WCI #326: Finances for Doctors With a Terminal Illness

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.

This is White Coat Investor podcast number 326. Finances for doctors with a terminal Diagnosis still not sure what to do with your student loans? Overwhelmed with how to tackle that giant debt in an ever changing political climate, the experts@studentloanadvice.com are here to help guide you through the best options to manage your loans. Our experienced staff have consulted on over $250 million in student loan debt and the average student loanadvice.com client has saved over $190,000. You will receive a customized student loan plan using the principles of the White Coat Investor. Get answers to all of your student loan questions, gain clarity about your financial future, and start down the right path toward financial freedom. Book a consult today@studentloanadvice.com you can do this and the White Coat Investor can help. All right, our quote of the day comes from one of my favorite prior WC icon speakers. Morgan Housel said a big enough bonus can convince even honest, law abiding finance workers selling garbage products that they're doing good for their customers. And that sure is true. It's hard to look past that conflict of interest. Okay, you may not know about this service. We offer this product line, we have, we partnered with Card Ratings. This is a credit card rating company and they have a landing page with filters that allow you to sort through the various card types. If you choose the right card or cards, doctor or other white Coat Investor can maximize their convenience while potentially saving more money on purchases or earning free travel, making it worth the effort to find the right card for your situation. You can find that link@whitecoatinvestor.com Best Credit Cards for Doctors. So you can find that on the website and make sure you have the card that's working best for you. Obviously, if you were carrying a balance on your credit card, you shouldn't have any credit card at all. But this is assuming you're paying it off every month, using it responsibly, and it is actually a convenience card for you, a rewards card for you, et cetera, not a credit card. All right, we're going to get into an interview today. It's kind of an interesting interview. As you may recognize from the title of this podcast. This is not the sort of thing we deal with every day on the White Coat Investor podcast, but I Think it's very interesting. I think it's very eye opening to think about what your life would be like if a huge terrible diagnosis were dropped on you very early in your career. So let's bring our guest on the line and we'll talk more after the interview. Our guest today on the White Coat Investor podcast is Dr. Adam McLaughlin. Did I pronounce that right, Adam?

Yes, sir, you did. That's impressive.

Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, thank you. I'm honored.

We're going to be talking about a lot of sensitive topics today. We talk about money all the time with people, particularly on the Milestones to Millionaire podcast. But we're not only going to be talking about your money, we're also going to be talking about your health today. So it's kind of a little bit of a double whammy. And I want to thank you right at the beginning for being willing to come on and being so accessible and so vulnerable and to be willing to share your experience. That I think will help a number of people out there. I think it will help everybody out there, but I'm sure there are a few people that it's going to help a lot. So let's, let's help people get to know you a little bit. Why don't we start with just talking about, you know, where you're from and you know, your upbringing, your education and your career to this point.

Yeah. So I grew up around the Richmond, Virginia area. Really had a great upbringing, great parents. My dad was a mechanical engineer, my mom worked as a, as a project manager. And so like I said, I grew up in Richmond, Virginia area. I ended up going to Randolph Macon College, which is a Division 3 school, played football there. And you know, my financial background, I would say my parents were good blue collar people. They, they saved into, you know, 401ks, things like that. They didn't do it too much investing. Outside of that, they did retire a little bit early because of how much they saved and paid down debt. So I had a little bit of financial background from them, but not a whole lot. And I decided to pursue a career in medicine and I could not get into a United States medical school. So I continued to apply and apply for a few years and was not able to get in. And so I ended up going to a Caribbean school, Saba University. And so that kind of created a, a chip in my, on my shoulder. But it was, I tell you what, it was the, it was such a blessing from God because that's where I met my wife and we ended up couples matching into Indian University, IU Methodist, that was in Indianapolis and we were there for, for three years in residency and then we, we worked out there west of Indianapolis at, at Ava and Avon, Indiana and we were there for three years.

Very cool. Indianapolis is, is very well known in my field. It's a, it's kind of a big name program for emergency medicine. I went out there and interviewed and I think I ended up ranking them 4th or something on my match list.

So.

Yeah, I wouldn't say I know it well, but I know it a little bit.

Yeah, they're a great, they're a great program out there. Yeah, the ER program, the, the people of the residency met there. They were awesome. So, so still have some friends from that program, which is good.

So what did you guys train in?

