How to spend time as a single guy in a lifestyle based residency/specialty?

[ladysmanfelpz]

Meant to post this many rotations ago as I've been going through my first year of residency. Residency has been pretty much what I've expected with 50-60 hour weeks. Ever since college and pre-med courses I've found out I do better when I am busy and like to keep a packed schedule. Now in residency, while we are all here to learn, I find my fellow residents like to get off as early as possible to spend time with family and what not. Well I am not from the area and did not move a family with me. Single guy that is dating. While most of my co-residents dislike IM, I found I actually liked it as a resident (actually working not just shadowing like a med student) and liked to be work and have the longer hours and more learning experience. While some of the psych rotations can be quite intense, others are known to be notoriously light. Before I would just fill my time working out and doing other hobbies, but now I am in a more career oriented part of my life. So what are some ways I can spend my time in residency to advance career/improve financial situation.

Should I invest in Crypto?
Trade some NFT's?
Write a book?

In all seriousness it would be nice to have a side project to work on as I go through residency, either inside medicine or completely unrelated. And while I know I am typing this in a fairly relaxed time of training, I know it will not remain like this as our next year is supposed to be our most hectic year with routinely hitting the 80hr limit mainly due to night float. Still now would be a good time to get started on something.



And since I know this is going to come up I will consider moonlighting, however our program seems to actively discourage it. It will be tough next year with the more demanding call schedule, but 3rd and 4th should be doable. I talked to an attending who did it when he went through the residency and had a good experience and made some good extra money, but he acknowledges how expectations have changed. It may still be possible, but would have to do it while remaining out of the radar to not alert my program.

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[Sushirolls]

Read a bunch of therapy books / manuals.

 

[jbomba]

Being in a more career oriented phase of your life doesn't mean you should give up working out and hobbies. I would strongly caution you against this type of thinking.

Consider staying your own therapy too. Will benefit you both personally and professionally.

 

[DoctwoB]

Make friends and see them. Date. Workout. Cook. Brew. Read, play video games, Grill/smoke. Hike/Bike/Rock climb, etc.

Statistically you are likely to be married with a couple of kids in not too long. Which is fine. But you'll have a lot less time for yourself, so enjoy it while you have it.

There's more to life then work. Work hard and learn your stuff, but also cultivate hobbies

 

[PsyDr]

1) learn about the things you’ll need in life (e.g., investments, the local real estate market and its intricacies, how to buy clothes, how to cook, formal social skills, literature and the references thereof, how to fix things or how to hire a tradesman, how to use a firearm, pick a hobby that you can do lifelong, etc).

2) Learn business skills and network.

3) “date” far far far away from the hospital.

4) Approach a local charity, tell them your situation.

5) buy cheap season tickets to something. It’s organizing.

 

[ladysmanfelpz]

Being in a more career oriented phase of your life doesn't mean you should give up working out and hobbies. I would strongly caution you against this type of thinking.

Consider staying your own therapy too. Will benefit you both personally and professionally.

I'm bad on replies, but yes this is very good advice. Best not to neglect the essentials.

 

[ladysmanfelpz]

1) learn about the things you’ll need in life (e.g., investments, the local real estate market and its intricacies, how to buy clothes, how to cook, formal social skills, literature and the references thereof, how to fix things or how to hire a tradesman, how to use a firearm, pick a hobby that you can do lifelong, etc).

2) Learn business skills and network.

3) “date” far far far away from the hospital.

4) Approach a local charity, tell them your situation.

5) buy cheap season tickets to something. It’s organizing.

Explain the local charity. Pursue more charitable work through residency although I did a large amount through medical school? Or just the community aspect that you endorse and the fact that you are giving back to your underserved?

 

[Merovinge]

Enjoy time with your co-residents is my number 1 advice. Doesn't have to be in psych by any means, time with other specialties is helpful clinically and recreationally, might be a good way to meet a life partner. Play casual volleyball, baseball, etc. Join a sport/run/hike/bike/climb etc. Get into music/concerts while you still can. Do anything that you would enjoy meeting a life partner at, I would not neglect the dating part of things as life can move by fast. Travel by yourself or with a friend.

Read whitecoatinvestor books, website, podcast.

This should be one of the best times in your life, enjoy it!

 

[nexus73]

Start training for triathlons

 

[Trismegistus4]

3) “date” far far far away from the hospital.

