Monday Melange, April 2022

A few links to posts that piqued my interest recently.

Apparently Australia has a new interpretation of laws on the books, which is affecting personal finance bloggers. Although non-doctors can write about health, and non-parents can write about raising children, only (licensed) financial advisers will be allowed to write about finance, lest non-licensed people–finfluencers–influence the public in financial matters. Here is a take from LateStarterFire, and another from StrongMoneyAustralia. They sound, understandably so, irate about being lumped in with internet conmen; also worried about being prosecuted.

A less-stressful post from Down Under comes from Burning Desire for Fire; Frogdancer Jones went on a Little Adventure to a sculpture park, and posted lots of pictures of the art to look at. A lovely treat for me, while I deal with winter-ish weather (many, many flight hours from the park).

This article hit me between the eyes. I wish I had seen it before I started working in the hospital this Spring; I suspect I may want to copy it and hand it out each time I begin a hospital session with residents. From Medscape: ‘Eye-opening’ Experience on the Other Side of the Hospital Bed. After spending a few weeks by my father’s hospital bed a few years ago, I can vouch for all of the advice. I only wish I had written my thoughts down so eloquently.

The Death of Socrates, 1787, Jacques Louis David. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I have come to accept that after several long weeks of work, I will not be super productive on my first weekend off. It takes time to recover. I tell the same thing to my patients–notoriously, for my patients treated at home for pneumonia: it take time to recover. National Geographic writes about recovery time and convalescence in this article: Can this 19th-century health practice help with long COVID?

While I am often surprised by how much people are the same, whether far away geographically or in time, I think some people forget how different things used to be. Richard Quinn writes at Humble Dollar about the Bad Old Days; thank goodness, we’ve come a long way.

I can’t remember who to thank for a link to this article from the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, which details the increased medical costs when a PCP stops seeing their patients. The numbers are all highly estimated (they do a nice job of pointing out the data-driven parts and the estimated parts), but conservatively, every time a PCP leaves their practice–whether to take a new job or retire–health care expenditures for the patients they leave behind are over $86,000 that first year.

Sometimes, reaching your goals will take forever. Sometimes, if you look more closely, you realize you don’t need that long at all. Money Gremlin wrote a post beautifully illustrating when to go all-in on debt reduction with Intentionally Deciding What You Want Most. The determination to eliminate debt reminded me very much of this older post from She Picks Up Pennies: How $39 Changed Our Mortgage Payoff Journey Forever, though I think Penny in the end decided to lead a more balanced life when looking at the multiple years required for her payoff.

2 thoughts on “Monday Melange, April 2022”

    1. While my traveling life is curtailed, I love seeing far away places through the eyes of others! I also love your plan of Little Adventures. Once I feel less worried about bringing COVID to my patients, I should adopt a similar program for myself.

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