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

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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 …

What A Pricey Pair Of Kids’ Shoes Taught Me About My Baggage

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Sometimes you set yourself up for failure, and you can only clearly see it in retrospect. A few weeks ago we decided to day trip by car to make a socially-distanced visit to family who live a few hours’ drive from us. We planned to hit the road early, and piggybacked a shopping trip for shoes for one of my …

Road To Nowhere Part 1: Negative Outcomes On The Path To Discovering A Post-Medical Career

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One of my goals has been to figure out what to do with that new balance of time I’ve carved out. I want to find something that will keep me busy after the kids leave home; a fiefdom of my own that lets me settle into an empty nest rhythm; something to sustain me going forward. It’s hard to figure …

Great Moments In Nerd Graffiti

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Life-affirming experiences come in a wide variety of contexts, often in the least likely places. Those I savor most tend to be when eccentrics stay true in their chosen form of expression. I was looking back through old photos (a past time I’ve come to appreciate during COVID) when it triggered a delightful memory. It pertained to a bit of …

The Bank Of Mom And Dad, Revisited

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Three and a half years ago, we decided to incentivize aggressive saving and demonstrate the power of compound interest to our kids by offering them exclusive access to the Bank of Mom and Dad. That experiment, we are pleased to say, has thus far been a success. We gave them a sweetheart deal for maximal impact: 5% interest compounded monthly. …

Sal Khan Was In A Death Metal Band Called “Malignancy”

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There are certain quirky discoveries that delight you to the core, the mere thought of which continue to bring a giddy smile to your face because of how endearing they feel. This morning, listening to a podcast on the short drive home from a dawn patrol session at my local break, I sank my teeth into a delicious new morsel …

Confessions Of A Frail Ego: I Want Bragging Rights!

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I am human, and my frailties are many. This is not a religious confession, but rather, a preface to explain one facet of my motivation for a recent financial move. But first, let’s obtain some context. I was speaking by phone to my sister today. Being the product of the same upbringing, we share a similar pathology when it comes …

Too Much Efficiency Can Be Ineffective

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There’s an interesting subtext I’ve found in some of my fellow physician finance blogger’s material that exhorts us to be more efficient, to not waste a single minute spent on our toilet seats, to regard exercise breaks as opportunities for self-improvement via podcasts played at 1.5 speed to cram our minds full of yet more knowledge. If that type of …

Anti-Status Symbols

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A short while ago, I enjoyed a rare treat: a socially distanced, masked get-together with a friend (and physician colleague) on the deck of my home. He has been a friend for years, someone I relish geeking out over personal finance with, yet I realized with awkwardness that this was the first time he was coming over to my house. …

A Time Of Stasis And Upheaval

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It is a paradoxical time of stasis and upheaval. At the macro level, the world  is burning, figuratively and literally (at least in the West where I live). The upcoming election has both political parties highly polarized and in full propaganda mode. International interference in the upcoming election from unsavory outside actors seems more real and potentially more consequential now …