So we've trained in family medicine and I actually, it was in the Midwest, so I actually had trained in doing screening colonoscopies as well. So when we got out, I had done, I did outpatient medicine with screening colonoscopies and my wife, she's a, she's the hardest worker I know. She ended up getting, did OB as well. C section trained as well during, during her three year career in residency. And so we dabbled in that. We both did outpatient, she was doing OB and I was doing screening colonoscopy. So we were, we were quite busy. And then I ended up doing kind of a side gig as well for a non narcotic pain management clinic. And we basically just really tried to pay down our loans. We paid, we took probably about half our salary or you took a full salary from residency and started paying down our loans. Even before residency we took a job at a bar, at a golf course at a bar. And all the money that we saved before residency we threw into our loans and then basically 10 months out of residency we had paid close to about $400,000 worth of loans.

Let's go back to how you got the loans. You mentioned that you applied several times. I don't know if she had the same story. That often means there's like a post back, there's some more degrees, there's some more debt, and then I don't know of any Caribbean medical school that's particularly cheap.

Correct.

So tell us about the debts you guys had.

Yeah, correct. I, so I did a, like you just said, I did a PostBAC program at VCU that was in Richmond. I still had a little bit of undergrad loans, but my parents pretty much knocked, knocked those all out. For me. And basically I had. Luckily, SOFI was a huge lender that I had used because I was coming out of medical school. It was, I had about 10, I think 11% was the interest rate on my loan.

And so you couldn't get federal loans or why was it 11%?

Correct, correct. Could not get federal loans, being from a Caribbean school, finally. So if I was able to pick up those loans, I got them down to about, I think it was about around 5%. So I had about, let's see, a little over $300,000 worth worth of loans. My wife was a little bit luckier than I. She had about, only about 60,000, so her family helped her out quite a bit. A little over that. So like I said, we had a little under $400,000 total worth of loans together.

Okay, and you, and you paid them off in how long out of residency?

So it was about 10 months. 10 months out of residency, Correct.

Wow.

Yeah.

What percentage of your income was going toward that?

Quite a bit. I would probably like maybe 70% of it. And you know, we took, we, we got a, you know, our, at Indiana University, we would get a stipend from, from residency every year, which they don't do that anymore. And when we signed on, we got $10,000. In the second year, we got 5030 rescue, we got another 5000. So we just took all that money and we threw it into our loans. We also, when we signed on with the hospital based system, um, they gave us a stipend each month and we took all that money, they spend it and threw it right into the loan. So we were pretty aggressive with it.

Yeah, clearly you were, you were inspired by something to do all this. You mentioned you found the White Coat investor. Before we started recording. You mentioned as a, as an MS.4, I think, was that the impetus or what caused you to do this? I mean, this is very unusual, right?

It was that along with when I realized how much interest I had to pay on my meta, my medical school loans. And it just lit a, lit a fire underneath me. And I was handing out your book left and right to all my residency friends to get into this. And of course, most doctors are not the most financial savvy, so I was trying to preach it to them.

Oh, you noticed, did you?

Yeah, just a little bit.

All right, well, you know, that would make for an excellent Milestones to Millionaire episode. But you're not on the Milestones to Millionaire podcast. You're on the regular White Coat Investor podcast. And the reason why is because something else happened to you in your life. You want to tell us about what happened to you a year or two ago?

