It’s vitally important that Physicians and other Healthcare professionals with real scientific expertise and gauge the public and not be drowned out by the celebrity pseudoscience that’s.

[24:06] Becoming more and more prevalent.

[24:09] Decompose website is Kevin MD I’m sure you all heard of it just Google Kevin MD or Kevin md.com.

[24:18] He also recently started a physician speaking Facebook group in order to help Physicians develop into.

[24:25] Speakers at conventions conferences and in front of meetings and so I could you to join his group.

[24:35] How to encourage you to join my doctor Money Matters Facebook group or we discussed Financial topics.

[24:40] And share this podcast with your friends and colleagues by text WhatsApp or whatever social media platform that you currently are on you can.

[24:51] Listen to this podcast on Apple podcast Google play Stitcher.

[24:56] And the episodes are now also available on YouTube and as usual you can follow me on Twitter at Dr Money Matters or.

[25:04] Facebook doctor Money Matters or Instagram doctor Money Matters in on Facebook and Instagram it’s doctor spelled out.

[25:13] So thanks again for listening please leave positive reviews for this and any other part.

Main Intro 

Transcribed by Google Voice recognition. Please excuse any transcription errors.

 

Episode 19 Doctor Money Matters.

On this episode, my guest is Dr. Bonnie Koo, a dermatologist/finance blogger who is helping educate physicians about the essentials in personal finance. Since we recorded this episode, Bonnie has had many changes in her life including becoming a mother, moving from NY to Philadelphia (Super bowl Champs) and changing her practice type from employed to private practice. Many of you may have heard Bonnie on the Hippocratic Hustle podcast hosted by my fellow physician and podcaster Dr. Carrie Reynolds. In this episode, we talk about some of the issues for those in high income areas, how Bonnie transitioned from a different field into medicine, and how she became interested in finance. She is well on her way to achieving financial success despite a later start in the medical field than most. Since the last episode, the stock market had a minor correction. Its important to not let the swings in the stock market change your overall investment mindset. This is just noise and it should not deter you from investing. If anything, consider the recent drop which has partially recovered, a small sale. Cryptocurrencies on the other hand have had a major correction, which also have partially recovered. I am not going to give any recommendation on those however. Bonnie’s Blog is at www.missbonniemd.com Please let your friends know about this podcast by sharing it on text, whatsapp or whatever social media platform you are on. More episodes of this podcast are available at www.doctormoneymatters.com and Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, etc. All episodes are also now on YouTube (Audio only) and Facebook. You can follow me on twitter @drmoneymatters Please consider joining the Doctor Money Matters Facebook group. Thanks for listening and please leave us positive reviews and continue to share this podcast with your colleagues.

Transcript

Main Intro 

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[0:17] Okay thanks for joining me on another episode of the doctor Money Matters podcast my guess today is dr. Bonnie Koo and dermatologist and financial blogger was helping educate Physicians about the essential oils in personal finance.

[0:30] Since we recorded this episode by has had many changes in her life including becoming a mother moving from New York City to Philadelphia the home of the Super Bowl champion Eagles.

[0:40] And changing her practice from an employee practice to a private practice Ma.

[0:46] Many of you may have heard Bonnie on the Hippocratic hustle podcast hosted by my fellow physician podcaster doctor carry rental.

[0:53] In this episode we talk about some of the issues for those in high-income areas how Bonnie transition from a.

[1:01] Different field into medicine and how she became interested in finance she’s well on her way to achieving financial success despite a relatively later start in medicine than many of your calling.

[1:14] Since the last episode of the stock market is that a minor correction it’s important not to let the swings of the stock market change your overall investing mindset.

[1:25] It’s just noise and shouldn’t deter you from investing if anything consider the recent drop which is partially recovered a small sale.

[1:34] Cryptocurrencies on the other end of had a major correction which is also partially recovered. no recommendations on cryptocurrencies however.

[1:43] Okay without further Ado Miss Bonnie MD.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[1:47] Welcome to another episode of the doctor Money Matters podcast My guest today is Bonnie Koo MD from Miss Bonnie md.com she’s a dermatologist in Brooklyn and you work out in Long Island is that correct?

Bonnie Koo, Md: 
[2:03] Yes so that the commute is not the greatest.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[2:06] But you do live in one of the more expensive areas in the country which will definitely talk about but before we talk about the financial topics just tell me a little bit about your background what got you into medicine and dermatology specifically.

