#156 How I Became an Anesthesiologist by Day and Chef / Restaurant Owner by Night

Hey, everyone, hope you've had another great week. This week I'm bringing to you another awesome interview with an exceptional physician. His name is Dr. Thomas Lowe. He's an anesthesiologist by day and a chef by night. He's not only a chef, he actually owns restaurants. He's an entrepreneur. So how does he do all of this together and how does he balance his interests and his passions to really create that ideal life for himself? I know you're going to enjoy this episode, so stay tuned. Thanks. Welcome to the Passive Income MD podc, where we talk about creating your ideal life through multiple streams of income. I'm your host, Peter Kim. If you enjoy hearing about this stuff, make sure to hit subscribe so I can bring it to you every week. Now let's get on with the show.

Hey everyone.

I'm now really excited to talk to our next speaker. This is Dr. Thomas Lowe. He aka known as Dr. Chef Flow. He's a board certified anesthesiologist. He's a chef, he's a CEO, he's an entrepreneur. He does it all. He's the owner and culinary director of Spicy or Spicy It Looks like Cuisine restaurant in Forest Hills, New York. This restaurant, Spicy Cuisine, has quickly gained critical accolades from the New York Times, received its first Michelin Bib Gourmand in 2020. We could talk about all these things. I'm a big foodie, so this is exciting interview for me. As a chef physician, he's able to educate his customers, patients, and fellow colleagues on the medicinal aspects of just really fine cuisine. And we're going to get into all of these things. This should be a fun interview. Thomas, how you doing?

Good. How are you, Peter?

Oh, doing great.

Thanks so much for having me.

Yeah, I look forward to talking to you because it's such a cool story. It's somebody who, again, it doesn't fit within the normal physician story. And I think that's what this summit is all about. Before we get to kind of talking about your backstory a little bit, hopefully I did it justice. But do you mind telling people, like right now, what is this business you're part of in terms of your restaurant? Tell me a little bit about spicy cuisine and what that's all about.

Sure. You know, so I'm a doctor by day, chef by night. And so I, you know, during the daytime I run my anesthesia practice, but at night I run actually two restaurants now. Spice Sea Cuisine, that was our first restaurant in Queens. And actually just recently, like within the last month or two we actually just opened up a brand new restaurant in Manhattan. It's called Chi, which Chi means chess in Chinese. And so that's our larger restaurant. And so, you know, I basically shuttled between the two. I don't get much sleep. But no, basically, you know, those are my two passions in life. You know, practicing medicine, anesthesia and, and cooking and food and the hospitality industry. So it's, it's, it's a lot of fun. I don't sleep too much, but keeps me busy for sure.

Well, let's, let's talk about it a little bit. So when you're in medical school and I know friends of people who are friends of yours went to medical school with you, was that always, you know, a focus of yours? Do you think that you were going to do both things or were you just focused on medicine?

Yeah, it's interesting. I. So when I graduated college, I was pre med, I was a molecular bio major, got into med school, and I was about to start, and I had always wanted to be a chef. I had always wanted to be go to cooking school. It was a dream of mine. And you know, I was like, you know what, let me take, let me defer a year, let me go move to New York, go to cooking school. And I was like, so excited. My parents, not that excited as you can imagine. You know, I'm Chinese and you know, growing up in a, you know, pretty typical American, Chinese American household, you know, they were so happy when I got into med school. And when I told them I'm going to take a little detour, they were kind of, you know, little iffy about that. But for me, you know, it was incredible. So I actually, you know, moved to New York, went to the French Coloring Institute, worked at a bunch of different restaurants, you know, did that whole thing at some point, eventually went back to medicine. So it's just kind of this whole, you know, roundabout, you know, 360. When I decided to go back to medicine, my parents were like so relieved. Even when I was in med school, cooking was still a very big part of my life. And I actually, on Sundays I would actually go cook at the restaurant where my mentor was the chef at on the Upper west side in Manhattan. I would cook brunch on Sundays because Sundays were the only days I wasn't like studying or going to school. And Sundays were like the only days that the cooks didn't want to work. So for me it was perfect because that was like my outlet. And I did these tasting menus at med school, like these five course dessert tastings paired with wine. And so for the last 22 years, I've been kind of shuffling back and forth between medicine and cooking and cooking and the restaurants and medicine. And now since I finished residency and as an attending for the last 10 years, I'm actually able to do both now.

