5 Myths about Doctor’s Kid(s)

Like anyone else, doctor and doctor’s wife (or doctor and doctor’s husband), their children means a whole world to them. Yes it does suck to miss lots of their milestones while you are working inhumane hours at the hospital saving lives, getting paged to excuse yourself out of your kid’s birthday party for the 10thy year in a roll. Hopefully the doctors’ families get a bit more understanding and support from the society.

1.       Silver spoon.
I’m not harping on this. My borrow money from my 8 year old (Mini Wise Money) to pay off my high interest rate student loan. Sure I made her an irresistible deal of guaranteed 10% annual interest, but she gets the idea quickly as a 4 year old, “mommy, you are the poorest hardest working person I know.”
Most doctors’ kids are raised with metal spoons, possibly from the Good Will (given the nomadic life style required of a physician in training. We moved 9 times before settling for internship/residence/fellowship in the same town, which in itself without intentional planning and jumping through many hoops during interview seasons as 4th year, is Rare.)

2.       Selfish brats.
They learn early on the value of service to others. They know, when explained and embodied by their loving parents that the only reason that daddy or mommy is absent from your piano recital is because he or she is saving the life of another adorable kid like you.
It’s not because of money… not because of fame or anything self-serving that your parent miss such an important moment with you.
Kids see the example and become very caring and giving themselves.

3.       So smart that they don’t need any help.
They are frequently too smart for their own good. They are precocious little ones that may tell a stranger at dinner party to eat broccoli to avoid colon cancer; tell her school friends to cut back on sugary foods so they don’t go blind or lame one day. (Just a few things Mini Wise Money has said…)
They also suffer from a pretty strong and relentless of self-awareness and self-examination. They are their own hardest critics. They are driven without external forces…
They need more help, attention, support than your average happy-go-lucky-game-boy-TV kid…

4.       Confident.
Not exactly. Unfortunately, this may a trait A breeds trait A situation. The constant evaluation from head to toe and the medical training hazing doctors go through don’t exactly inspire confidence. So while many doctors are the highest performing/functioning human beings with inversely proportional level of self-confidence, so do some of their kids suffer the same.

5.       They naturally will be doctors too.
Some doctors’ kids will not touch a career in medicine with a 10 foot pole after seeing what their parents went through. Some kids are so inspired by their parents that they are inspired to stand on the shoulder of the giant they love and adore. Some kids, like Mini Wise Money, “I will only be a doctor if I can skip residency. It’s a cool job without that part.”

It’s never easy to be known as coming after and related to a well-respected, extremely successful individual. Give these kids of doctors the benefit of doubt. They may sound really smart and know a lot; they are kids after all. Build them up like you would any other child. Challenge them without crushing them. Love them; imagine all the moments this kid’s dad/ or mom missed with him or her while saving the lives of your loved ones.

You may also enjoy reading 5 myths about doctors our society believes and 5 Myths about the Dr.’s Wife (or Husband).  Join us in Physician Support Initiative to make healthier, happier, and more effective doctors.

If you like this article, you might enjoy other DWM articles on Personal Finance, Investing, Retirement, Practice Management, & Lifestyle.

All articles by DWM are for informational purposes only and not intended as a substitute for professional advice. Please consult a professional accountant, financial adviser or lawyer, before making financial decisions.

Confessions of A Sleep-a-phobic

Have you ever wonder how I worked 7 jobs while double-majoring at UC Berkeley, and manage to cook and entertain my friends at my college apartment regularly?

How I worked 2 jobs as a single mom medical student?

How I now as a PGY2, blog about personal finance, tutor USMLE, write books, give talks, and do podcasts and YouTube on the side? Someone joked that it seemed that I have a large career in personal finance and I do residency on the side. No, I can’t possibly do that. Residency, and especially radiology, is indeed an all-consuming endeavor. PGY training challenges each and every resident like myself in various ways: physical stamina (80 hour work week,) mental agility to learn new and massive amount of information, psychological fortitude to weather and yet try one’s best to help lessen the suffering of patients.

 

The simple truth to how I do all I do is a sad confession. I have not slept more than 4 hours continuously since I was 16, the year I immigrated to America.

 

Having 20 waking hours a day worked to my advantage when I, a fresh off boat immigrant, in English as Second Language classes, had just 3 months to prepare for SAT’s. On SAT’s, I scored higher than 90% of the American born kids.

Sleeping just 4 hours a day also worked to my advantage in medical school, allowing me to take great care of Mini Wise Money while working 2 jobs and performing at the top of my class.

 

However, as I get older, my high school guidance counselor’s words began to haunt me, “If you keep this up, you’d be dead by 40.” I turned 32 this year… I thought about increasing my life insurance to take care of my Mini, my parents, my partner, his parents, etc. …

 

At the kind and strong suggestion of my program director, I went to see a psychiatrist at last. He diagnosed me with Bipolar Type II (which was no surprise to me.) But what surprised me was how he phrased everything. He said it is amazing how much I was able to accomplish with an untreated bipolar for what seemed like started when my sleep issues began at age 16. He was incredulous at how I turned my illness into a tool to succeed beyond most people’s imagination.