Absolutely, yes sir. So first and foremost I want to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He's been a blessing to me in this actual diagnosis that I'm about to talk about is actually just an absolute blessing as well. My wife has been a rock in, in this and, and I wouldn't be anything, you know, I wouldn't be here without her. So she's the hardest working person I know and, but basically what had happened is I actually had identical twin boys. This was September 2020. We were working as a hospital based system. My wife, she ended up having preeclampsia. She delivered, I think it was about 32 weeks. So the boys did fine. They're great, they're healthy, we're so blessed. And about a year later, after that, in about September 2021, I was starting to have some, some pain throughout my body. I played four years of college football. I get up every single day, five o', clock, I exercise and I was doing some heavy weightlifting here and there. So I was starting to have scapula pain, lower back pain, hip pain, shoulder pain. Like I said, I had worked for a, a side gig with actually a chiropractor, non narcotic pain management clinic. I would see car accident victims and I was having this left shoulder pain. I had actually both my labrums are repaired from college football. So I thought maybe it was just, I just had injured it and tried to do some, some home physical therapy. Just wasn't getting any better. So decided to get an X ray at the chiropractor's office where I worked at. And I saw the left shoulder look great. But obviously the kind of the upper left part of my lung was all whited out. So I wasn't quite sure what that, what was going on. And when I kind of thought back to it, you know, I was starting to have a lot of fatigue, right you know, after, after work. But listen, I was working full time, I was working a second job and we were, I was raising two twin boys. So I was like, this is, this is normal. But it got to the point where, you know, I would get on the floor after playing with the boys and it would just, it took every strength of me just to kind of get up. So I started to think maybe something's going on. So like I said, luckily working for a hospital based system, I was able to get in contact with a pulmonologist right away. I ended up Getting an X ray right after that, that shoulder X ray which showed a, a huge mass in my right upper lobe of my lung. And after doing some more testing, I had lymph node biopsies, MRI of the brain, PET scan, all that good stuff. I basically found out that I had stage four adenocarcinoma of the lung and it had as a EGFR mutation, which is, this is a huge blessing, actually. I had found that mutation out when my wife and I were interviewing for a private practice job in Virginia that we're currently doing right now. So during the interview process, I found out that I had the mutation, which was, which was a blessing. And so the, the cancer had spread, had about nine tumors in the brain. I had lesions all up and down my spine, my scapula, my rib, my, my thyroid, kind of all over. Luckily, like I said, I have the EGFR mutation. And I, so far I have been taking just a daily pill, $17,000 a month medication that I take daily. It's not a, it's just a, it's a basic kind of like a receptor type blocker medication. And have not had to go under any type of chemo or radiation. They do what they did want to do gamma knife radiation on my brain. I didn't want to do that at that time. I'm glad I had not. And so I've been taking this medication day in and day out. I have not had a single side effect from this medication. My diet is very, very rigorous. I am on a ketogenic diet. I do quite a few things outside of probably traditional medication. I do cold therapy and ice plunges and, and ice baths and saunas, and I do 24 hour intermittent fasting. So I do quite a, quite a bit, quite a bit of things. I'm upset. I'm up every single day, five o' clock in prayer and scripture and also exercising every single day and preaching this to my patients. You know, as a doctor, you know, we're not always on the other side of the, of the chair talking with a patient. And so it's really opened my eyes and it's helped, really helped me be a better physician and more compassionate physician as well too.

All right, so let me interrupt you for just a minute. I mean, you're at this time, you're what, 33, 34 years old?

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

And you get told you have lung cancer.

Yes, sir.

You know, I mean lung cancer. You're supposed to get this when you're 70 and you've had emphysema for 15 years, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Never been a smoker? Yep.

Never been a smoker. I mean, do you have some sort of asbestos risk factor, some sort of reason to have this lung cancer?

No.

That can make the rest of us somehow feel comfortable that this can't happen to us.

I know, I know. No, not a single risk factor. I've never been on any medications. My labs have all been stable. In fact, when they got labs on me, everything was stone cold. They couldn't figure out what it was.

Your shoulder hurt. You go in and you have metastatic lung cancer at 30, you know, early 30s, mid-30s. How did you feel when you got the diagnosis?

To be honest with you, not once have I felt afraid or. Or anxious or, you know, scared or angry or anything like that. I was just. I was ready to fight. And I knew. I knew that God put this on me, and it was now my responsibility to start professing his name and to start reaching out to patients and being a patient advocate. I just felt like this was always in the cards for me. And doing podcasts like this and getting my story out there and helping people, that's the biggest thing. And I know my road is not done yet. I've got a lot more things that God still wants me to do.

Now you are a doctor and you've got cancer. So if you're like most of us that get cancer, you've become an expert in your cancer.

Correct.

What's the expectation of most people that get this cancer? I mean, is this something where the average life expectancy is a year or five years, or lots of people beat it, or what's the expectation?

Yeah, definitely expectation is less than a year. But these new medications that they keep coming up with and the diet plan, I think that's a big issue sometimes I have with. I think oncologists are fantastic. They are special people. But I think sometimes we need to focus on not just the disease, but the whole person. And I think that incorporating not just traditional medicine, like what I'm taking, but also incorporating that with the right foods in your diet. Anti cancer fighting foods, anti inflammatory foods, like I said, exercise, getting good sleep, which is huge. And then relationships. I think cancer is a mind thing. If you let it take over your mind, it's going to destroy you. I think we, as physicians, we counsel on diet and exercise, but we don't counsel enough on relationships. Relationships. The deep relationships you have with people decreases the stress. I mean, just look at what Covid has done with all people who were just secluded in their homes, and they were lonely. Loneliness and not having relationships with people, that's worse than smoking, that's worse than obesity, that's worse than diabetes. That will kill you. And so I think the relationships that you build with family members, with patients, that is huge. And I think that's what's really been keeping my cancer at bay.

