October 2019 – Physician In Numbers

Fitness Log #53

Just because I am a doctor, and encourage patients every day to exercise, doesn’t mean that I don’t have my own issues with getting sufficient exercise. Long hours, tiring days, family obligations, illness: they are all stumbling blocks, no matter what your occupation.

I have been recording my exercise weekly, mostly to keep myself accountable for reaching my goal (sometimes this works, sometimes I miss). If anyone reads this, I hope they will take this as encouragement to keep going, acknowledgement that it isn’t always easy.

Slowing Down

Alas, I am not announcing that I am slowing down at work to focus on the blog. In fact, it is quite the opposite.

Investing Step 1/2, Why You Need To Invest

Last week I wrote about steps to complete before investing, as I think about how to talk about investing and personal finance to the residents at my program. I started writing about all the things that really need to happen before a person is in a good place to invest, and it ended up taking a long time and many pixels.

Something similar happened this week. I had planned to cover proper investments in this post, but got caught up in explaining why just saving money isn’t enough. I’ll see if I can get to investing next week.

Fitness Log #52

One Year At 90 Percent

I’m coming up on my one year anniversary of dropping down to 90% or 0.9 FTE. I want to reflect on it now, because I will be working in the hospital during the actual one-year mark–and there is really no 90% effort while you are leading a resident team in patient care.

Investing Step Minus-1

Last month, someone contacted me about discussing personal finance with the residents. That’s still up in the air, but I thought it might be a good idea to start preparing.

Fitness Log #51

7 Good Things

Sometimes I feel like I’m writing about things that aren’t going as well as I might hope. Or I am wrestling with problems I haven’t figured out yet.

Today (I’m writing on a Saturday), I had a surprisingly lovely morning. I didn’t have to travel far, and it didn’t cost much. As I reflected further, I realized I had a pretty good week, and maybe it’s worth remembering that and figuring out how to enjoy more of what I already have.

A Financial SOAP Note

All day long, I see people with problems, and use the SOAP note (1) to document the visit and, quite frankly, help me organize my thoughts. I thought I might apply it to a financial problem and see how it goes.

CC: I have a bonus coming and I don’t know what to do with it.

Month: October 2019