My Story

Thank you for visiting The Motivated M.D. What follows is a (relatively) breif summary of who I am, and why I am so passionate about physician (and healthcare professional) finances. Here is my story:

$670,000

That is how much combined medical education debt my wife and I owed after graduating medical school. 

I was roughly 25 years old when I understood the colossal burden of debt we had accumulated as a result of our chosen career path.  We spent years romanticizing the idea of our altruistic selves helping those in need.  What no one ever explained to us was the cost of that decision…but I digress.  Let me start from the beginning.

A brief history of The Motivated M.D…

I graduated from a liberal arts college in 2011.  At that time the world was starting to show signs of recovery from the Great Recession of 2008-2009.  I was an eager young pre-medical graduate pursuing a career in medicine.  I was accepted into medical school in 2012 and accumulated my massive amount of educational debt during those four years.  

Following graduation from medical school, in 2016 I attended a residency program in Internal Medicine.  During this time, as my medical fund of knowledge grew, so too did the interest on my debt.  At an average federal interest rate of 7% on our debt, we were accumulating roughly $46,900 annually in interest alone!

It was around this time that the crushing weight of our debt was realized in its entirety.  I remember sitting in my tiny single bedroom apartment, staring at our loan balance on StudentAid.gov.  The number just didn’t make sense to me.  You mean to tell me that even after a decade’s worth of relentless studying and grinding, that in my early thirties I would ultimately begin my career with three quarters of a million dollars of debt?!  I felt robbed.  I felt lied to.  My debt seemed insurmountable. 

Overwhelmed by this challenge, I had an epiphany.  I could sit and sulk about the choices I had made, or I could take action.  Just because I cannot change my past doesn’t mean I cannot radically alter my future.  I needed to get my finances in order… but where to begin?

Building my financial knowledge

Soon after I pulled myself up by my bootstraps…another realization hit me.  Even though I viewed myself as well educated, I knew absolutely nothing about personal finance nor the nuances of physician finance.  Not once during my years in college, medical school, residency, or fellowship did anyone provide me with meaningful financial education.  

However, I did have one particular superpower that could help me…I knew how to study.  If there was one thing that pursuing a career in medicine taught me, it is how to relentlessly self-educate.  Countless quizzes, tests, and certification examinations have a way of instilling perseverance and grit when it comes to absorbing information.  I knew I could eliminate my financial knowledge gap if I just applied my medical study habits.  I didn’t waste a moment getting started.

An insatiable appetite

First, I consumed The White Coat Investor.  I read and re-read this book until the pages fell out and the cover was unrecognizable.  When Dr. Dahle of The White Coat Investor published Financial Boot Camp, I consumed this too.  I read The Physician Philosopher’s Guide to Personal Finance by Dr. James Turner, all the works by Dr. Cory S. Faucett, and any other book directed at physician finance. 

After exhausting my physician finance appetite, I broadened my horizons.  The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, The Four Pillars of Investing by William J Bernstein (also a physician), The Only Investment Guide You Will Ever Need by Andrew Tobias, The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John Bogle (founder of Vanguard), The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, The Millionaire Next Door, The Psychology of Money, Your Money or Your Life, Think and Grow Rich, I Will Teach You to Be Rich, The Simple Path to Wealth, and on and on and on.  I must have read hundreds of books.  Some share similar themes, all created stepping stones in pursuit of financial understanding.

I consumed financial knowledge with a hunger that was unending.  As I began to exhaust the books available, I sought further interaction on the internet.  I spent hours a day on financial websites and blogs like Get Rich Slowly, Mr. Money Mustache, Afford Anything, Physician on Fire, Financial Samurai, and more. 

Navigating the pandemic

By now it was 2018 and I was nearing the completion of my medical residency.  By day I was a physician in training, by night I scoured the internet in search of financial education.  This went on for some time. 

As 2019 dawned, I found myself celebrating my return home to start my fellowship in pulmonary and critical care.  I was eager to complete the final portion of my sub-specialty education, fantasizing about the exponential increase in reimbursement that came with attending status…but 2019 had other plans. 

Enter COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic hit my academic hospital much like it did so many others across the country.  Our hospitals were ravaged by the critically ill.  I spent 80–100-hour work weeks in and out of the intensive care unit, feeling tired, exhausted, and frankly burnt out.  I was one of hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers feeling the weight of their career choice.

