WCI #183: Physician Moms and Their Finances

This is the White Coat Investor Podcast where we help those who wear the white coat get a fair shake on Wall Street. We've been helping doctors and other high income professionals stop doing dumb things with their money since 2011. Here's your host, Dr. Jim Dali. This is White Coat Investor podcast number 183. Physician moms and their Finances. Welcome back to the podcast. We're recording this on October 22nd. It's going to start running on November 5th. Hope things are going well for you in your neck of the woods. If you're like most of us in the country, I think you're seeing an awful lot of coronavirus right now. We're actually seeing it in our ERs. Multiple patients, a shift which is kind of new for us here in Utah. So far so good, but we're sure looking forward to getting through this and getting back to normal life at some point in the future. I'm hoping and praying for those vaccine makers to be successful and quick. If you're like most doctors, nobody taught you anything about personal finance or investing during your undergrad, professional school or residency. Even though your family and perhaps even your business rely on you to be the Chief Financial officer, you have never been given the tools to succeed. Enroll in WCI Financial Boot Camp, a free educational email series, and learn to convert your high income to wealth. You will learn the basics of investing, saving, insurance and more. Your high income alone will not lead to financial success, but as always, we want to help you on your financial journey. Go to whitecoatinvestor.com financialbootcamp to sign up today. You can do this and the White Coat Investor can help. All right, our quote of the day today comes from Thomas J. Stanley, who said the greatest detriment to building wealth is our home and neighborhood environment. If you live in a pricey home and neighborhood, you will act and buy like your neighbors. And I think that's really the truth. I mean we've lived in several different neighborhoods and in every one of them we we acted and bought like our neighbors did. And I suspect you do too. Thanks for what you do out there. Life is not easy these days, especially in the middle of a pandemic. Many of our incomes are down. Certainly we have a lot more hassle at work. It's more difficult to connect with patients through all the PPE we're wearing. Nobody's told you. Thanks. Today, let me be the first. I wanted to make sure you knew about one of the resources we have on the website. If you are in need of help, legal help, like with your contracts to review or some fraud issues or asset protection, estate planning. We have a resource at the White Coat Investor that you may be interested in. If you go to whitecoatinvestor.com under the recommended tab, you will see a page that says legal and contract review. And on there you will find, well, we've got three contract review services listed there right now if you need your contract reviewed for next year. This is a great resource. For a few hundred dollars. You can know you're not getting ripped off. They can help suggest what you should negotiate. Moron. And most of them, if you are interested in having them negotiate for, you will even do that. And so check those resources out if you're in need of contract review or attorney services. That's where we have our recommended resources. All right, we have a really great interview today. I think you'll enjoy it. I've been looking forward to doing this for a number of months and we're gonna have a great conversation. So without further ado, let's get our guest on the line and introduce her. Okay, so today we have a special guest on the podcast. We have Hala Sabri, who you may know from clinical practice. If you're in emergency medicine. She's a D.O. still practicing medicine in California. She is also the chief executive officer of Physician Digital Services, but that's probably not where you know her from. You know her as the founder of the Physician Moms Group, and that's the reason I asked her to come on the podcast. Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Sabri.

Thank you so much, Jim. I was actually so, like, fan girling, I guess, or fanboying you? When I got the email, I was like, what, you want me on your podcast? I never get asked to be on podcasts anymore. And so I get excited. So thanks for even having me in your space.

Well, it's awesome to have you on here. We had a great conversation before we started recording here, and we'll probably cover some of those subjects as well. But I think you're going to make a great guest on the podcast and people are gonna are gonna love this interview.

I hope so.

But let's start at the beginning. Tell us a little bit about your upbringing and how it affected your views on money.

That's such a good question. You know, I grew up in a family where my dad, well, both my parents were immigrants to this country. My dad came when he was 23, had just finished medical school in Egypt, and he got onto the lottery system and got, you know, an acceptance of a Visa out here to the. To the United States. And he was about to enter into his residency for ophthalmology. So it was kind of a big leap of faith for him. So he came over here, had to start kind of from, you know, scratch and getting his boards done and things like that. And while he was here, he actually met my mom. My mom immigrated here independently when she was like 14 with her family. And they met because their brother and sister got married. So it's like brothers and sisters. They got married. And so why be creative and find another family? Just marry into the same family. Right?

You can have double cousins now.

I know now I have like, no cousins. I tell them, like, they cheated me in a gene pool. But yeah, so they. So that was in the 70s, and my dad was born in an emergency medicine right at the start of it, in the 80s. And that was kind of, you know, I was born in 78, so that was kind of my upbringing. I only knew medicine. And it's interesting because my views on money were. I guess I just didn't really worry about money because my family was actually pretty well off. And in the 80s, I remember my dad asking him one day, like, how much money he made. And I think he said something like a little over 200,000, like 216 or something like that. And I remember thinking like, oh my gosh, that's so much money. And in the 80s, it probably was. I don't know if you extrapolate that for inflation, what that would be now. But I remember not really being worried. However, my parents moving here, they may have been okay or well off in Egypt, but when they came here, they weren't. The dollar is strong compared to the pound in Egypt. And so they lived very much like resident life for the first bit of their. Their life here in America. So, like, eating out of like, just like corn and like canned food and anything to be really cheap. My dad was a super hustler. Like, he was like a taxi driver while he was doing residency and things like that. So I kind of grew up knowing their, you know, somewhat humble beginnings, which is very different than other people's humble beginnings. But as you know, we became more established as a family. We would go traveling a lot. Traveling was really big for my dad. We would go on like three big vacations a year. And every time we go on a vacation, we would have what we'd call family day. And the family day would be that we would go do something that's not touristy and really support the community that Supports the tourist industry. So, for example, one time we went to Jamaica and we had hired a driver, and one our family day is that we went with him to where he shops for food, and we basically bought a whole bunch of food for a lot of people who really didn't normally, like, eat meat and things like that that were a little bit more of a delicacy at the time because of economics. And we played with the neighborhood kids next to his house, and he had kids around the same age as my brother and I. And so that was kind of. My upbringing is kind of just bringing it down, like, hey, this is a nice vacation. But really, like, look who's supporting this industry. It's all the other people. And so let's. Let's celebrate them and really give directly to them and not like an hourly wage type of thing. So I kind of grew up with this altruistic, you know, kind of foundation that my parents built. So for me, I had the idea that money was kind of infinite in a way, but it was also our responsibility to give back to community. So that was kind of how I grew up, and that's kind of what I do now. So, I mean, I don't think it's really, like, changed that much. But I will say that some of my money issues kind of changed when I got into college. So my dad, he passed away three weeks into my medical school career, and I started realizing how much my dad did not invest. So, I mean, he was kind of. He lived by, like, the. The motto of, like, you know, you can't take your money with you when you die. You know, so, you know, let's, like, have all these experiences. And so my dad had a really great life insurance policy and great disability policy. But when he passed away, like, I realized that a million dollars does not last a long time. And then that kind of changed my money beliefs as an adult of legacy. Like, what am I going to leave for my children and my children's children and build that generational wealth, you know? And I think what my dad did for me is, like, you know, he got me to a point where, like, I didn't have to pay for college. Like, he paid for my college. I had to pay for medical school. But, you know, that's more than what other people have. So how can I level that up for my children and for my grandchildren, you know, to come down the line? So that's kind of where I'm at in my head now.