You know, it's interesting you mention that I have a family member who died with pancreatic cancer. I have a hard time saying this family member died of pancreatic cancer because the tumor was invisible on a scan just a month or two before death. And it just kind of felt like the family member kind of gave up. And so I think there is a lot to mindset for sure. Absolutely. In treating anything like this. But at some point, relatively early on, you realized you'd been given a terminal diagnosis. Now none of us get out of this life alive, of course, and you clearly, being a religious person, have a very eternal perspective on life. But, you know, what went through your mind when you realized your time was maybe more limited than the average, you know, person in their mid-30s? What priorities did you think about? What was your thought process with what you wanted to do with the rest of your life?

Yeah. Yeah. So multiple things went in, and one of. One of the big things, and I think that's why I know the reason why I'm on this podcast is, you know, my finances came in. It was a big. Was a big priority for me. I wanted to make sure that, you know, my kids were well off. I've always wanted to create generational wealth. And like I said, I am blessed that my wife works as a physician. So we had. So we had dual income. So I'd say one of the, you know, the two things that really popped in my head was that my family is financially secure and that I have the time with my family as much as I can, creating that balance of not working too much, but working. Working enough to create a little bit of wealth for them, but still spending as much time as I could with them, putting the phones down, being with my boys, staying away from the media, then all that stuff, and just it. Just being in the now and creating, like I talked about that deep relationship not just with my. My wife, but also with my boys. I mean, they. They. I think there's this statistic that, you know, you have about 80% of the time that your. Your kids are in their home or is between when they're born until they're 18 years old, and after that, you know, you don't see them as much. And so it's. It is crucial to kind of be with them and teach them as much as you can. And I wanted to teach my kids about finances. And so I've been constantly journaling and writing things, and I have a stack of books of financial years is one of them that I want them to read when. When they get older, if, If. If I'm not here.

So the financial perspective, what else? I mean, did you create a bucket list or anything like that?

I don't think I created necessarily a bucket list because I didn't let my mind get to that point. I knew that I was going to be here for the long run. I just felt it just lit a fire under my butt to be healthier and to keep my mind in the now and just keep that stress level, those cortisol levels as low as I could by kind of all the things that I talked about.

And I assume you're getting periodic scans from time to time. And how are things going? Is it progressing? Is it getting better? Is it pretty stable? How's the cancer doing?

Yeah, God is good. I get scans every three months. I typically get a brain mri and then I get a CT scan of the chest and I get lab work done. My oncologist is over at UVA right now. And so, like I said, I do that every three months. I just had a scan right before my birthday in June, end of June, and everything is stable. Looks good. There's. There's no brain lesions that are seen. I still have. The mass in my chest is mostly kind of. Kind of scar tissue right now. And the sclerotic lesions in my bones are continuing, Continuing to heal. Luckily, I was able to convince my oncologist to lengthen these scans instead. Every three to every four months, decrease a little bit of radiation that I get exposed to in my body. So right now, yeah, and I'm working with. Right now I'm in talks with. It's called the EGFR Resistors. It's a lung cancer foundation that I'm looking to get on the board and start being a patient advocate and stuff like that. So things are slowly going in the right direction.

I think you better explain EGFR for the rest of us. I'm not sure most of the people listening to this podcast actually know what you're talking about when you talk about that. When I think about gfr, I think about glomerular filtration rates. Yeah, yeah. Tell us what you're talking about with that. Is that a Particularly good. It sounds like it's a particularly good protein to have on your, on your cancer or something that makes it a little bit easier to fight or tell us what it is.

Yeah, so it's basically epithelial growth factor receptor. And so basically what this is is it's a mutation that is found on the cancer gene. And so there are a number of, of mutations and some people may have had it. There's, there's egfr, there's ALK mutations, and so these mutations. And specifically lung cancer, if you're going to have it, you want to have a mutation because they have developed these medications that can basically target these mutations on the cancer gene and prevent them from replicating. So people that tend to have lung cancers that do not have this mutation, it becomes very difficult to fight. And that's why a lot of times they start with chemo and radiation and blasting you at all sorts because they do not have this specific way that the cancer is working and replicating. Like I said, it is a blessing that I have this mutation. I'm on a medication called Tagrisso that targets this mutation. I believe it's either, I think it's a third generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Over the years they've started to develop more of these tyrosine kinase inhibitors and they're working better and better each time. They're having less side effects as well, which is good. And also they're coming out with other medications that immunotherapy type medications. You've heard of Keytruda and things like that. And then of course the last ditch effort is basically chemo and radiation and things like that. And so just talking with EGFR receptors, EGFR resistors, they are continuing a lot of research into newer medications. Lung cancer tends not to be the cancer that has the most funding. You see more for things like breast cancer. And I think the reason why you see this is that like you said in the beginning, typically with people with lung cancer, you typically get people who are mostly in their kind of 60s and 70s who are getting that. And most of the funding is coming from the patients.