It was during this time that I had a wake-up call.  I needed an outlet.  With over 1,000+ hours spent studying and digesting personal finance material, maybe I too could establish a platform to share the knowledge I had gained over the years.  If I was struggling so much with my prior financial choices, there had to be others in similar situations.  With so many personal finance blogs popping up, surely I could interact with them.  As I sought an escape from the realities of my career during the pandemic, I found safe-harbor writing about all things finance. 

As the pandemic drew on longer than any of us could have foreseen, I was able to accumulate a series of writings I was proud of.  These make up a majority of my earlier works.  The more I wrote, the more I craved writing.  I couldn’t get enough of it.  As I experimented and tackled my finances, so too did I create experiences to share.  The entire process was therapeutic for me.  But why would anyone want to read what I had to say?

Dawn of The Motivated M.D.

On the morning of December 2021, my four-month-old asleep in the next room, I stared at my computer monitor.  The past few months had been spent polishing my work and creating a website I was proud of.  I wanted a platform to share my thoughts, ideas, experiences, and advice regarding all things personal and financial.  I was frozen with the fear that no one would find my content slightly interesting.  All these years of reading and writing, and here I couldn’t bring myself to publish my work.  

However, I recalled the overwhelming sense of helplessness I felt back in 2016 when the realization of my debt was apparent.  No one should have to feel the same way.  Now I was eliminating more than $100,000 worth of debt annually.  If there was even a single person who found value in my content, then that was enough of a reason for me to take my work online.  I took a deep breath and hit ‘publish.’ 

That was back in 2021.  Since that time, I have been humbled by the response, traffic, and accolades I have received from the personal finance community.  From having works featured on multiple well-established sites to interacting with individuals with various financial circumstances and experience, every day has been exciting and unexpected. 

I take pride in what we have created at The Motivated M.D.  Not only do we cater to healthcare professionals and the complex finances that come with these careers, but we have grown an audience that represents a wide array of financial backgrounds and situations.  As our content grows toward the broader personal finance niche, I work to maintain the same level of effort and passion I have since this platform’s creation. 

My mission

Here at The Motivated M.D. we have a clear mission.  We seek to help individuals (both inside and outside of healthcare professions) improve their financial literacy.  We also seek to use this platform to share our journey pursuing financial freedom.  I want our work to be used as a forum to introduce our audience to the content, tools, and services we believe can help them reach their financial goals.  We wish to only promote ideas, information, and services that we stand behind.  

Philanthropy

There is also a philanthropic mission to The Motivated M.D.  This website was created to allow me to pursue my passion while simultaneously creating something valuable that I can offer.  With that came the expectation of monetization.  Given the success of this endeavor, I feel empowered to use philanthropy both as an educational tool as well as a way to say ‘thank you’ for the opportunities this experience has offered me.  As such, a portion of all proceeds go into a Donor Advised Fund that is given to a charity of our choosing each year.  

Anonymity

As you may have noticed by now, I have yet to reveal my identity.  I have debated this decision since The Motivated M.D.’s inception.  There will likely be a time where I eagerly update this section to reflect my real identity, but that time has not revealed itself organically yet.  Given that I am still a practicing physician, I continue to have difficulties uniting these two separate worlds…my medical life and my blogging one.  When the opportune time arises, I look forward to telling you more about me personally.

Goals

As with many things in life, there is rarely a finish line.  This is no different for The Motivated M.D.  As our readership grows, so too do the expectations of what is possible with this platform. 

I have decided to avoid placing advertisements on the site at this time, despite this venture being a side hustle.  Before I develop a monetization strategy, I want to first focus on the foundation of a great blog, its content. 

As such, I have few avenues for income from this project.  I do not want to ruin your experience with an abundance of targeted advertisements just to make a penny.  I absolutely wish for this site to be profitable in the future, at least enough to cover expenses.  Therefore, I have created the opportunity for any willing individual or party to sponsor our site.  Thank you to all our current sponsors, their contribution allows this site to stay operational and free of unwanted ads. 

Thank you

Let me close by saying welcome to our website.  Whether you are a new visitor or a returning subscriber, thank you for taking the time to visit.  I take pride in offering a regular cadence to our content.  I work to publish an article once a week, life permitting.  Here you will find everything from budgeting tips and tricks, to page long tutorials on retirement savings, investment strategies, financial philosophy, and more!. 

As another way to say thank you for your time and attention, I want to offer you our free budgeting tool.  Just by simply subscribing to our newsletter using your email (below), you can receive our regular newsletter.  This offers the latest from The Motivated M.D., extra content, and more.  Please make sure to follow us on social media too!  Here are our Twitter and Instagram accounts.  All of these are ways you can directly support our goals. 

Thank you, and as always…

Stay motivated!

The Motivated M.D.