Of course, in his defense, it sounds like he did die fairly young. So maybe that wasn't such a bad attitude to have. You know, I mean, he really sounds like he really enjoyed the time. He had had a great career and had some great times with his family.

Yeah, he died really unexpectedly. He was 52. So pretty young. But, yeah, I think that that in itself has kind of, you know, humbled me and, you know, knowing that life is short, you know, and even. Even now within Covid, you know, how many of us have heard about colleagues that have been sick or have died, you know, you know, I'm seeing it on my group on pmg, and. And it makes me think, like, what am I doing this all for? So, yeah, so I have a huge vacation planned when the world opens, and, you know, and I'll continue my dad's traditions with my children and also kind of level it up and, you know, invest and do things that, you know, my kids can remember me by much more than the memories that I'm creating, which are, you know, those are infinite in value.

Awesome. Well, take us up through your education, your training, and your career so far.

Yeah. So I went to medical school in New York. I did a dual program. I did a D.O. and MBA program. I actually never really wanted to be a doctor. I. Well, I said I wanted to be, but then when I really thought about it, I was like. My dad kind of had some mixed reviews on being a doctor, so I was like, I don't know if that's really for me. And then 9, 11 happened. My dad was like, no, you're going to medical school. You know, So I was like, okay. So I kind of went to medical school because my dad told me to, but I really wanted to go to business school. I worked for the Disney company, and I loved operation management, so I really loved the idea. Like, it made my. It was kind of like a really mental tetris of, like, how to move people around and how to do it efficiently within a budget. I love that. And so my dad was like, what do you think hospitals are? Like, that's what they are, right? And so I was like, oh, okay. So he's like, you know, right now we have administrators that are not doctors. Like, why don't you go to medical school and then kind of be an advocate for doctors? And I was like, yeah, that sounds amazing. So literally, in my medical school interviews, they would ask me, they'd be like, why do you want to be a doctor? And I'd be like, I don't. But what I want to be is I want to advocate for doctors and all of the interviewers were like, okay. And then it let me in. So that's how I got into medical.

School because it was so unique. Nobody says that. They all say, I love science and I want to help people.

I know. And even it was so intimidating, you know, even in the interview, in the interview trail, you know, I would be talking to other people that are interviewing. They're so nervous. And I'm not nervous because I actually don't care if I got in at that time, you know. And they're like, I wanted to be a doctor since I was a fetus. And I'm like, gosh, that's crazy. Like, I just want to work for Disney forever. That was kind of my mindset. I'm not going to lie. Every time I watch Disney, I still have still those creeping thoughts. What if I went back, I went to medical school and I fell in love with medicine during the process and chose emergency medicine because I really do like every aspect of medicine. And it's the biggest moneymaker for hospitals. There's only two entry points for hospitals, that and surgery. So I went through it with a very business aspect, like business minded, you know, kind of aspect. And I was on my way, I was on my way to being an administrator for a hospital. So I like rose my hand for any opportunity that would get me more experience or insight into hospital management. I was chief resident. I sat on the Mac as the resident representative in my residency. You know, I like really, you know, took advantage of everything and then I became a mom and it all changed. So, So I am not doing that. So total like detour in my, in my career path. But I'm still advocating for doctors, just not as a hospital administrator.

It all changed. Isn't that the truth? Right?

Yeah. Who knew?

Tell us a little bit about your kids.

Yeah, so I have five kids. I have two sets of twins. So I have a seven year old, two five year olds, two two year olds. A lot of people go like, how do you do that? And the answer is I outsource everything possible, try to make my life as efficient as possible and you know, bring other people into my, into my life and my family circle. So that's been really fun. They're amazing. And I, you know, fought really hard to have them. I hit a lot of infertility issues. Talk about money. You know, people don't really think about spending and investing on your family. They kind of think it just all happens, you know, because usually it does.

Although much less often for docs. Right. Because we start in our 30s, often.

Crazy, right? Crazy. How many professionals, women and men, you know, hit infertility? I had to pay $150,000 out of pocket to have these five kids. But they're paid off, so it's the best investment ever.

Do you appreciate them more after they cost 30 grand a piece?