 

In the positive spotlight he directs onto my symbiotic relationship with my bipolar disorder, I realized why I did not seek medical care for my sleep issues for 16 years…

 

My lack of sleep and my successes were a positive feedback loop without any checks and balances. My sleep-a-phobia was a vicious downwards spiral much like that of a work-a-holic. Because unlike most diseases, sleeping less and working more are incentivized and rewarded by our society.

To put it bluntly, I was killing myself slowly, gently, & happily.

 

I have a happy ending. I had a supportive family, I have an amazing residency program director who recognized that I needed help direly and told me that gave me time off to see the psychiatrist the day of. But how many of my dedicated colleagues have sad endings? Dr. Pamela Whible, who studied the subject of physician suicide extensively, quoted that doctors on average commit suicide 3x more than patients.

 

The demands of pre-med, medical school, residency, fellowship, and even attending physicians are truly inhumane… Ironically the most humanitarian people in our society who chooses to become health care providers are treated so inhumanely by the laws and regulations.

 

I have seen what medical school and residency does to me and my peers. While I was killing myself happily and gradually with my delusions and hypomania, some of my colleagues could be battling deep depressions, sleep deprivation and more. How can we expect sick, exhausted, depressed doctors to heal sick patients?

 

After my confession of my sleep-a-phobic 16 years of life (I slept 6.5 hours continuously for the first time in 16 years last night with one medication prescribed at my first psychiatric appointment), I invite you to join me in the Physician Support Initiative (P.S.I.), a grassroots movement to raise healthier, happier, and naturally more effective doctors. You can read more about P.S.I. here.

 

 

5 Ways Need for Less Felt as Want for More: Perpetuating the Consuming Poor

This post calls out to those who have made it to attending-hood, having experienced and habituated to the great pay raise going from the last day of PGY to first day of attending-hood.

 

Look back at your life. When were you happiest? Based on what I’ve experienced (up to PGY3) and observed first hand, attending radiologists I look up to in academic hospitals, private practice, and VA hospitals, are not that happy or healthy, unfortunately. Since I’m also pretty sure that radiologists are some of the happiest doctors, right after pathologists, I think most attending doctors are not that happy L

 

Why is that? We have spent 26+ years training and learning, invested more than ½ million in borrowed money, to practice medicine. Why are we not happy at the pinnacles of our career, height of material wealth?

 

As we pine after the next upgrade: larger homes, faster cars, more fashionable clothes, have we wondered our want for more is stifling the little voice asking “I need less. Less is more. I was happier when I had so little.”

  1. We buy clothes to look better.

It’s not the clothes, it’s the hanger. Go on a hike, do YouTube Yoga, 30 sit-ups twice a day. Not only will you look better each day with these practices. Ever wonder how Hollywood celebrity looks sexy in rags with disheveled hair? Find beauty from inside out.

 

  1. We buy expensive toys to entertain ourselves.

Stop consuming to be entertained. How about entertain others for once. How much more satisfying it is to bring a smile to another person’s face than to indulging indefinitely in our abysmal desire for materials for that short-living high associated buying/possessing a new toy?

 

  1. We buy cosmetics to adorn ourselves from the outside.

Eat healthy and exercise. Not only does your skin radiate when you eat lots of fruits and vegetables, your wallet gets buffer too. Beauty is not meant be plastered on from the outside in creams loaded with carcinogenic toxic chemicals.

  1. Retail therapy.

I was shocked when my acquaintance in med school shared that she was going to mall to make herself feel better after performing poorly on the final. Of all actions to take when academically struggling, how in the world does shopping/ consuming material objects help with anything?

 

Retail therapy hurts:

  • Financially (simply empties your bank account)
  • Psychologically by hollowing one’s soul out to find solace in soul-less objects
  • Mentally (passive consumers get dumber as active creators get smarter/richer each day)
  • Physically (we rely on quick easy fixes of how we look rather than taking good care of ourselves and letting out beauty shine from inside out.)

 

  1. Nothing is ever good enough. Everything needs upgrade.

It’s self-perpetuating. Only you can break the cycle. The more money you make, the more monstrous this want for more will get. You are the one who can realize and replace your want for more with your need for less.

 If you like this article, you might enjoy other DWM articles on Personal Finance, Investing, Retirement, Practice Management, & Lifestyle.

All articles by DWM are for informational purposes only and not intended as a substitute for professional advice. Please consult a professional accountant, financial adviser or lawyer, before making financial decisions.

 

Big Bad Bank Lesson #1

Big Bad Bank Lesson #1: It Takes (Someone Else’s) Money to Make Money.

 

People say it takes money to make money. Not true. Just look at the big bad banks. It takes big banks Nothing to make money. What do I mean?

 

Theoretically, anyone, without any assets, can make infinite amount of money if he or she is a bank. A bank in the US can borrow money from the tax-payers (federal government) at 0% (currently 0.25%) interest rate, then lend this money out to consumers at rates ranging from 2-30+%. Isn’t that incredible? A penniless bank, borrows money which it in turn lends out at pretty much any rate it chooses. The only risk here is default, but when you have 30% growth off of borrowed money, you can withstand some defaults.

