When Jason Kilar graduated from college he experienced tremendous personal and professional adversity. Three days after graduation, Kilar’s father ended his own life after battling bipolar disorder.
Kilar also battled professional valleys. In the months after graduation, the work-life he had long envisioned couldn’t have seemed further from the reality he faced.
After building shelves at a local store and hustling to find a job that he actually loved, this is what …
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Recently, Crispy Doc ran an interview with Vagabond MD that highlighted his road to part-time work. This struck a chord with me as I’ve considered doing the same despite being in my second year as an attending physician. In fact, Crispy Doc and I had a conversation about achieving work-life balance through part-time work in Orlando at FinCon.
When I came home after the conference, I ran into one of …
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If you can’t beat ’em, join them (and make it better). Am I right? This was some of the sentiment I felt as I registered with FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) to take the Series 65 exam. Passing this exam will allow me to register in my state as an Independent Advisory Representative (IAR) and function as a financial advisor. This begs the question: Why should I become a financial …
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By this point, a lot of people have heard the famous Dave Ramsey quote, “If you live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.” Ramsey is known for being a proponent of attacking debt aggressively when people ask, “How should I pay off my debt?”
He proposes one method that I think works for the vast majority of Americans, but today I’ll argue that method isn’t necessarily …
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A common proverb teaches that, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Medicine is a world where people are well-intended. Yet they fail to change a system that is broken and continues to produce burned out, depressed, and suicidal doctors. We can see their final destination, look back, and realize that we helped pave the road that carried them to that destination.
Today, I want to hammer home the purpose …
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My oldest girl and I love watching birds. We usually watch the birds right outside our backdoor while they eat from our bird feeder. As we were watching one day, it amazed me how comfortable the birds were jumping from post to post on the feeder or from branch to branch on the trees. Often times at a distance taller than the bird itself. Why would they take this risk and …
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As part of my job as an anesthesiologist, I get called to truly horrific airway events. Sometimes they are down in the emergency department after a bad car accident, drowning, or burn. Others are in ICU’s. Sometimes they are even in hallways or bathrooms where people have stopped breathing or collapsed from cardiac arrest. It’s part of the job.
Recently, I was called to an airway in an ICU in what …
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One of my best friends recently sent me an article from the Wall Street Journal discussing the generation that is about to enter into retirement. The article highlighted how this generation will have an unacceptably high proportion of people who are unable to retire. Following a generation that had guaranteed pensions, this left them with the reassurance that they would someday have one, too. Left ill-prepared for retirement, this …
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A recent post by the White Coat Investor got me pretty fired up. Dr. Dahle spoke about three of the main financial enemies that face physicians. The third one that he mentioned had something to do with medical culture. The gist of it was that talking money in academic medical centers is considered taboo. While I think WCI is right, it really made me angry. As an academic …
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“Hey, man, I’ve been getting destroyed all night running four ORs and haven’t eaten. I am going to eat dinner before I get out of here. If anything emergent comes up, I can help out. Just let me know.”
As I wash my hands right after I hang up the phone, the overhead call comes out: “Attention. Your attention, please. A Level 1 trauma code has been activated in the adult …
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My wife and I have befriended multiple people with struggling marriages. Maybe this shouldn’t be a big surprise given the majority of marriages end in divorce. That said, every time we end up with friends struggling in marriage, it never gets any less challenging. Every single time we run into this challenge, I am reminded of some sage advice I received before I got married: “The three most common causes …
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The sister of one of my best friends went off the deep end in college. We will call her Trinity. She got caught up in the wrong crowd, made some bad decisions, and ended up dropping out of college. The direction that Trinity ended up going was really distressing to her parents. The crazy part? They blamed it on the college that she attended.
This was completely ironic, because she originally …
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On my site, I spend a lot of time talking finances. And I’ve yet to mention what is by far the best investment that I have ever taken part in. It has provided my best return on investment and biggest annual interest growth. It also requires the most work, but this investment is what keeps me in the market and sticking to the plan. In fact, it is “my why” …
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During my third year of medical school, I received a harrowing phone call, “Can you please go over to Steve’s place? I am worried about him. He might want to hurt himself.” The person requesting this was the mother of one of my best friends in medical school. I was a third-year medical student on my surgical rotation. Steve’s mom was concerned he might commit suicide. Sleep deprived as I …
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