I've never had kids other ways, so I guess, yes. I have no idea. But I love them to death, you know, but it's really opened my eyes, you know, a little bit about, you know, the struggles that women have. Like, I don't know, you know, a lot of times I think to myself, like, when situations happen, like, why is this happening to me? Or how can this happen for me? How can I make this happen for me? And I really, truly think that all these experiences, you know, that I. That I've even laid out here, I think just makes me more realistic about what, like, a normal physician's facing. You know, not everybody has, like, this Instagram perfect life where they're beautiful and. And have no struggles, and they're putting out these inspirational quotes. You know, our lives are hard and they're layered and they're dynamic. Not only is your profession, but it's your identity. It's so different, you know, that all of these worlds kind of collide, and it's a lot of pressure. I mean, you don't really see, like, a librarian, you know, taking that same responsibility. I know it's not life or death, but, like, think of anything else, like a lawyer or anything else. When there's an emergency somewhere, an airplane, a restaurant, out about where you're walking and something happens, is there a doctor? Like, that's the first thing that they do, and that's like your. That's your identity, and then you just. Your call to action as a service that you have. And so I think, you know, when we're going through medical school, nobody really prepares you for that, you know, especially for someone like me who didn't really want to go to medical school. Right. So, you know, I had this idea of, you know, you know, a house with two and a half kids and a dog and all these other things. I didn't realize what I'd have to do to get there and how much my career would not only be an obstacle, but also be the resource that makes it happen. So it's just really confusing, I think, as you're going through that process. And I think also most people enter medical school. I say most, not all, but, you know, they enter soon after college, and they really haven't had a lot of life experiences, and then they're in this vacuum for 10 years, and then you get out on the other side and you kind of have to figure out who you are because you've kind of been told who you are for 10 years. Like, you're a medical student, you're a resident, you're.

You have to re establish all those relationships you had before.

Yeah.

Now, since this is a financial podcast, I should ask for any financial tips we can get. You have more experience than most with fertility treatments. You have any tips for tips for the audience? Anything you can tell them to watch out for or to do or anything like that?

Yeah. You know, it's funny. The infertility mindset is so important, and I think that a lot of people become resistant. There's a lot of layers. Like, one is like, I don't really want to have to go through these treatments. And then when you kind of get over that and you're like, well, I want a family. This is how I'm going to get my family. You know, you start looking at the cost. And most insurance companies do not pay for infertility treatments. There are a few mandated states that require the insurance companies to cover, I think, three cycles, but I never lived in any of those states. But for the people who are lucky enough, that's great. And so I think for people who either know that they may have infertility issues, or for people who know that infertility runs rampant in their family, maybe start looking at your insurance policies and start looking strategically, you know, what, what you'll do if that ever happens. Kind of like any other investment, you know, that you would make. And also, like, view it as an investment. I see so many people go, oh, there's no way I would spend $10,000 on a treatment. But those same people will spend $2,000 on a dog born in the Midwest to get it flown out to wherever they live, like, without a thought, you know, so it's more like, you know, kind of why, why do we. Or why are we resistant to spending money on that? And the other thing, too, is that I spent a lot of money, but mainly because I didn't really know that much. I didn't know what differentiated clinics and what. What made a good clinic a good clinic and a bad clinic a bad clinic. And there's no such thing as a bad clinic. It's just what is not right for me. And I think that that's kind of where I do a lot more of my advocacy is kind of Telling women, like, you know, have a great relationship with your rei, your reproductive endocrinologist, you know, and if it's not working in a clinic, it's just not working. It's not like an emergency room where every resource is the same, and it's not the same as any other specialty. Every REI that I've ever met wants their patients to get pregnant, and even if that means it's not at their clinic. So just like any other specialty, there are subspecialists within that specialty that deal with certain things, like people who deal with diminished ovarian reserve or, you know, sperm issues, and they have, like, different, you know, types of technology and specialists there to address it. And so just being more aware, the way I picked my clinic at the end just to share that story is I had already seven failed treatments, and I was like, you know, who are the best in the field for me? And I started looking up reproductive endocrinology medical conferences, and I started looking like, who are their keynotes? Like, what are they talking about? How can this work for me? And then the same clinic, the same physicians in the same clinic kept coming up, and that's how I chose my clinic. I did one cycle there, and I made six embryos, and five of those are my children. So part of me kind of feels like, gosh, I should have done that first. But then the other part of me is like, well, if I did that first, would I have been outspoken about ivf? Would I have been outspoken about infertility? Probably not. I would have probably just been quiet about it and be like, oh, I'm so lucky. I have two sets of twins. Like, you know, whatever it may be, like, how a lot of people do.

I think a lot of people struggle with it because the time they want to have the kids is also the time they don't have any money. Right. They're coming out of residency, they owe three or four hundred thousand dollars in student loans. All of a sudden, they're like, I'm way behind everybody. I want to buy a house, and we want to have kids. Oh, wait, our kids are going to be 30 grand a piece, Right? I think that's what a lot of people get, a little bit of, sticker shock, I think, when they start looking at IVF and other treatments, and I empathize with them. All right, let's turn the page. Why did you start pmg, the physician's mom group on Facebook? Why'd you start it?

Yeah, so I shared that I had some infertility struggles, so I Went and had a child. I had one. My first one is a singleton. Soon after that, I went back to go have my first set of my next child, which ended up being my first set of twins. And when I was pregnant, I was about 31 weeks pregnant and I started facing some anxiety and I, for financial reasons actually, I was like, oh my gosh, how am I going to pay my student loans? I have a pretty hefty house note. You know, we didn't, we lived pretty modestly other otherwise, you know, But I was like, I can't even afford to hire another nanny. Like, is it even worth it for me to work? Like, should I just stay home? And I just kind of started having a panic attack. And I, at that time, the hospital that I worked at, I was like only one of like four women that worked at that hospital. So I didn't really have like a lot of women to like crowdsource and ask questions to. So there's other mom groups on Facebook, but they just are not physician based. So I kind of thought about maybe asking them. And so I drafted my first post and my first post went something like this, like, how many nannies should I hire? Like I'm going to have three kids under 18 months. I read it back for typos and things like that and I was like, this sounds really elitist, like I don't know, I'm about to get torched. And so I deleted it.