Bonnie Koo, Md: 
[2:21] Sure so I grew up in the New York area pretty much my whole life I grew up in New Jersey and then I went to,
College in New York City at medical school I went to Barnard college versus an all-women’s School part of Columbia University,
and then I did medical school at Columbia as well but I had a little bit of a detour I didn’t go to med school until I was 27 I actually worked at Morgan Stanley for about 4 years.
That is a banker though I worked in their Technology Group so actually worked as a Unix systems administrator I’m not sure if you know what that means.
I don’t I don’t remember what that means either to be honest.

[2:59] If a car has been somewhat helpful with blocking actually with your deciphering some CSS code and try to do things myself but any case I did that for 4 years even though I had no background in that I majored in Biochemistry.
In college but actually worked at the computer lab is my part time job during college so that job is actually.
A direct line to working for Morgan Stanley apparently it’s a lot of people end up working there but,
anyway it was really great working there it was nice to have a job and then I was paid pretty well my plan was to work there for maybe a year or two and then go to medical school so,
still intended to go there but just kind of took a little bit longer and you want to keep raising your salary and give you nice bonuses it’s hard to.
Eventually you know I knew this wasn’t the job I want to do forever so I eventually applied and that kind of brought me to where I am now but in terms of Dermatology.
I think would have started med school and it wasn’t even that long ago but I was interested in both medicine and dermatology and I really liked both quite a bit.
And the.
I guess they said of the Nets that I really enjoyed was for the interface between medicine Dermatology so specifically inpatient consult,
so that’s actually what I do now so I’m over by the Sea program and when I started I was the director of the,
inpatient Derm cancel service where I work right now.
And but I sold mainly see patients in the outpatient setting but I also see patients in the hospital which most dermatologist don’t do.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[4:31] It’s true it’s a rare sighting when we see a dermatologist at our facility but that’s good I’d say you’re an academic medicine so what made you interested in the financial aspects in Dino starting your blog.

Bonnie Koo, Md: 
[4:46] So that’s.

[4:49] I didn’t know anything for a very long time the only thing I knew was I would look at my paycheck literally before I want to spend money on if there’s money there in like how I could spend it that’s literally how I conducted myself which was not good obviously so I actually,
author of money during residency and definitely was not living within my means and then my flasher residency just overheard some co-residents,
those guys talking about money and they talk about money all the time so they both were into investing and so I kind of knew that about them but this time I guess I kind of was more interested in what they had to talk about and they kind of looked at me and said hey you should read that book the white coat investor,
and I did I bought it and I read it and that’s kind of when it starts basically so really I I kind of feel like I.
Learn it at the right time because I think once you become an attending and you can develop some habits it’s so much harder to reverse I think.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[5:44] Absolutely and you’re you’re right learning as a resident or even as a med student is ideal but I take whatever you can get your head wrapped around some of the concepts that dr. Ali talks about in his book.
It always is always good but definitely the earlier you can do that the better off you are.
So let’s talk about a little bit about your website so where is Miss Bonnie MD and what are you trying to do with that.

Bonnie Koo, Md: 
[6:10] So the reason why I even started was the others as Facebook group online you may have heard of The Physician moms group.
That’s sort of the large group of physician mom has to be mom to be in it cuz I was not a mom or pregnant when I joined the group,
more open but yeah there’s a lot of spin-off groups for every topic you can imagine like literally and then for every location so there’s one for New York City there’s one for every major city is a great way to network but there’s one for personal finance and I think,
SRTA bus I got into one of my another dermatologist friend who was in the group she’s like oh you know I should add you to this group so I just you know she added me and then.

[6:55] I sort of noticed that I had a certain knowledge base and.
And I notice I was sort of Saint answering the same question over and over again and running at the same thing it is kind of hard Jim got started actually so and then add a few friends City to you really should start a blog know the only people out there are men.
That’s kind of how it’s got started but I don’t really have a sound like I had a vision in my when I start I just.

[7:19] Peter had some things to say and some topics and so it’s kind of how it started and then I kind of like Jamie basically write about what you know what pertains to you so that’s kind of how I started.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[7:30] And so as you if you know you’ve been working on this blog and and and talking to your colleagues other female positions on the Facebook group what are some of the common issues that that you’re seeing.