And sometimes I'll bet people feel, oh, they did this to themselves right there. They've been smoking for 50 years.

So you get that, then you get that stigma as well.

That probably doesn't help funding.

Correct? Correct.

$17,000 a month. That's what your medication costs. How much does insurance pay?

So like I said, God is good. Insurance pay. I don't pay a dime for it right now. And so I'm working with AstraZeneca, which is the, which is the drug company. And so I basically have to reach my max out of pocket, which I do pretty much after two months with all the scans and medications that I'm on. And so I just, basically my wife and I have separate HSA accounts. And so I, I just use my HSA account to pay, pay for these scans and, and, and what's left over. Usually the, the medication is paid up till about, about nine or 10 months throughout the year and then I have to come up with the rest of the cost. But again, like I said, with a high deductible plan, my max out of pocket is about 4, 500. So I pay $4,500 every single year. So not too bad.

How would you feel about taking that medication if you had to come up with the cash for it yourself?

That would be, that would be difficult. I would have to be, I would think of a lot of different investing, different investing ideas. Like I said, we're, and we can get into it as well. But yeah, I have, you know, I, we're getting into, I have quite a bit of, or a little bit of real estate, active real estate investing that I do. If I had to pay $17,000 for that drug, I'd have to, I'd have to do something probably in real estate. Come up with something.

Yeah, yeah. It's an interesting dilemma. I'm glad you don't have to face it. I'm sure there are people out there who do and you know, difficult decisions like do I start taking out home equity loans and leave my family worse off after I'm gone? You know, that sort of a dilemma. I'm glad you don't have to face that. Good job getting health insurance. Did you also, did you also get life and disability insurance?

So yeah, that's, so that, that's an interesting topic. So, you know, I, with my wife and I both being a dual income position, we always had life insurance and disability through our, through our jobs. It wasn't a lot though. And so we always were a little risky. And in fact I had a financial advisor who I just recently fired a few months ago, but at that financial advisor had told me, you know, maybe you should think about possibly disability life insurance. You know, I know that you guys are both dual income physicians, so it's kind of, it's kind of up to you. And so like I said, outside of our jobs, we did not have any other type of life insurance or disability. My new private practice, I get a little bit better life insurance and disability. And in fact I pay a few dollars a month for an extra $100,000 on my life insurance policy that no questions asked. But this is, this is my thoughts on it. You know, like I said, these are kind of, these disabilities, I feel like, are almost kind of a bridge. And we're getting to the point that our finances, it's got a lot of momentum going right now and we're close, I feel like we're closer than we think to financial independence. And maybe in a couple years from now I wouldn't even, I would probably have canceled my, my life insurance anyways. And so that's, that's kind of the way that I think about it. Obviously, if I could go back, would I obviously get more life insurance, disability? Absolutely. But I'm not going to worry about the past. And I think that also kind of lit a fire under my butt even more to save more and invest more. And so I don't, I don't need those, those type of policies. But I do think there is a time and a place for them now.

This is a very reasonable decision that lots of dual income dual doc couples make. They decide each other are going to be their life and disability policy. They figured the family can live on just one physician income. So this is not an uncommon decision. I'm curious, you know, obviously knowing that you got this, you'd buy more. But I'm curious what your advice would be to just a regular dual income physician family that was thinking about making the same decision you made. Do you think it was a bad decision or do you think you just got unlucky?

I don't think it was a bad decision. I think it all depends on what type of dual physician income you're talking about. I think if it's a dual physician income that are not saving, we probably save realistically probably 50 to 60% of all of our income. And I think if you have a dual physician income that is maybe only saving 10% or something like that, then it's going to take them longer to reach financial independence, meaning they're going to have to work longer. And so then at that point I would say then yeah, you'd probably need some disability insurance, life insurance, things like that. But I think it's a conversation between you and your spouse. If you guys aggressively save and you're both positions, then it's a conversation you guys have and come up with. But I think everybody's situation's a little bit different. Like I said, I still don't regret it. I don't. I think that's, that just puts bad thoughts in my head. And so I think if anything, it, like I said, it was a, it was a blessing because it kind of fired me up even more. Blessing in disguise.

Yeah. Now, clearly financial independence and early financial independence is really important for you. It sounds like it was important before you had your diagnosis. Is that correct? What was your career plan, your financial independence plan before you were diagnosed?