At least you recognized it in advance, right? Those of us who have not recognized postings like that in advance have learned to regret it.

I know, I know. I was like, wait a second. So I deleted it. And then I was like, you know what, forget this, I'm going to just make my own group. And I had been part of another physician group that wasn't parent based, so I kind of knew it could happen, you know, that physicians could communicate together in a Facebook group. So yeah, so I made a group that night, 11pm 20 girls that I just knew from their pictures on Facebook and my interactions with them that they had children. That was all. And I made it. And I just said, hey, how many nannies should I get? And they answered me within five seconds. And then they were like, hey, can I add a friend? And I was like, sure, let's do it now. You know, over a hundred thousand people later, here we are.

Wow, it's over a hundred thousand now.

Well, I have the two groups, right? So between the two groups. So PMG is 75,000 and some change.

And then Covid 40 is the COVID subgroup is that. Are all those people in PMG or some of them not in pmg?

No, not all of them are.

So they're totally separate groups.

Yeah, they're separate groups. I mean, there are. There is some overlap. I think probably about 10 or 10,000 of them or something like that, but. But we allow men in that group, and we made that group because when Covid was happening, I honestly didn't know how long this thing was going to stay or how big it was going to be. But I knew it started taking up my content of my feed on pmg, and I was like, look, you know, women's issues, women empowerment, women equity, women equality, always take a backseat to anything else that's, you know, hot and trending. I'll be damned if I let Covid do that to us. So I made another group. I was like, hey, put all your Covid stuff over there. We're still going to be talking about women issues here. You know, so there's a little bit. I mean, obviously there's overlap.

So I looked up the data in preparation for this interview, and it's a couple of years old, but basically it said there's about 292,000 women physicians in the country, and you've got 75,000 of them in your group. That's over a quarter of them.

I know.

Why do you think physician moms found your group so attractive?

Well, I think, you know, when we. When we start medical school, it's like this nonverbal rule that we are to act like men, you know, and we compete with the men. I remember when I was applying to emergency medicine residency, I just knew that they only took, like, one woman, you know, per class. And so our competition was each other. You know, it wasn't really men. It was the next woman. So I think that despite, like, AMWA and all of the other, you know, organizations and efforts beforehand to bridge that gap, I think what. What happened is that we didn't really have an environment that wasn't sterile and formal to actually let down our guard and be like, hey, like, I'm struggling, too. And the truth is, it's not just women who are struggling. Men have the same issues, balancing life and work and all these other things, like, men, especially now this generation of men who are a lot more involved with their family because of traditional roles being changed and all this other stuff. Like, they have the same issues, I think at least the ones that have reached out to me. So I think that it became a venue where women felt like it was safe to say I don't have all my craft together, you know, and I'm not going to be apologetic for it. Like, just teach me how to be better and just learning and crowdsourcing from one another. You know, the issues that we talked about initially were, you know, diapers and formula and nannies. And then the conversation started evolving into, hey, I was passed up on this job because they said, you know, to come back when my kids were older, you know, and sharing, you know, oh, you know, I was in the or, and this surgeon. I'm an anesthesiologist, and the surgeon is making sexist comments to me. He said, X, Y, and Z. I don't feel like I could report this. What do I do? And the slew of women going, oh, that happened to me. That happened to me. And so I think that the first part of solving any problem is identifying that there is a problem. And I think that's what PMG did is really not conceptually talked about these problems, but, like, hey, this is proof. And then we started collecting data. We have a whole research team. We have a research committee. And one of our first research studies that we put out was on discrimination of women in JAMA on Mother's Day weekend. And that's how you start change, and that's what we're doing. So I think that's why it's so attractive. But, I mean, there's tons of groups now. I mean, before that was kind of one of the first big parenting group, and now there's tons of groups, you know, not only about parenting, but basically about every niche, you know, And I think it's just so great to see physicians kind of breaking away from the traditional expectations of what medicine and the community want us to be like and what we are really like. So I think it's really neat and inspiring.

Now, one of the interesting things about Facebook compared to a lot of social media and forums, is that you have your real name attached to your comments. Do you think that was good or bad when it came to pmg? Do you think it'd been better if it was all totally anonymous or worse?

Oh, no, worse. No, I'm happy with, you know, our names. I mean, obviously there's ways of not having a real name, you know, on Facebook, but I use my real name, and I think that being vulnerable and authentic are kind of the two ingredients to making these kind of changes happen. If we're going to keep hiding and keep having these protections, then if you're not willing to risk your reputation and Everything to make medicine better, then it's not going to get better. You know, it's not. And so even, like, you know, it's funny that you say this. Facebook just recently released a feature for groups to allow members to anonymous. Anonymously post themselves. And this is a product tool that they consulted with me on a couple years ago. So I already knew it was coming down the line. And I'm against it. I'm against it because my whole thing is. I mean, I do anonymous posts in my group, but really, honestly, my goal is that there's no anonymous posts in my group, because I feel like that's what the power is. The power is vulnerability. And obviously, there's some people who don't feel that comfortable, or there's something that's super sensitive, like, hey, like, I just got diagnosed with breast cancer, or I'm having a miscarriage. And that's not something that they really want to the whole world to know in that moment. And I get that. But sometimes there's some issues that people post anonymously just because, like, that's their go to. To hide. And it doesn't necessarily need to be that way. So I. I'm glad. And I know, like, Sermo, you know, it's all usernames and stuff like that, but I think the quality of those discussions are just a little bit different, you know, because people could be keyboard warriors and not really care about who's receiving the message on the other end. Whereas, you know, and other. On other platforms, you may be a little bit more careful and just being more thoughtful in how you communicate with people.

What other issues have you run into running such a large group?