Bonnie Koo, Md: 
[7:43] I think the same things that come up for the non female visit you know basically life insurance disability insurance you know I think there’s a lot of its,
they’re not topics that are easy to understand. You know I’ll be honest when I was a resident I did hear about disability insurance a lot actually there is one resident a few years ahead of me had it,
and so she actually would organize is a little dinners with her disability insurance agent and I want to thank those free food you know how it is,
I honestly had no idea what it was it sounds like a scam to me at the time to remember.
Hearing about how much it would cost me on his present like anything over a hundred bucks a month is like what I’m not paying that so I just kind of ignored it.
I see that a lot it’s you know it’s.
Does different companies offer all these different writers I made it safely not an easy topic understanding for women is much more expensive for us in general,
and then especially if you’ve had if you get it after you’ve had children things that really are not medical issues these companies consider as medical issues and we’ll sort of ding you for that for example did you know that having a c-section is considered,
best going through infertility treatments.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[8:53] I didn’t know that but honestly the way insurance companies work I’m not surprised.

Bonnie Koo, Md: 
[8:56] Yeah so love and don’t know this and they’re surprised and really upset about this so you know something I really try to tell women is you know even when you’re single and.
That’s actually the best time to get these insurances so.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[9:11] Early is good but like you said it’s really tough to convince.
A resident to put money out for something that they statistically there but they’re not going to need it for a long time at least but the icky advice I think that most people would tell you to try to get it.
Before you finish training but earlier is better even if you do it as a younger attending.

[9:31] So so yeah I know that’s good and you’re right I think most of these issues are not specific to women positions are just just specific to people in general but it’s good that you’re able to find a voice within that community and and help out.
Are physician colleagues and the podcast that you do with Carrie Reynolds hip hop hustle podcast.
Pretty open about your financial goals you actually had an article that came out today actually published numbers.
That you want to achieve tell me a little bit about that first of all why are you so open about it I think most most doctors are very close about those kind of topics and I’m glad that you are open and then specifically how you know you’re you’re trying to get.

Bonnie Koo, Md: 
[10:17] Yeah well.
I think Jim and session of fire pretty open about their certain aspects of their financial life and so I just feel like you know the more people want to see examples of things,
so that’s how you relate I guess two people so I have no issues putting my goals out there you know whether I’ll meet them is another story right but it’s it does definitely.
Put me on the spot the spotlight but sir to keeps me a little bit accountable like I definitely feel like oh I really got to stick to the plan I’ll let you know obviously things can change but.
I think it actually is a good motivator and that respect but in terms of the number is so you know we chose you know we mean.
Me and my fiance sort of not based on spending habits where she still trying to figure out what are true spending is actually just added him to my YNAB budgeting system,
so like literally the first of July so we’ll see how he does I think he spends more than he thinks but we’ll see. A spender but you know a little bit here and there and people don’t you know if you don’t track your spending you really don’t know what’s going on so.
We just kind of picked a number that seems reasonable to us so I think.
Our financial Independence number we picked is 5 million so that would give us approximately 200 Grand a year of income butts before being taxed obviously so I think that’s a lot more than we would need but I guess you know,
we’re hoping to still be,
still physically active and mentally and we would like to travel and started because I didn’t save enough money.

[11:58] So I think three million would actually be more than a sufficient but as you know.
Skulls change Health changes with the future cost of healthcare as a big unknown so I just I just feel like the more the better.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[12:10] Right right and then and that’s true you can only plan for what you can anticipate but you’re absolutely right we don’t know what’s going to happen with health care cost weed.
No changes in in political administrations will always impact those type of things so that you know you do the best you can do.
And generally being a little bit more conservative you know exactly what you’re saying is you don’t Maybe,
planning a little bit more savings than what you initially thought is never a bad thing but you know but that being said it seems like a really tough number especially when you’re a young resident or just just getting out and you have.
All these student loans and things like that so to get to this number whether you talk about it.

[12:53] What kind of savings rate do you you know do you think that you have to have to do that and and is it really impacting your lifestyle currently.

Bonnie Koo, Md: 
[13:03] Ask her a question I mean so obviously they pull these numbers out of a hat and terms of are we going to reach them in x amount of years we sort of did some planning.
So we actually have a fanshel advisor so she,
confirm that we would meet these numbers at these times but sometimes I’m I’m like are you sure it’s like I just realistic but I do trust her so,
but I have figured that out on my own to just using simple compound interest calculators and are how much money we’re putting away that it was feasible but.
Between the two of us we actually have a lot of tax advantage retirement space something to the order of 80 or $90,000 a year that’s before we even have to contribute to a taxable account.
That’s a pretty large amount that’s mainly because I have a 403b of 457 b a through my hospital system they actually have a generous contribution that sends up smell like $20,000 a year there’s there’s some cash pension plan.
they completely fine. I don’t contribute just a lot but you know so I’ll take its free money right we both do a backdoor Roth IRA.
And he has a 403b through his work so.

