CHAPTER 12

It’s going to be hard. We love you regardless.

You did it! You’re here. You’ve read tons of financial advice, learned way more than you probably ever wanted to about investing and retirement funds and budgeting, and here you are.

(If for some reason you’re reading this and you haven’t read our plethora of financial advice tailored for medical residents and conveniently compiled on this website and in our book Advanced Wallet Life Support: How to Resuscitate Your Finances (And Your Sanity) During Medical Training, go do that first and come back. We’ll wait.)

We’re proud of you. And to close out all of the financial advice we’ve provided, we want to share a bit of unsolicited life advice, too. Money and stuff can’t make you happy. But money, well managed, can make you secure and free from significant worry, which is a great foundation for happiness.

So, let’s take a brief detour to talk about residency in general.

It is incredibly difficult. It can really beat up on you. It can drag you down. It can tell you you’re not good enough. It can damage your most important relationships. It can place you face to face with dying and death. It can let you make grave mistakes that will haunt you. It’s a lot on your conscience, a lot on your soul. Sometimes it’s even too much.  There’s a reason why, tragically, physicians have higher incidences of depression, substance abuse and suicide compared to the general population.

The notion of happiness in residency is called a number of different things. Sometimes it’s termed, work-life balance, or wellness or resiliency. These terms are, quite frankly, the worst, because they make it sound like it’s your job to stay happy and your fault if you are stressed, overworked and on the edge. If the canary in the coal mine dies, don’t blame the canary.

We can tell you from first hand personal experience.

● A free lunch doesn’t take the sting out of not having seen your wife in a week.

● Meditation is not a substitute for sleep when you are up for 36 hours straight in the ICU.

● A yoga class can’t fix the torment of calling someone in the middle of the night to tell them their loved one has died.

You’ve made it this far because you are disciplined and intelligent.

But remember, you’ve got to give yourself a break.

Here are a few final thoughts that are not about money, but about making it through and taking care of yourself.

Treat yourself. We’ve presented you with a lot of rules and recommendations. But cut yourself some slack. Buy that Starbucks Frappuccino every once in a while, go out to dinner with your best friend to talk about a hard day, fly home to see your family on that weekend you really need it. It’s OK. You can’t be perfect all the time, you’re only human.

Drink and eat with your friends. Whether it’s decompressing with your co-residents after a hard day or just keeping in touch with a close friend outside of medicine, you need this contact to keep going. So don’t sacrifice these relationships in the name of protecting your budget. It’s ok to grab a round after the evening shift or buy lunch for your best friend.

Tell stories. You will see things, do things and be a part of things which affect you deeply, sometimes upset and disturb you deeply. You can’t hold it all in. So talk about hard cases, about deaths, about tough and scary situations. You’ll need it to keep your head on straight.

Be present. You’re used to pushing ahead and looking towards your goals, that’s another reason why you got where you are (and again, one of the reasons you probably picked up this book). But remember that your future goals, both financial and otherwise, aren’t everything. Remember to be present with your family, with your spouse, with your children, with your patients. If your eyes are always on the future, you’ll miss out on the present.

Be careful of your vices. Stressed out, hard working people need a way to relieve that stress. Ideally, that’s something like running or yoga or boxing or spending time with family. But for a lot of us it’s also drinking (sometimes too much), other substance use, gambling or other activities that can get ahead of us. Just make sure that the things you do to unwind don’t become a constant presence that impacts your work or your life in negative ways.

Ask for help. There can be a lot weighing on you during residency. It’s not just the clinical work but family and friends, major life milestones, illness and death of loved ones. With the pressures of residency bearing down on you, the stress and trauma of caring for others, and disrupted sleep, it can get to the point of being truly overwhelming. Never forget that there are people to reach out to – your family, your close friends, your co-residents, your residency leadership – in times of need.

Money isn’t everything.