Yeah, I had, it was, I think it was similar. It just wasn't as. I wasn't as passionate about it. I love being a primary care doctor. I love the relationships with my patients. The one thing that I don't like seeing where medicine is going is I think a lot of physicians are becoming burned out. And I can see, especially in the primary care world where they want us to see 30 plus patients. And I just don't feel like I can deliver that great a care with 15 minute appointments. I would love, I would love to have an hour appointment with a patient and talking about the most important thing, not medications, it's, you know, diet and exercise and sleep and relationships and stuff like that. Because that, that overall I think would create a healthier population in our country. But you know, there are too many patients in this world, in this country, and there's not enough doctors. So I, so I understand where I'm at, but at the same time, I don't, I don't want to get burned out. And I think one of the best things you can do by not getting burned out is decreasing your time in the office. Like I said, I'm blessed right now. I picked a great career. I work four days a week. My call is just phone call. I work four weekends a year, on a Saturday half morning urgent care clinic for our practice. So listen, I am probably the most, the most blessed physician in this country. And so there's a lot more physicians that are working 10 times harder than me and they're burned out. And so it's a real thing. And so that has kind of the burnout issue as well as having the big, and the biggest thing is having more time for, for my kids. You know, I, at some point I would love to be in your, your, your position and being able to vacation multiple times and, and, and that's, and that's my thing. You know, I, I want to, I want to raise, I want to be there for my kids and I want to raise them and I want to first and foremost teach them, to, teach them to, to continue to Be Christ like people. And to also to give. You know, that's. That's the other biggest thing with kind of the fat fire movement is that I find more joy when I'm able to. When I'm going to give back. And not just. Not just money, but also time as well, too. I mean, my goal is to being able to open free clinics and doing mission trips and doing this all on all of my own dime. So that's what really. And what happens with that? Well, you decrease stress and you find more joy in your life, and you're keeping that cancer at bay, and you're showing the kids what it is to. To be a good human being and give back to this country.

How did the diagnosis change your professional goals?

You mean like practicing wise?

Yeah, like what you want to accomplish with your career. Maybe it didn't. Maybe it didn't change it at all. But I imagine, you know, that sort of, you know, news being given to you and processing that over a few years and wondering if maybe your life expectancy is not going to be as long as you thought it would be. How did that change what you wanted to do with your career?

Yeah, honestly, I think it brought me closer to my patients. I think I was getting to the point where I was just almost just trying to churn through as many patients and trying to make as much money, and that didn't matter to me anymore. There's more of connecting with my patients and bringing my story to light. And there's been countless times I've sat across a patient and we have cried and I have prayed with them. And that is truly what has sparked my passion of being a physician. And that's why we became physicians. And so I definitely think it really energized me overall just to connect better with my patients and providing better patient care and take the time with my patients. It's amazing. You feel like you don't have much time, but I think God just creates more time. You know, when you sit there and you have a deep, intimate relationship and conversation with your patient, it goes a long way and. Yeah. Am I exhausted at the end of the day? Yeah, but you are so satisfied, and it makes going to work worth it every day.

Help us understand a little bit your wife's perspective. It'd be interesting and fun to be interviewing her at this same time and get her thoughts on, you know, her career and your career and what you've been doing with your finances. Give us some insight into how she's been thinking and feeling about. About all of this.

I tell you what, she is the most amazing person I know. I'll just get choked up talking about her. But I think, I think what happens is that people don't understand that the, that the spouse or the partner who doesn't have cancer, that that's the one that they have the harder position, they have the harder role. And the reason why is because they don't know what the other one is going through. They don't know when that, that person is having pain or, you know, a lot of stress in their life or what is going through their mind on an everyday basis. She's not in those, she wasn't in the, you know, when I had a bronchoscopy and when I had my lymph node biopsies and I go to my scans every three months. Does she come with me? Absolutely. Every single time. But she's not sitting there in that, in that scan with me. And so they don't know what's going through your head. And so I think that, that the spouse has it 10 times harder. And I don't, I think God gave it to me and not to her because I don't think I could be in her role. We could not, we could not switch roles at all. And I think we work amazing as a couple when it comes to finances. I think there are too many couples in this country that don't even talk about finances. They have separate bank accounts. And I think, you know, when you, when you become married, you, you are one, you are one person. And so we talk about finances daily. I am more of kind of the, the investor in the day to day stuff, or I should say more of kind of the, the long term stuff. And she is, she enforces it, she is the saver. So like I said, we work very well together. I like to probably spend a little bit too much and she likes to save. And so she. Obviously we have a budget and all that stuff that we go over weekly and so, so yeah, we work, we work very well together. Like I said, I am blessed to have to have found her. And so, yeah, I think that it also can be difficult too. I think money is one of the most common causes of divorce. So do we get in arguments about that? Yeah, that's part of life, but it's how you reconcile it. And I think, like I said, we work very, very well together as a financial couple.