 

So banks don’t have their own money… they don’t even hold onto the money they borrow. All banks do is to create this money current, making themselves the conduit that the money river flows through, they take interest difference (between the lower rate they borrow at and the higher rate they lend at), transaction fees, loan origination fees, and other fees galores.

 

So why don’t we every day people also turn ourselves into mini banks?

Learn from the BBB’s, and make ourselves a channel for money river…

 

So here’s how I did it and made $3,300 by a few mouse click using about 2-3 hours of my time.

Now, there is online sources that states that the Citibank is no longer taking credit card funding for new Citibank bank accounts. Since it is not an official statement from Citibank and you’d still like to try, ahead… but Don’t get mad if it doesn’t pan out.

 

The point here is learning from BBB and seizing the opportunity to be the bank yourself for once!

 

Here’s the synopse of what I did to create a money river with me being the conduit that directs the money flow and profits off of it.

 

  1. Open Citibank online account
  2. Fund the Citibank account with my BOA Visa Cash Reward card
  3. Once money in new Citibank account, pay off BOA credit card
  4. BOA credit card gives me 1.1% cash reward
  5. Since I funded $50k, I get $550 cash rewards in my BOA checking account
  6. Close the Citibank bank account after 30 days (not much longer, I wanted to avoid the monthly fee).
  7. Open a new Citibank bank account online and then repeat 1-6 steps. Every cycle, I make $550.

So I made $3,300 when I had $0 in my bank accounts. It was just 1.1% cash back, imaging 3% or even better 30% cash back (which is the kind of deal our BBB ‘s are getting.) BBB’s did nothing but moved tax-payer’s money around… the more profitable directions the BBB’s manufacture, the more rewards they make for themselves. (16% interest rate on credit cards, 30% once credit cards defaulted, 5% on student loans, 4% on mortgage, 6% on used car loan, etc.)

 

In summary, it does not take money to make money. Money can be collected from the money river flowing through your property. Much like all living things on the banks of river thrive from what the river offers as it runs by.

 

Be the bank, capture what the cash river offers you as it goes by.

5 Myths about the Dr.’s Wife (or Husband)

The 9,000+ views and counting of my recent article 5 myths about doctors our society believes made me realize that we are all interested in raising awareness on the personal and professional life of doctors with the ultimate goal of getting more support on physician wellness.
As it is definitely true that there’s a great woman behind every great man and vice versa, I hope this post will debunk some of the most damaging and isolating myths about doctors’ better halves. (In fact, it is frequently true that the doctor’s spouse is the larger half of the successful work/home life.)

1.    Gold-digger.
Did I hear you wrong? Did you mean goal-digger? Remember medicine as the ultimate career of delayed gratification, remember that doctor who has ½ million in student loan debt snowballing at 7% before he got his first attending paycheck?
Gold-diggers don’t marry doctors; they marry those in business or Hollywood.
To survive as a (candidate) spouse for a doctor for a few years, let alone a few decades, one has to be extremely diligent, resourceful, and dedicated, which is largely representative of the doctor spouses I have met and known.

2.    Trophy.
If you trophy in the sense of Jessica Simpson looking wives, you are wrong. Sure, I’ve met many doctor’s spouse fit for Hollywood stardom, but I’ve also seen them straddle 1 kid in front, holding hand of another kid, while pushing a stroller of a 3rd kid to drop off a homemade lunch for the medical student who’s studying for the 10th hour at the library.
Trophy is meant to be marveled at. Doctor’s spouses don’t even stay still for long enough to get a paparazzi picture out of.

3.    Don’t lift a finger.
Again, these individuals are as devoted to serving others as their doctor spouses. The reason they became husband and wife is because they share the same ideals and passions. Not only do you see doctor’s spouses serving their family, kids, kids’ schools, home churches, but you may find them in many more places instead of just the malls or nail salons.

4.    Spend all the money on herself.
First of all, during the first 10 years after college, there’s not much money to go around. Living under the doom of a large negative net worth while watching your spouse work to death, wondering where the end of the tunnel will be, is not for the faint or vain of heart.
Most doctors’ better halves are the thriftiest people I’ve ever met. They know by heart the value of the precious $12 dollars made as her husband is away for the 36th hour of the day. She knows the sacrifice and she takes nothing for granted.

5.    Spend all her time on herself.
Did I mention she’s busy, industrious, and goal-digging, with a heart of gold and so much love for her doctor spouse, kids, and community? There’s no time to spend on herself.
I do hope that instead the raised eyebrow of “oh, you are a doctor’s wife” and the sneaky glance at her finger anticipating a giant diamond, those at dinner parties will give this dedicated, incredible person in front them a pat on the back, “Thank you for supporting your spouse tirelessly, allowing him/her to be such an incredible doctor, an asset to our community.”
That would be a better day for doctors and their better halves.

 If you like this article, you might enjoy other DWM articles on Personal Finance, Investing, Retirement, Practice Management, & Lifestyle.

All articles by DWM are for informational purposes only and not intended as a substitute for professional advice. Please consult a professional accountant, financial adviser or lawyer, before making financial decisions.