Oh, gosh, like, all of them. So let's see. Fraudulent fundraising. I had to go testify in court about a fundraising issue that was fraudulent, and the person who was doing it was actually charged with Munchausen's by proxy. Like, I have. Oh, geez, how many years I've been doing emergency medicine. I haven't even had to go to court for that yet. I run a Facebook group, and that's the first lawsuit that I have to kind of, you know, be present for. And then everything else is just kind of like a mirror of what's happening in society. Like the arguments about racism, the arguments about politics, you know, so I find myself, you know, kind of those are. I don't know if they're problems, but they're issues that community organizers have to face. And I think I've changed my mindset a lot about how I approach them. You know, When I first started the group, I was like, my mindset was like, just, I want this group just to succeed. Like, any sudden move or any wrong move I make is going to be fatal to the group, and the group's going to implode in demise. And now I am not like that. First of all, if the group implodes and demises, I don't define myself by my group, so I'm going to be okay. So I am. I'm just happy for the ride of however long PMG lasts and runs. But I've learned, just like I was telling you earlier is, you know, when we define ourselves as just a doctor or, you know, or this is like, your only claim to fame or success, then you almost become, like, a little bit desperate and you lose yourself in it. For me now I'm a little bit more mature as a community organizer, and I'm not so reactive, and I'm not so worried. So now I'm more like steering the boat more than I am just trying to manage and make sure nothing breaks. So it's a little bit different of how I have approached things.

Now, I'm obviously not a member of the group, but I'm sure they have some financial discussions in there from time to time. What would you say are the top two or three financial concerns of your group members?

How to pay off my student loans. That's a big one. How to negotiate for more money. That's the second one. And three, like, kind of. I think women are becoming more vocal about their curiosity about how to invest outside of medicine and realizing that to be financially successful, like, just having, like, a portfolio where you can invest in a number of things is really important. But, you know, maybe they have never had that experience, and they don't really maybe have people in their family that have had that experience to be an example of what can be. So it's a more like crowdsourcing each other of how to do that. Those are probably the top three things.

I see are people getting good advice on the topics. Can you tell?

Well, I mean, I don't think financial investment is like, my. My expertise. Actually, my first time ever delving into anything like that was actually reading your book. And I read your book on a vacation, I think, in 2016. And that started my thought process of, like, what can be? What can I do? And at that time, my. My ideas were, how can I pay off my student loans? So I kind of started off with kind of where a lot of these women are kind of starting to talk about that And I was like, okay. And the natural answer I had for myself is, work harder. If you just put your head down, you just work more.

Classic doctorism.

Yep. You'll make more money, and then you'll pay off your loans, and then you'll be, like, free to do whatever you want. So I did that, you know, for. For five years. And this is also paying off my. My infertility loans, which were like, $150,000. So I had $150,000 I owed for student loans. I had $150,000 I was owing for infertility. So, yeah. So I worked 23 days a month for about three years, thinking, you know, if I just work harder, I did make more money, and I did make a little bit of a dent. But I actually, like, caused myself more harm. I think I started getting burnt out a little bit. I was not really pleasant to work with. I was kind of mean, I think.

And 23 days a month might not sound to a lot to a lot of people, but in emergency medicine, full time is 15 shifts a month. So you're basically working one and a half times, rotating shifts, et cetera. I mean, 23 shifts a month is literally working all the time in emergency medicine. You're basically at the hospital every day.

Yeah, it's a lot. And I just wasn't even enjoying my husband. And already your marriage is kind of a little bit different because you're doing infertility treatments, so it's not really, like, normal. And, you know, and then you're working all the time. And then he started picking up all of the extra things that he could do at work to maximize his income. And it's funny, because we did that for three years. And then I read your book around that same time, and then I just started thinking outside the box. And the next book I read was how to Be a Badass. I read that book again on vacation. I'm not sure why I do all my reading on vacation. Probably because I just don't have time or I don't think I have time at home? And that's when I started thinking of being more creative. And I shared this story on PMG earlier this year. But I started realizing, like, who said we have to have a house? Like, you know, we're going to live somewhere, but why do we have to have this house? You know? And I was sitting on a lot of equity, so I was really lucky. So we sold our house, and I was able to pay off all my student loans. I had already paid off all my infertility stuff with working all of that time in the hospital, and then we had another 20% down on a downsized home, and that's where it became very addicting to invest. And that's kind of where my mindset changed. This is about. This is right after the last election. So for the last four years, my husband and I have been all about investment and in the weeds of taking every course possible of just learning more of how to prepare our family for the generational wealth that we want to build.

Let me pause you just for a minute. Where do you get an infertility loan? Do you get it from the clinic? Do you go to a bank? Are there organizations set up specifically for that? Do you just put them on credit cards? What's an infertility loan?

So I say loan because I actually borrowed from credit cards. That's what I did. Because at the time, there wasn't really a lot of opportunities. But now they have actually companies. I don't know all of the names of them or anything like that, but they have companies that do infertility loans. I don't know all the terms of it, but I know that they exist specifically for that product, and they usually partner with these organizations that. Not the organizations, but the clinics. So there are a lot more options. But, you know, I remember at one point, and it's so crazy it feels criminal to even say this, but at one point, I owed, like, $92,000 on.

Credit cards, most of it for infertility.

Oh, all of it? Almost. Yeah. I mean, because my husband and I, like, we were, like, eating top ramen popcorn. Like, we had it down to a science. Like, we knew. Like, I was eating at the hospital. Like, residents got food at that time, and I don't know if they do now, but, you know, I did that. And we just tried to live, spending, like, no money. Like, I remember having contests with myself if I can live off of $20 for the week.

That sounds like our budget for medical school.

Hey, I try. You know how they, you know, they tell you, like, live like a resident, right? Live like a student, you know, So I tried. I tried really hard. And I don't really suggest that.

A little too extreme, huh?

It's a little extreme, but, you know, I made it through. But I actually. Where I made the most strides is actually being creative and realizing, you know, I don't have to trade my time for money. And. And that's what started my path in investments.

Sounds like you came into contact with the physician financial blogosphere for lack Of a better word in 2016 or so. In your opinion, how is this blogosphere doing? Serving the needs of women physicians? What are we doing well and what are we doing poorly?