So tell us a little bit about your finances and what you're doing to reach this, you know, early financial independence. Obviously you have a very High savings rate. Obviously you guys are working hard and earning well. What are you doing with the money?

Yeah, so, you know, we have regular, regular employee, four 1ks. We did some side gigs and we have some solo. We have. So each have a solo 401k. We actually had gotten a bonus from our. From our current private practice employer from the hospital actually gave us the bonus. So we just took 20% of that and put that into. Because we're paid as a 1099 employee. So we took that and put in a solo 401k. We have 457Bs that we had with our hospital employee in Indiana. And of course we had HSAs and our 529s for both of our boys. Virginia has, okay, 529 plan for tax benefits and we have UTMA accounts for both of them. And then also we have a taxable account. Each month we throw money into a taxable account. Like I said, we each have our W2 jobs, but we each do telemedicine on the side for a side gig. Like I said, we get paid as a 1099 employee for that. So we actually, we put money away in a, in a money market fund where our emergency fund is at. We add to that a little bit each month so that we can make sure we have enough to pay taxes the next year. And also putting about 20% of our income from our 10 and 9, 1099 into a solo 401k and the taxable account that we were pretty aggressive. I don't. I think there's a time and a place for bonds. I'm more of. I like ETFs. And so majority of our taxable account is in BTI that we put every single month and, and we put money into our, into our mortgage to pay down the house a little bit more. And then we have. I also have a side real estate business as well. So we own three single family section 8 homes, which we love because all of them are basically the single family. Single single moms with multiple kids. And we're kind of able to give back to them. And then whenever they need a help at hand for something, whether it's a new dishwasher or something like that, we can kind of help out with that. It also gives us really good income. And then we also have two quad plexes in Indiana as well that we run out to college kids. So we have property managers running those. Obviously, since we're, since we live in Virginia, the two quadplexes, we were actually two first purchased properties actually Took the semi retired MD course that I, that you guys had advertised and that, that, that had really helped us out because I always wanted to get into real estate but I was in that kind of analysis paralysis stage. And so we ended up financing the two quadplexes that I've been doing well and then the three single family section eight homes we actually purchased with cash. And so my goal from the real estate is to kind of accumulate enough cash flow to kind of supplement our income so I can start cutting down on work and doing some other things for the community. So you know, our goal is to hopefully purchase another long term property. You know, we haven't gotten to the medium term or the short term rentals but the long term has been good for us. I think the reason why is because you know, owning real estate, nothing, nothing's, nothing's passive about real estate so you definitely have to put, to put the work in. But we do like these kind of single family long term, especially the section eights and goal is to continue to purchase more and more of those and purchase another one this year and maybe a couple next year and just continue to, to let that grow. All the real estate income that we have, we never touch, we throw it right back into, into our fund and we continue to continue to let that grow.

You know, I mean it's pretty remarkable. You're 35 years old, you already have 11 doors under management in addition to subst retirement account index fund style investments as well. And yet you're pretty hard nose to the grindstone here. I mean you're working hard, talking about hey, I'd like to cut back later in the future, I'd like to do some other things. And yet you're sitting there with what most people would consider a terminal diagnosis. At what point do you say now's the time to cut back? You're saving 50% of your income, you've got 11 doors under management.

Yeah, I love it. And I think that's what keeps me energized is I do like the financial aspect and you know, I have a wonderful job where I can help patients and cure patients and also make great money and also try to help people out in the real estate world as well. So yeah, I think if I became a physician I'd definitely probably get into the finance world or financial advisor. So um, but yeah, I think that also me keeping busy and staying healthy and being on a regimen, that's also what keeps my, my, my cancer at bay. I just, I get energized, I can I can beat this cancer. I have no doubt in my mind. I think it's the same thing as a chip on my shoulder. And when I went to the Caribbean school and not a United States medical school wouldn't take me, you know, I'll outwork anybody that I know, so it just pumps me up. Yeah.

Very cool. Well, our time has gotten a little bit short, Adam, but I want to give you a chance. You know, 30 or 40,000 people are going to listen to this. By the time all is said and done, I'm sure you'll hear from a few of your med school and residency classmates about it. But you've got a chance here. You've got a lot of people's ears. What's one thing we haven't talked about today that you think they ought to know?