I don't know about that. With the benefit of hindsight, I'd say residency, when you have plenty of off-service and consult rotations, is prime time for meeting ICU nurses, peds nurses, PTs, OTs, female pharamcists, dietitians, etc. It only gets harder to meet people once you're out in the private world. Unless you're a "the bars" type of person and will still be young enough to pull that off even after you finish all your training, don't let yourself still be alone at the end of training.

 

[clozareal]

Career advancement:

1. Read psychotherapy books. I recommend starting with Nancy McWilliams as an introduction. I've been enjoying mentalization based treatment lately. Transference focused psychotherapy, schema therapy, structural family therapy are also great. You can also read about the more typical/common ones that your program might not teach you but are common like DBT, ACT, MBCT, PE/CPT, IRT, CBT-I. Trauma books are also great like Trauma and Recovery or The Body Keeps The Score.
2. Listen to podcasts on psychotherapy. I like David Puder, the science of psychotherapy, Psychology in Seattle, New Books in Psychoanalysis.
3. Pharmacology education: SMI Adviser, Psychopharmacology Institute, Carlat Report, Ghaemi's clinical psychopharmacology, the NEI courses, Stahl's (although you should probably read this first because he oversimplifies everything).
4. Subspecialty topics: neuropsychaitry; sleep medicine; child and adolescent psychiatry; learning about disorders that are more rare that a majority of psychiatrists don't know how to diagnose or treat such as parasomnias, sexual dysfunctions, paraphilic disorders, dementias, eating disorders, dissociative disorders, psychiatric mimics of neurological/medical conditions; addiction medicine and how to use MAT, sport psychiatry, HIV psychiatry, LGBT psychiatry (knowing WPATH guidelines for hormone/surgery), geriatric psychiatry, palliative medicine.
5. Learning new skills such as TMS, ECT, ketamine, hypnotherapy, psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, utilizing certain scales such as MMPI-3, M-FAST, executive coaching, integrative psychiatry.
6. Doing specific evaluations: worker's compensation, disability evaluation/analysis, fitness for duty evaluations, peer review, MRO, bariatric evaluations, plastic surgery evaluations, ADOS/ADI-R for autism evaluations.
7. I didn't hear about your interest in research but that's something that often strings along people's career during residency and afterwards. Get involved in a research project of something you are interested in. Write a case report. Better, write a case series. If you're really ambitious, you can get involved in a trial or write a systematic review. Find a mentor who is writing a book chapter and see if you can help.
8. Practice management and eventually understanding the business of medicine if you hope to start your own private practice or be part of administrative leadership.

Financial education:

1. White coat investor is great as merovinge said. The podcast, blog, website, youtube videos, all of it. There are other physician financial podcasts that are good like like Financial Residency, Passive Income MD, Physician on FIRE.
2. If you want to dabble in learning about real estate, then BiggerPockets is your go to.
3. Learning how to budget and the different types of budgets out there. Setting financial goals.
4. Read financial education books. I read about 4 a year.
5. Learning about crypt/blockchain, NFTs, metaverse is fun.
6. Learn about stocks vs bonds vs mutual funds vs passive real estate investments (REITs, syndications). Asset allocation and diversification are important to learn about.
7. Making sure you have adequate life insurance, disability insurance, an estate plan, emergency fund, debt management, retirement accounts such as a backdoor Roth IRA, etc. You want to make sure you have a rough guideline of the financial priorities for residents.

 

[deleted1100659]

Download tinder, but use with caution.

 

[PsyDr]

Explain the local charity. Pursue more charitable work through residency although I did a large amount through medical school? Or just the community aspect that you endorse and the fact that you are giving back to your underserved?

You asked how to spend your spare time, I gave you some options. Maybe look up treatment seeking, treatment rejecting pathology.

 

[PsyDr]

Explain the local charity. Pursue more charitable work through residency although I did a large amount through medical school? Or just the community aspect that you endorse and the fact that you are giving back to your underserved?

You asked how to spend your spare time, I gave you some options. Maybe look up treatment seeking, treatment rejecting pathology.

I don't know about that. With the benefit of hindsight, I'd say residency, when you have plenty of off-service and consult rotations, is prime time for meeting ICU nurses, peds nurses, PTs, OTs, female pharamcists, dietitians, etc. It only gets harder to meet people once you're out in the private world. Unless you're a "the bars" type of person and will still be young enough to pull that off even after you finish all your training, don't let yourself still be alone at the end of training.