You know, I read your book, and I read, you know, you are a badass, and I started kind of reading different blogs. But, you know what's funny is I don't know if I'm really the most committed blog reader. Like, I'm not like, the kind of person that's, like, you know, I'm gonna sign up for one blog and I'm gonna read every single thing. I kind of just started searching for topics, and I would just kind of surf the web, like, oh, this is really interesting. I don't know what this term means. Let me look it up. And then just go down the path of, like, Wikipedia and a whole bunch of things. So it's not like I just really understand the whole blogosphere so much, but I love that there's variety. And I think what's really exciting for me is blogs really focusing on women, because the issues of the mindset of a lot of women, of getting into financial investments, it's just a little bit more of a barrier when we already still have a wage gap and we have so many other fights to fight. A lot of us are exhausted. So to look into to, you know, investing and kind of break that barrier is, for me, at least, that was a little bit hard. That was challenging for me, but I was excited to do it. And so I think for the blogosphere, I think just having a lot of different opportunities for women to read, especially articles written by women, I don't know, I think that for me, articles that were written by women, I just think I took it a little bit more to heart. Like, I felt like that woman understood me. So I think that just having more diversity in the authorship was really good for me. But I will say that at some point, just knowing that you have to figure out your why and that you're going to take every resource, whether it's a blog or not, to get that knowledge, to get there. So I don't know if that really answers your question.

No, I think it does. I'd like you to explore or explain a little bit more the barriers that you felt, whether real or not. What barriers did you perceive that there were, as you were getting started, that kept you from. From maybe making the jump Initially?

Yeah, I think it was if I wanted to put them in two different categories, I think, personal and professional. I think my personal barriers were, you know, my dad didn't really invest in a lot, you know, So I didn't, I didn't really understand how that worked. Like, I think oftentimes when you're, when you're challenged with something, you start thinking of all the times that you've won at that. Like, if I say, hey, can you drink this glass of water, Jim? And you're like, sure, because you thought about a million times that you drank a glass of water successfully, right? So if it's like, hey, I have a good investment for you, and you're like, oh, crap, like, I have nothing to pull from right now, you know? And when I think back to my previous experiences, which I, you know, until recently have never invested in anything. And then like, look at my dad. I don't really remember him investing anything. My mom was a homemaker, right? And then I'm like, well, crap, what do I do now? You know? And that's scary. That's scary to like, you know, when personally you don't have anybody in your family that's like, walked that path before and you're paving that road, and I mean, it's just a barrier of something new. And then when you live in money scarcity, when you live in that money scarcity mindset of like, oh my gosh, I don't have enough money and I'll never have enough. And when I say that for people who don't understand what I'm saying, think back to when you were a student. And when you were a student, you thought you were poor, and you probably thought you were poor because you made no money because you were paying money to go to school. Then you became a resident and you got paid anywhere between 30 and $50,000. So that's like a lot more money than you were making before. But then you still thought you were poor, right? Because you realize 30 and $50,000 is not a lot of money, right? And then you're like, oh my God, when I get to be an attending, I'm going to be so rich, right? I remember telling my husband when I was about to start residency, he was like, hey, how much does a ER doctor make? And I was like, I don't know. I'm like, I googled it. Because we don't talk about money, right? I googled it.

I find this amazing. I polled students once and doctors and asked them how many of you knew what doctors made when you left medical school. And there was a huge percentage that had no idea what doctors made. It was amazing to me.

Yeah, I mean, I googled it. And Google says emergency medicine doctors at that time made $200,000. And I believed it because my dad, I remember asking him when I was like 8 years old how much he made, and I think it was around $200,000. So I was like, oh, that makes sense. Not really accounting for inflation and all that. So I told my husband, we were out to dinner, and I was like, I think $200,000. And he was like, no, that's so much money. And I was like. And he's like, no, I think you're wrong. I think. I think we need to look it up again, you know? I was like, I don't know. So I had already matched. So anyways, when I was a resident, I thought I was poor. And then I became an attending. And spoiler alert for anyone listening, our doctors make way more than $200,000. Double that if that are more.

Especially if you're working 23 shifts a month.

Yeah, I mean, there's been, you know, there's been years. I've made triple that, you know, so. But it didn't matter what I was making. I still thought I was poor, you know, and so if you have that mindset of scarcity, it does not matter how much money you make at all, you know, And I think that that was the biggest shift for me is dealing with money scarcity mindset. And so, I mean, the personal situations of obstacles was just really mindset issues and not really having anybody to use as an example. The professional mindset of obstacles that I had were, oh, my gosh, if I do this, am I abandoning my career? What about the patients? What about this? What about that? You know? And then I would see my colleagues all investing in real estate and all other stuff at work. You know, they would be talking about it, and I'd be like, oh, well, I only work with men, you know, so I'm like, oh, is this what men do? Is this what men like? Is that what they do? They buy, like, apartment buildings and they do this and that. And I just. I don't know. And they never really included me in the conversation. They were kind of talking amongst themselves. And here I am just listening as I'm charting, you know, professionally. It's just not something that's celebrated. It's like almost like you're a cop out. So I was like, I don't want to be a cop out. I want to be a good doctor, you know? So I think those were like a lot of the mind drama I had. But I got over it really quick.

It Sounds like you did. Now, over 50% of medical students right now are women. What implications do you think that is going to have on the physician workforce over the next 10 to 15 years as they come through the training pipeline?