Yeah, and I would say everybody is. May not be religious, but I think that one of the biggest things that gets me through the day, I would say, is, is prayer and scripture. Developing that relationship with God is something that decreases stress and anxiety. We have too much stress and anxiety and depression in this world. I see it every other visit in my office. And, and the good, the good Lord is there, is there for you. And, you know, it's amazing the thousands of Bible verses on anxiety that people need to refer to. And like I said, you know, this is something that we still talked about, but I, I do think it's a big thing, is. Is mindset. I think when you have that relationship with God, that, that, that might, that that transfers over to the relationship with your, with your wife or your husband, and that translates over to your relationship with your kids and your co workers and developing that strong mindset, you know, I think goes into fighting off diseases and things like cancers and even, and even your financial, your financial situation. I mean, there's. Look at the Bible. There's. There's over 2300 different verses on finances in the Bible. God wants you to be financially independent. He does. He wants you to be able to. To use. Use your knowledge and your finances to give back. Give back to people and preach the word.

So very cool. Well, Dr. Adam McLaughlin, thank you so much for coming on the White Coat Investor podcast and sharing your life and your story. And hopefully we can use it to inspire others, particularly those who may have been given a cancer or other serious diagnosis, to live life to the fullest and to maximize their finances in a way that will allow them to maximize their. And, and the lives of those around them. So thank you so much for your time.

Yeah, thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Thank you guys for all that you do, too. You're amazing. Your entire team and you guys have been a blessing. I appreciate it.

All right. I hope you enjoyed that interview as much as Megan and I did. You know, if you want to get ahold of Adam, he has offered to talk to you if you're in a similar situation or just need someone to talk to. His email address be in the show notes as well. But he's more than willing to talk to you and help you through your perspective and share what's worked for him. So if that podcast really resonated with you, reach out to Adam and he.

Will be there for you.

All right. That's a tough subject. I don't know what I would do. I've never been in a situation like that. My family has, thankfully to this point, been very blessed with pretty darn good health. But that would be tough to decide how you want to live your financial life. If you don't have a full financial life, do you keep living just like you have been and see, you know, if you can't have a pretty normal financial life, do you make changes immediately? Do you quit work immediately? Do you go out on disability? Do you start working down your bucket list? You know, what do you want to do if you're in that situation? I think it's worth it. Even if you're in perfect health, at least sit back today. Spend a little time thinking about how your life would be different if you were given a diagnosis where the average person with it lives for a year. Don't forget about that card Ratings partnership we had. You can find that@whitecoatinvestor.com best credit cards, four doctors and make sure you have the right card. I mean, if you're going to be spending the money anyway, you might as well be getting 2 or 3 or 5% cash back instead of 1% cash back. If you're into travel, you may benefit from one that gives you more either cash or points for travel. It'll be worth the effort. Make sure you're using the right card for your situation. Is it a small thing? Is it going to make you financially independent to have the right card?

No.

Does it get lots of people in trouble if they're putting money on cards and not paying it off every month? Absolutely. But it's worth taking a little bit of time to optimize even that spending portion of your financial life. Still not sure what to do with your student loans? Overwhelmed with how to tackle that giant debt in an ever changing political climate. The experts@studentloanadvice.com are here to help guide you through the best options to manage your loans. Our experienced staff have consulted on over $250 million in student loan debt and the average studentloana advice.com client has saved over $190,000. You will receive a customized student loan plan using the principles of the White Coat Investor. Get answers to all of your student loan questions, gain clarity about your financial future, and start down the right path toward financial freedom. Book a consult today@studentloanadvice.com you can do this and the White Coat Investor can help. Thanks for those of you who've been leaving us five star reviews and telling your friends about the podcast, it does help to spread the word about this important financial information. We had a review from pedssv who said FMG, thanks to Dr. Dali and his work, I've been able to understand the ways for financial independence and overall wellness. Thank you for your work. Five stars and we do it's tough coming from another country. It's tough coming from another country and understanding the US Financial system. It's tough even if you grow up here. And so we're happy to provide that service for FMGs as well as IMGs like Dr. McLaughlin and heck, any other doctor who goes to any MD, DO DDS, DMD, or even non doctors. As we know, 95% of this stuff is the same for all of us. 4% of it's probably specific to hype earners and maybe 1% is specific to doctors. Keep your head up and your shoulders back. You can do this. We can help. We'll see you next time on the White Coat Investor Podcast.

The hosts of the White Coat Investor are not licensed accountants, attorneys or financial advisors. This podcast is for your entertainment and information only. It should not be considered professional or personalized financial advice. You should consult the appropriate professional for specific advice relating to your situation.