Road To Nowhere Part 2: Negative Outcomes On The Path To Discovering A Post-Medical Career

In the first installment, I described some guidelines for the type of work I hoped to pursue as part of my Act Two, and explained why I did not end up pursuing an opportunity practicing outpatient palliative care medicine or attempt to join a med tech startup.

In this second installment, I'll describe several other pursuits that did not pan out, and one unexpected passion project that did.

Blog Related Income

Around the time I began this blog, in September of 2016, it felt like there was a firehose of money showering down on physician finance bloggers, so I experimented with how I might siphon a little of that green my way. My entrepreneurial wife had all kinds of suggestions, which I tried to incorporate.

I noticed another fresh young blogger starting out on the scene with the peculiar moniker Physician On Fire. I am not alone in feeling awestruck by his astronomical rise to fame and glory as one of the most influential and beloved physician finance bloggers in the space.

 I feel fortunate to count Leif as a friend. He invited me to serve as an administrator for the PoF facebook group, which provided insight into how he'd created his empire. I even tried being active in facebook and twitter, seeing if I might emulate his social media omnipresence.

We eventually met in person at Fin Con 18, and most recently caught up as speakers at WCI Con. I could not help but notice that he covers his living expenses with blog income, all while donating half of his site's profits to charity - it's hard to resent someone who starts out as a better human being than you've ever aspire to become.

I tried a few affiliate relationships, but opted not to reconfigure my site or continually place ads in the margin spaces. I didn't like how the ads looked, and I did not want to feel beholden to sponsors. I similarly rejected the prospect of accepting sponsored posts.

In fact, the more I tried to run the blog like a business, the less I looked forward to blogging and the more I dreaded the non-blogging aspects of the job, which comprise the majority of time spent when you try to make money from the internet (self-promotion; social media presence; client relations with advertisers).

I pivoted to consulting, seeing if perhaps the blog might entice readers to hire me as a financial literacy coach. I even announced my new business when I was interviewed on episode 88 of the White Coat Investor podcast, as opportune a time as I could imagine to spread the word.

I enjoyed the work, and the clients were wonderful, but it did not seem to be viable in the long run. First, I can be a compulsive planner. I spent as much time preparing for each consulting job as I did during the actual sessions, meaning my hourly income was significantly lower than I'd hoped for.

Second, although I made it a point to steer clear of offering anything that might be construed as financial advice, it probably made sense for me to obtain a certification like a Registered Investment Advisor or something similarly easy to obtain in order to at least have the merit badges to show that I knew my stuff. I looked into it, and in the end the trade off of time for certification did not seem worthwhile to me.

Author

I've written and rewritten the table of contents for a book on how to recover from burnout by pursuing financial security, and have even written a couple of chapters. The problem seems to be that I'm easily distractable, even at a time like this when isolation and the relative paucity of social commitments would arguably favor such a project.

I've not given up on this completely, especially after hearing this recent podcast by this blogger I respect who was able to tweak his habits and optimize his environment to facilitate composing an album of original keyboard music, the realization of a lifelong ambition.

Maybe I just need to throw this one against the wall a few more times.

Senior level Administrator

I threw my hat in the ring to be considered for a senior level administrative position. I was not elected to that position. It was a long shot; my career path is unconventional, and hence not representative of the majority of doctors whose interests I'd have been charged with representing.

That's okay. The potential conflict with slow international travel, the loss of schedule flexibility, and the need to attend in-person meetings on a regular basis were imperfect fits with my ideal Act two position.

Stipended Administrative Position

For a long time, I felt motivated to standardize our approach to patients with high rates of ED utilization, in particular those whose visits involved use of controlled substances and improve our accountability for limiting the diversion of prescription drugs for illicit purposes.

That initiative was recognized when our hospital invested in software I'd investigated years earlier that would enable us to create customized care plans for this high-needs population of ED patients.

What began as an initiative started by me and a couple of like-minded colleagues became a hospital-wide plan with implications for inpatient care when these patients required admission. My physician group recognized that the individual tasked with implementing this plan would spend the equivalent of a shift's worth of hours to get it started and maintain the program, and thus opted to create a stipended position to support that investment of time for our collective benefit.

This position has been the best of all possible worlds for me. I get to run the show, choose the hours I spend on the work and fit them in around the needs of family life, and since it developed as a passion project I'm a huge believer in the work I'm doing.

While this is an elected position that I expect others will run for in the future, I am incredibly grateful to be the inaugural holder of this position. It's the rare example of something that stuck to the wall.

Check out Part 3, where I relay my latest hare-brained idea for the future!