Yeah, first of all, I think it's going to make the workforce better and more diverse, and I think patients need that. And I'm glad that we're focusing on equality, and that's been a long time in the making. So I'm really glad to see that in my lifetime. Now I think that what people do is that they mistake that equality means equity, and it does not. So even though we'll have 50% of women and men representing the fields of medicine and having some diversity of the workforce, that women at this present day and age, even though we're around 30% of equality in the workforce, we are not getting paid the same. So we're not equal when it comes to our paychecks for the same hours, same service. And I know there's people who will fight me on this, but there is data. It's not something that I'm just making up. And maybe that's for a lot of reasons. One is, you know, as employers hire people, they're trying to hire people for the cheapest that they can. And if they think that women are not going to negotiate or they're going to put a lot of other issues on it, like I've seen employers say, well, you're going to have maternity. It's like, well, why am I going to be punished for that? You know, and everybody should have parental leave. It should be for men and women. Like, I mean, I don't think dads want to be away from their children either. Like, I mean, give everybody the same opportunity, you know. And now, even with same sex couples, I mean, we don't have those traditional roles of, you know, dad, mom. I mean, sometimes it's two dads, sometimes it's two moms. So let's be a little bit more inclusive here. But I think what that's kind of what brings me to my new kind of detour in my career is really focusing on equity of women. And I think that there's a lot of ways to try to fix this. I mean, one way is getting more women into the workforce to make the case for needing equality and equity. But also there's companies out there like Equity Quotient that are doing analysis on companies to find out if they're being equitable. But I think ultimately getting women in leadership positions to help make those decisions right now there's even less women leaders than there are in, in the general population of the workforce. And even when they are in leadership positions, the data tells us they're not in the most decision making leadership situation. So they might be in like the softer leadership roles and just be given a title and not really the actual authority, you know. So what I'm trying to do at this point, not only through pmg, but also through, you know, physician digital services, is work with companies to make them more aware and inclusive of recruiting and retaining women in their products and their services, but also really helping women with coaching, of knowing their worth and whatever they decide to move forward with, you know, and kind of demanding that equity for themselves. And that's how we make change, right? We address the system, but we also elevate the people within that system. And so I don't know how far we'll get in my lifetime, but I'm hoping far enough that when my girls and your kids grow up to make the decision whether they want to be in medicine, this won't be an issue that they're talking about.

Now. Do you think medicine is doing better or worse than other professions?

Well, the data shows us that we're doing the same. The data on lawyer women, on politician women, dentistry, those high powered fields that are all male dominated. The data is all, almost all the same, that we're approaching equality as far as numbers because schools are being really proactive, but the equity is not there. So I think we're doing very similar. And so I partnered with leaders across those industries because I think that we need to do this together. It can't be where we just elevate medicine. It has to be kind of a team approach. So yeah, that's what I'm actually doing now with members of those fields.

Now we've talked a little bit about the gender wage gap, and even when you control for profession, you control for hours, work and experience and everything, a gender pay gap still exists. And that's been attributed mostly to two factors. One is just out and out discrimination. The other big factor seems to be negotiation, that women are less likely to negotiate and negotiate hard. What can be done to encourage them to negotiate harder and avoid any negative consequences that could come from doing so?

Well, one is just knowing that you can always negotiate and knowing that you can renegotiate in the middle of your contract. There's no rules that say that you can't. So I think just knowing that you have that power, you know, and I think when you don't know what your opportunities are. I think you just close your mind off of them, off to them. And then a lot of women, when I do mention this, they go, oh, I don't have money to hire a lawyer. And then we get into that money scarcity. So it's really mindset. Like, we got to fix our mindset first. The other thing too, is avoiding negative consequences. Like, what are the negative consequences that are going to happen? What's the worst that's going to happen? If you try to negotiate, they say no. I mean, then you're back to square one, right? Or what, they fire you? Okay, fine, you know, then you'll get a new job, you'll get a better job. You know, So I think we can't live life being so scared to make change because we're scared that part of growth and change is pain, you know, and sometimes that is what we think is failing or something negative. But it's really growth. So, yeah. So I say be bold and don't be apologetic about it.

I think a lot of women like to be seen as a team player, and they feel like if they're going to negotiate, they won't be seen as a team player as much. Do you think it would be helpful to kind of remember and actually point out the reasons why they're negotiating for more money or more benefits or whatever, so they can give patient care or so they can. Can pay off their student loans, or so they can, you know, more help their family? You think that would help the mindset more?

Well, yeah. I mean, we always want to be team players, but if you're an unhappy team player, then what kind of team player are you? It doesn't really matter. I mean, maybe that's just not the right team. People switch teams all the time. And look at the NFL. Why do people switch teams? Because they're unhappy with their contract. They want a better contract. So why can't you just play your life and your career like you are an NFL player? I mean, that's just what we have to do. And. And, you know, I've been part of a lot of teams that I've grown out of, and I still love my team members and I still communicate with them and I still send them Christmas cards and things like that, but, man, I don't really think that there's one team I have to stay with for the rest of my life.

I think that's a good mindset.

Yeah.

Okay. It looks like pmg starting a blog.

Yeah.

At least will be soon. What are you hoping to accomplish with that and what subjects are you going to cover and who will you accept posts from for that blog?

Yeah, so I'm really excited. So I think for many years, when I look back to posts that I've had for like the last five years, I've said, you know, the mission of this group is to support women professionally, educationally and socially, you know, that are women physicians. But also it's to rebrand what it means to be a doctor to the public. We can't do that if we don't have a public facing website. Like first of all, we can't do.

That in a private group. I agree.

No, we can't do that in a private group. I mean, there's times that we come out publicly. Like we made a holiday, we've come out and we do news, you know, media stuff. But it can't be sporadic. Like you need like some consistent presence, you know, for you to make some changes within the community, you know. And I also think that now a lot of women in the group are getting these questions. I mean, not just now, but for a long time. But it's more aware awareness for me now is that our patients actually care what we have to say. You know, oftentimes when I'm in the ER and I have, you know, a mom with their child, they'll often ask me like, what would you do? You know, you're a mom, do you have kids? I was like, yeah, I have five. What would you do in this situation? Would you glue or would you suture, you know, or what bottle are you going to use, you know, what nipple is the best or whatever, like whatever the question is, right? And now I actually have a little bit more life experience to share that and so do many thousands of women. So why don't we make our presence there? If we're so upset at all these other blogs putting out misinformation, why don't we put about out a blog that promotes information? And the other thing too is that there's a lot of women in the group that are super, super talented, you know, and our group is not really an advertising board. But I want to give space for these women to advertise themselves. So what better than a blog that will have, you know, hopefully tons and tons and tons of, you know, readership. And like I said, you know, I'm all about teamwork. So the more that we can elevate each other in our voices then than the better. And as far as like, you know, who I'm accepting articles from, honestly, it's more of the subject matter. I mean, we have a couple of different categories. And if it's a man that wants to write for a blog, that's fine too. You know, it just has to stay kind of within our scope and our brand. And maybe that answer will change in a year when I have a little bit more blogging experience, because I don't have any, but that's kind of where we're starting from.