[14:10] And you know he is not a physician and he had been working for some time so he had some money already saving his accounts as well.
But we plan to continue to save pretty you know so our goal is to basically max out all these accounts before.

[14:27] Paying off debt which is basically my student loans and I guess his mortgage.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[14:31] And so when you talk about this number is that assuming that at that point in the mortgage and everything else your loans will be paid out that you is that what you’re saying and then you hit this number.

Bonnie Koo, Md: 
[14:43] I’m at the 5 million.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[14:45] Yeah I’m just trying to figure out because you know it is either you’re still going to be.
So on your website about 5 million by the 2031 you’re going to be 54 so you really.
United the general retirement age so if you start withdrawing from taxable Accounts at that point you know you going to be paying additional penalties and stuff like that.
Shiny brass your thought process a little.

Bonnie Koo, Md: 
[15:08] Oh yeah sure so I actually just,
does the North country with my loans and they should be they should be paid off by the end of 2020 although it might go another year setsuna Within,
yeah I have about $150,000 left at this point and I ate there both refinanced I could have taken advantage of Public service loan forgiveness but I totally missed that boat I would have had like two or three years left at this point but it’s all right you know.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[15:34] Right right well a lot of people I mean I know that in my,
residency group I think the majority of us didn’t even know about this type of thing you know so yeah I’m happy for them but most people I have probably.
Not qualified or at least extended their windows so you’re part of it you’re part of the majority on that.

Bonnie Koo, Md: 
[15:58] Yeah so I but they’re my laundry files to very low you know very good rates one of them actually fix at 2.25% so I’m not too upset about that so they’re they’re kind of on autopilot and I basically yeah pay the,
what are the required monthly amount is plus the way I’m paid as I’m paid a base salary and a bonus and I pretty much pretend I don’t get a bonus cuz it is variable so I just threw most of the bonus at the debt.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[16:24] And you I mean are you factoring in you think you’ll stay at this job through your numbers that you’re calculating or even if you change careers rather go to private practice or something like that.

Bonnie Koo, Md: 
[16:36] I’ve no idea how long I mean statistics will say that I probably won’t be at this job forever,
so my immediate goal is to see how fast I can go to a party tonight,
practicing for 2 years but I think the commute is getting to me so I think supposedly after I come back from maternity leave I’ll be getting 2 days very close by in the city so I don’t have to drive,
so much so I think that’ll be a big change to my quality of life right now.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[17:06] Well it’s actually so kind of diverging from that the topic just a little bit you have only been practicing for a couple years and you’re talking about going part-time and and that seems to be a big topic amongst a lot of Physicians and.

[17:21] Whether you’ve been practicing all your short time or the ones who have been practicing out for 15 20 plus years.
Why do you think that is it in obviously something to do with a degree of burn out.

Bonnie Koo, Md: 
[17:33] Yeah I think I can only speak for myself obviously so first of all I feel,
kind of weird saying this but you know full time dermatologist 4 days a week first of all it’s not 5 to 6 so you’re my fiance actually says I already work part-time,
but I think if you a couple of my commute then it’s it makes it pretty bad my team could be anywhere between a 2 and 3 hours a day,
times for so it adds on quite a lot of time and then just frustration with traffic but I think I don’t know if burn out.
Is the right term but I think you know the practice of methi already I’ll just write it just like I love being a dermatologist but.
I’m sure you love being a radiologist but you know that they’ve made it much harder to just practice medicine it’s paperwork the ammar’s all these requirements these licenses you got to renew every year that I guess it’s just money but.
And then I think there’s a complete shift in the mentality of patients that were this customer service oriented profession or not they’re able to write Yelp reviews and then we can’t write back because of HIPAA.
My Hospital participates in Prescott I don’t know if yours is at 2 so when I first started practicing and I got my first bad review and it was heartbreaking to get that.
I mean I know I’m not going to make everyone happy,
Oriole to treat everyone we obviously think I’m a very good dermatologist but I don’t know everything but I think it’s it’s it’s become too easy for patients to complain about doctors and in my opinion they really are not qualified to make that.