Some of us got...reputations... for that behavior.

 

[Trismegistus4]

Some of us got...reputations... for that behavior.

I see upon review that you put "date" in scare quotes. I can see how scare-quotes dating could get you a reputation. I was referring to non-scare-quotes dating.

 

[SeniorWrangler]

Just work your way up the Maslow hierarchy: first you get the money, then you get the power and then you get the women. Hold on, that’s the Scarface hierarchy, but still good.

 

[mistafab]

get absolutely shredded

 

[mdartclub]

Meant to post this many rotations ago as I've been going through my first year of residency. Residency has been pretty much what I've expected with 50-60 hour weeks. Ever since college and pre-med courses I've found out I do better when I am busy and like to keep a packed schedule. Now in residency, while we are all here to learn, I find my fellow residents like to get off as early as possible to spend time with family and what not. Well I am not from the area and did not move a family with me. Single guy that is dating. While most of my co-residents dislike IM, I found I actually liked it as a resident (actually working not just shadowing like a med student) and liked to be work and have the longer hours and more learning experience. While some of the psych rotations can be quite intense, others are known to be notoriously light. Before I would just fill my time working out and doing other hobbies, but now I am in a more career oriented part of my life. So what are some ways I can spend my time in residency to advance career/improve financial situation.

Should I invest in Crypto?
Trade some NFT's?
Write a book?

In all seriousness it would be nice to have a side project to work on as I go through residency, either inside medicine or completely unrelated. And while I know I am typing this in a fairly relaxed time of training, I know it will not remain like this as our next year is supposed to be our most hectic year with routinely hitting the 80hr limit mainly due to night float. Still now would be a good time to get started on something.



And since I know this is going to come up I will consider moonlighting, however our program seems to actively discourage it. It will be tough next year with the more demanding call schedule, but 3rd and 4th should be doable. I talked to an attending who did it when he went through the residency and had a good experience and made some good extra money, but he acknowledges how expectations have changed. It may still be possible, but would have to do it while remaining out of the radar to not alert my program.

I would get into the NFT space more for the community, not a get-rich-quick scheme. There are many rug pulls out there...

 

[painballer27]

get absolutely shredded

This is the way.

 

[avatarftw]

A lot of physicians think that they can reliably beat the market. Crypto is not as risky and insensible as gambling but it's not too far off. Your opportunity cost of spending so much time on investing is fairly high as an attending, from $100/hr to 250 an hour for most specialties.

A diversified, low-expense ratio mutual fund portfolio with an appropriate age-adjusted asset allocation is the "winning" way for the vast majority of docs. Just google "three fund portfolio" and read up on motley fool, read the intelligent investor by Benjamin Graham, or heck even dummies guide to mutual funds. Personal finance is not as complex, nor should it be, as many people think.

 

[Liquid8]

A lot of physicians think that they can reliably beat the market. Crypto is not as risky and insensible as gambling but it's not too far off. Your opportunity cost of spending so much time on investing is fairly high as an attending, from $100/hr to 250 an hour for most specialties.

A diversified, low-expense ratio mutual fund portfolio with an appropriate age-adjusted asset allocation is the "winning" way for the vast majority of docs. Just google "three fund portfolio" and read up on motley fool, read the intelligent investor by Benjamin Graham, or heck even dummies guide to mutual funds. Personal finance is not as complex, nor should it be, as many people think.

I remember having similar thoughts too. While it would be nice to have a set and forget passive income, my main earnings are always going to be through practising psychiatry and while I don’t disagree that it’s important to know something about your own investments, one still has to place a value on that time especially if playing around with more speculative asset classes.

Can remember when I first started working in the late 2000s, bank deposit interest rates where around 6-8% so I didn’t really have to focus on other investment avenues. In retrospect for too long I was too heavily weighted towards cash and hurt by declining savings rates. However, focusing on my studies and getting my psychiatrist qualifications essentially boosted my hourly income by 8-10x.

In the last years I did some more research into ETFs and have diversified my portfolio accordingly. Crypto seems too wild for my risk profile – can remember seeing patients who made big sums and lost it just as quickly, often sacrificing their sleep to trade on overseas markets. Then there are colleagues who should be extremely comfortable yet took on millions in investment property debt for tax breaks, and are now fretting due to a couple of recent interest rate rises.