Awesome. Well, we better wrap up here, but you've got the year of 30 or 40,000 high income professionals, mostly doctors. Those are the numbers that will eventually listen to this podcast, most in the next month, but we still get lots of listenership after the first month. What have we not covered today that they should know?

The part that I think that I want to double down on right now is more of mindset. I think in medical school and throughout residency, we learn a lot about diagnosis and treatment. It's all very patient focused and not much about our own, what they call wellness. And when we talk about wellness, you know, oftentimes there's a picture of somebody doing yoga or a hike or some kind of vacation, but that's. And that's nice. And I'm all about all of those things, but I think that what really contributed to my wellness is my mindset. And I talked a little bit about scarcity. I talked a little bit about, you know, kind of the thoughts that, the limiting beliefs that we can have and the ones that we can choose to have. And what I really want to challenge everyone today and what we didn't really get into on this podcast is, you know, there is a period of time during this whole process, process of me making pmg that I was really unhappy. I mean, literally a time that I thought I was going to press the delete button on the group because I lived in thoughts of like, victimhood and just sadness, you know, and not really depression. I'm not, not that, but more of like, you know, why am I doing all of this if it's not getting me anywhere? Versus, hey, how can this elevate my situation? How can I get where I need to be? And the honest answer is I didn't even define where I wanted to go. So I think a lot of doctors are like that. Like, once they get out of that funnel of medical school residency, pay off your school loans and they get to that part, then they, the rat race is over. Then they're like, I don't know what to do now. Nobody's told me. So, you know, one of the things that I started doing that kind of helped me on my path is like I started receiving executive coaching and I was shocked. You know, Jim, I don't know if you've covered this in your previous podcast, but a very large percentage, a super majority of executives of successful Fortune 500 companies, they all have executive high performance coaches. And there's a reason for that. People who have mindset are successful with anything that they do, truly. And I think it's such a disservice that physicians don't have access to this or they think that they don't have access to this. So I think now that I've kind of realized that world and now all that I'm creating now because of my mindset, not by chance or by reacting to people or anything like that, but my own mindset and being control of my career, I want other physicians to do that. So if you're listening to this and you've been like, kind of interested of how to kind of get to the next step, you've been stuck on the same goal that you've made for yourself last year, the year before. You find yourself telling the same stories or complaining to your friends about the same, same thing. Whether it's a toxic situation at work or I don't have enough money or only if I had this, I would be happy. Any of those things. Like, please invest in yourself, just like you invested in yourself to get a medical degree. Invest yourself of getting a high performance coach. There's tons of physician coaches out there. There's tons of people who are not physician coaches. I'm coaching. And I think that that's just the best way to get back to the community, is making these physicians even more independent to help them, especially women, pave their path to even be more with a steady foundation for the women that are coming behind us. That's what I'm doing. That's what I dedicated the rest of my career so far to do. And I'm excited about it.

Awesome.

So thanks so much for giving me the platform to say that.

It's great. And actually when this runs, we'll have been talking about coaching a lot on the blog and the podcast in the previous week, so that'll fit right in. I appreciate you sharing that.

Oh, that's fantastic.

Anyway, thank you for your time. Appreciate you being on the podcast. I think this episode will go great.

Thank you so much, Jim.

Bye. Bye.

Bye.

Hope you enjoyed that interview. I sure enjoyed talking with Dr. Sabri. If you are interested in coaching, that's a product line we've been working on developing here at the White Coat Investor. I know the majority of listeners probably aren't going to be interested in that. It's a relatively high ticket item to have a physician life coach. But if you think you might be interested, go ahead and take a look whitecoatinvestor.com coaching and you can learn more about the opportunities available there. Also, we talked a lot about negotiation and if you are interested in having some help with your contract, getting it reviewed, getting it negotiated, you can go to whitecoatinvestor.com contract negotiation and review or just go to the recommended tab@whitecoatinvestor.com lots of resources there to help you. If you're like most doctors, nobody taught you anything about personal finance or investing during your undergrad, professional school or residency. Even though your family and perhaps even your business rely on you to be the Chief Financial Officer, you have never been given the tools to succeed. Enroll in WCI Financial Bootcamp, a free educational email series, and learn to convert your high income to wealth. You will learn the basics of investing, saving, insurance and more. Your high income alone will not lead to financial success, but as always, we want to help you on your financial journey. Go to whitecoatinvestor.com financialbootcamp to sign up today. You can do this and the White Coat Investor can help. Thanks to those of you who have been leaving us five star reviews and telling your friends about the podcast. Our most recent review came in from Lollipop Lover. Lollipop Lover Lulu was the name put on the review said beyond expectations. I've learned a lot from this podcast. I emailed Jim today with a question about Roth. He responded within one hour on a Saturday morning. The answer to my question was already addressed in one of his great blogs. I just need to look harder. Thank you Jim for all you do. Five stars. Thanks for your kind words. I appreciate that. Keep your head up and your shoulders back. You've got this and we can help. Stay safe out there. And we'll see you next week on the White Coat Investor Podcast.

My dad, your host, Dr. Dahl, is a practicing emergency physician, blogger, author and podcaster. He is not a licensed accountant, attorney or financial advisor, so this podcast is for your entertainment and information only and should not be considered official personalized financial advice.