[19:03] I mean they’re not. They don’t they don’t they don’t know medicine so obviously if a doctor treats them poorly in terms of if you know being tree that’s a different story but I don’t think patients are qualified to say whether the doctor did a great job or not so.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[19:17] Right now it’s it’s true and I think a lot of these external factors have become just more and more.
Of an issue and I think as Physicians are losing.
Some control of their own practice is I mean honestly I’m an employee position you’re an employee position and that Trend it has only accelerated over the last you know 5 years and seems to have no sign of changing and so.
When you work on your own practice you know you had control over a lot of different things but now.
Stuff that you talked about with the patient is one aspect but then you have administrators on the flip side making issues about things also and so I think those kind of things that as positions of lost control over time.
The overall Joy I think is been slowly you know sucked out of a lot of medicine again like you said that you love Dermatology I really do love like Radiology I actually like doing the practice Radiology it’s the other stuff.
That seems to be encroaching more and more upon my time and so.

[20:20] That that’s the issues I think many of his face singing I think that’s one of the reasons that you start seeing these these topics about gaining Financial Independence in and just.

[20:29] Whether you gain Financial Independence to retire early or not it is you know not the point I think the job satisfaction that people will will have when they don’t have to work.
Seems to also change a little bit so you know that you always leave the job if you absolutely hated.

Bonnie Koo, Md: 
[20:48] Yeah I mean I think most of us can say that if your employed look we both are that there is there’s expectations of how many.
For me how many patients to see etcetera and,
am I sort of Ideal World when I can you know work or basically work less than oh I don’t need a full salary I would like to go from being having five patients on my schedule to maybe you know for things like that were you know I can really just,
really enjoy being a dermatologist and not have to worry about meeting numbers and things like that so that’s also something I’m looking forward to it as well.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[21:20] Right right so,
I think you know I think the lot of these logs such as yours and they convention position on fire obviously white coat investor are are great for doctors and however they get this information I think it is,
it all timidly benefits all of us as physician so I want to thank you for,
empowering positions to kind of take some Financial control I wish they taught the stuff in medical school but you know we’ll take it wherever we get the information from let me talk about a little York so you do have you know a Heights.
High Cost of Living compared to most of the people in in the in the u.s. how is that impacting you because generally speaking.
Most Fields you know New York tends to pay correspondingly higher but obviously medicine a lot of us know that.
It tends to work inverse you you’re the higher cost of area and you get paid less competitively so.

Bonnie Koo, Md: 
[22:15] I know that’s a huge bummer.
Yeah I grew up in this area so my parents are in New Jersey and not too far away and then.
I guess I can call myself a New York I think once you’ve lived here for 10 years you’re allowed to call yourself a New Yorker so I think if you know from here and you love New York City if it’s a hard place to leave although I’ll be honest like we are not.
Mary just staying here forever like I think we both really enjoy it now,
but it’s not something else you know we have talked about leaving New York City you know maybe in 5 to 10 years but in terms of the other cost of living is astronomical I mean the rent it I think housing is really the,
the big cost I mean it’s it’s not unheard of to hear of people spending half their paychecks on rent so.
I think doctors to you don’t because you’re married and you have kids like you know you’re going to have at least a two bedroom.
Two bath apartment and that’s actually a lot of money in New York city so,
the reason why I can still save the money that we talked about earlier. Where is mainly because my fiance,
bought his condo in 2000 so some people make fun of me and think the only reason why with him is because for a cheap condo you know what he just,
it’s not like he was thinking that this is going to be a great investment he literally bought this condo for a down payment of $20,000 which yearly.
What can I get you anything in terms of real estate at this point so it’s it’s it’s very small actually discuss house I think it’s.
And publicly I said it’s 730 square feet which for most people that don’t live in New York City would be completely unacceptable it’s a two-bedroom one-bath it’s in a great part of Brooklyn.

[23:54] The value has gone up significantly since he bought it and the mortgage is ridiculously low it’s it’s so low that you can’t you can barely even rent a room for that price list put that way.

[24:06] So that’s that obviously helps.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[24:08] I know that’s definitely true I did my residency in New York.
What are the positives of the program had at subsidized housing and you know what.

[24:20] Whenever we had residents come by medical students come by for interviews the department and stuff but ultimately say can we see you guys Apartments.

[24:34] And so you don’t even at the time it was still if you can talk to some of the people from the wrestler country 10-12 years ago.
One bedroom 700 square foot apartment that’s fine it was like 1300 and that was subsidized at that point it would have been like 2500 for.
Unsubsidized housing but now I’m sure it’s you know closer to $4,000 but yeah.

[24:58] Although I do regret in a sense because it was around the time that your fiance bought his condo I regret not.
In thinking about buying it at that point because I had a friend who did and she did extremely well you know even though it was tougher to do as a as a resident but definitely cost.

Bonnie Koo, Md: 
[25:15] Mindset yeah.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[25:16] Yeah yeah I wish I had the white coat investor stuff back then.

Bonnie Koo, Md: 
[25:20] Right yeah I think the value of his condo has quadrupled since you bought it.
So when you bought it was actually what crappy neighborhood that happens a lot in New York City where you yes just become so gentrifying the last 20 years but it literally was not a great place to live at all but the kind of give you a sense of how,
great it is now is a we live next door to Blue Bottle Coffee.
Which is a very nice coffee place based out of San Francisco and we live 2 blocks from the only Trader Joe’s in Brooklyn.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[25:51] Nice picture.
I think what I was living in New York in a Brooklyn.
Had slowly start identifying wood stove is a mostly Park Slope and some of the other areas and and Dumbo was just getting started so I know that those things are in obviously Brooklyn has become even more and more.
How does in Manhattan to a degree because it seems like a lot of good restaurants and things are now in Brooklyn.
So I need to make a trip out to Brooklyn now instead of just going to Manhattan whenever I come out there.
But good well I think this has been a good discussion I’m glad to see that pretty much no matter where where Physicians are we we can evolve.
At least in the u.s. there are facing some of the same issues and I think lack of financial knowledge is has been a big problem and previously doctors could kind of overcome. Just because.

[26:45] Their incomes were so high and loans and things weren’t so bad but now you.
You really have to do this early on or you’ll heal face these issues for a long time so let me know.
Just kind of you know if it is any bit of advice that you would have to someone who’s in medical school or residency now like what’s one thing that they could do to.
To kind of get on the right track.

Bonnie Koo, Md: 
[27:09] I honestly think the other loves you so many things I could,
discuss but I think the top thing mainly because I wish I did this was just really live within your means I mean,
you can’t live within your means as a resident you’re in trouble and I think one thing to keep in mind is your the rest of most of America lives on a resident salary or less.
And she’s a family of four like actually my family growing up and I had a brother so you know.
Two two adults two kids I think we never really brought in much more than 50 or 60 Grand a year or so but I don’t know for sure what they made but.
I think if you really remember that.
It. Only gives you perspective for yourself that you know you should be able to do this to you don’t need to lease that Mercedes during residency I see a lot of residents doing that to be honest and also I think it gives you perspective as a position cuz most of your patients are not going to be wealthy.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[28:01] Absolutely absolutely agreed to extend that over the first few years as well as a lot of people say you know try to live like a resident for even let you know the first few years just just a hammer those loans down as much as you can.
I just sent your mindset to improve your savings right and things I think definitely good good advice it’s tough to do because lot of us have been.

[28:26] Delayed gratification for a long time going to medical school again allow the long years of training so it’s a tough thing to do but it is very important so.
I think that’s think that’s really good and I want to encourage people to in a visit your website it’s Miss Bonnie md.com and again you can listen to Bonnie on The Hip Hop hustle podcast you can a few times a month is that right.

Bonnie Koo, Md: 
[28:49] Your words were a me for twice a month at this point as you know as a podcast yourself it’s difficult to coordinate,
across time zones across a few times on she’s two hours behind me and she has a daughter and obviously a husband and you just a coordinate with schedules and my fiance start to feel left out,
all the time I spend on this.

Tarang Patel, Do: 
[29:13] Yeah yeah it’s true but it’s it’s well worth your listen and I think you know.
Justin Moore we can kind of become aware of these topics the better off we it we we all will be well thank you Doctor Who for participating in the doctor Money Matters podcast and we look forward.
To seeing what’s new with your blog and learning and kind of checking in with you down the line as you as you pursue Financial Independence.

Bonnie Koo, Md: 
[29:38] Thanks so much for having me.

Dr. Tarang Patel: 
[29:40] I want to thank my guest Bonnie Koo MD for appearing on the show and thank her for contributing to the.

[29:47] Increased awareness of financial matters facing all Physicians encourage you to check out her blog at.

[29:55] Www. Miss Bonnie md.com and listen for her appearances on the Hippocratic hustle podcast as well.

[30:04] Was thank you for continuing to subscribe to this podcast and if you haven’t done so please leave a positive review on iTunes Stitcher Spotify wherever you receive your podcasts from.

[30:18] And continue to share it with your colleagues and anyone you think would benefit from these type of discussions I also encourage you to.

[30:28] Join our doctor Money Matters Facebook group where we have discussions amongst the other members about different Financial topics and also you can follow me on Twitter at Dr Money Matters.

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