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Sure. So what's interesting is, yeah, during med school it was tough because, you know, we had a blocks of exams where it's like, you know, you had like three, four exams in like three days, back to back, you know, patho anatomy lab, really hard and all my classmates were brilliant students, and so it was hard. But then I was drawn to all these other activities, like cooking events. And my friends, chef friends would call me up like, hey, I got this event with Morimoto. Do you want to come? Blah, blah, blah. So I would try to do those events and then try and balance that with. School was really hard. And I remember, like, one period, like, I didn't do too well on my exams because I was busy, like, cooking and eating and enjoying, you know, the whole hospitality aspect. And so I had to kind of the next quarter, basically slow down on the cooking and eating and focus on the school and kind of go back and forth during residency. Yeah, I had to slow down. You know, we had a lot of call. We were doing 24 hour shifts, doing a lot of liver transplants, you know, heart transplants. So I kind of slowed down on the cooking aspect. But then when I finished residency, I had a little more time, less call, where I could kind of go explore, you know, the different restaurants and kind of build that aspect of my hospitality business.

I mean, did you think at that point, all right, well, now I'm going to be even more involved in your restaurant business and on the chef side, in terms of, like, it sounds like, obviously you're running these businesses now, you're running these restaurants like that. That's a pretty big leap from just like, helping somebody to cook on the weekends. Like, how did that shift in transition happen?

Yeah, you know, I guess over the course of 22 years, you know, you meet a lot of people in the hospitality industry. The. The chefs, the managers, you know, just the. You built this huge network. And as I was, you know, as I finished residency, I was getting more involved, and it wasn't just, you know, cooking on the weekends. And. And I found myself, you know, just spending hours and hours and. And it was, like. It wasn't work. It was, like, fun. This was, you know, I. I loved, you know, taking care of my patients. And then I would come home, I would think about menus, think about, you know, more business ideas. And I kind of slowly just kept getting my hands, you know, involved until it was like, you know what. Why? This has been literally a dream of mine since I was, like, 7 years old. Why not do it? Like. Like, why not just do it? And that was it. You know, once you. Once you set your mind to doing something, that you go for it and you see if you can do it, and once you kind of, you know, let go of all those boundaries and have no ceiling, you know, you can, you can accomplish a lot. You can for sure.

I mean, that's awesome, man. I know a lot of people, especially their medicine, they've given up a lot of their passions maybe along the way that there were other things that they were interested in and they feel like maybe, you know, now that they are working in medicine, they maybe not have the time or the ability to kind of focus on those things. Like, how are you able to do both? I think that's the big question for people. How are you able to still do well and be successful in medicine and then also be successful in here, be able to balance all those things? I mean, you mentioned not having sleep, but what else?

Yeah, it's, it's really interesting. It's, it's not easy by, by any means. You know, I'm not saying like, oh yeah, you can do, you know, it's, it's super simple. No, it definitely requires a lot of time management. Like you said, balance. So, you know, what's interesting is, you know, life is balanced, right? You're an anesthesiologist, I'm an anesthesiologist. We deliver, right? What's called a balanced anesthetic, right. So for the non anesthesiologists out there, like, what does that mean? Well, we give, you know, a different medication for, you know, pain control, something for anxiety, something to get someone to sleep. And that has to be done in the right proportions at the right times for it to work. You know, we do that, you know, the same thing as a chef in the kitchen. You know, we're balancing a vinaigrette with, you know, acidity, with sweetness, with spice. And it has to be done and coordinated properly. Same, you know, with life and your time management. You know, I'm not, you know, working, you know, 24 hour shifts at the hospital all the time. Right. I actually kind of left the hospitals and started, you know, more private practice. A lot of that is balance and prioritizing. So, you know, when I'm obviously, you know, working with my patients, like it's 100% that, right? But then when I'm finished and I'm onto my restaurant or onto my family, you know, I focus all my time on there. So it requires a lot of, know, juggling. But, you know, when you're busy, you actually get a lot more done when versus when you're not busy, which is really interesting.

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Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, again, it's not easy. You know, whatever you do, do not open a restaurant. No, it's, you know, I love it. I love the hospitality industry. I love restaurants. It is a high risk industry. You know, I would say, you know, 90% of restaurants fail in the first year. If you can survive the first year, you can maybe 50% of restaurants survive the second year. If you can survive two years, you're doing pretty good. It's definitely a high risk. But you know, everyone has to look at their own situation. Right. So what's nice about medicine and anesthesia is, you know, anesthesia medicine is pretty, pretty stable for the most part. You know, we all can get like a good solid job. That's pretty consistent. And what's nice about anesthesia is, you know, if you want to work, you know, Q3, call, Q4, call, whatever it is, you can do it if you want. No, call. You can do that too if you want to do, you know, part time, three days, four days. You know, there's, there's something for everyone, depending on what their situation is. And that's the benefit of, you know, anesthesia and actually a lot of other medical, you know, subspecialties too. So I think the biggest thing is kind of figuring out what's important to you in your Life. And only one person can really answer that and that's you. And it's different for everyone. So I can't say, hey, you should do xyz, do an academic position, have residents do teaching, and while you do mountain climbing or whatever, because that may be horrible for one person or maybe someone else's dream. So I think for people out there who have a lot of different interests, there's a lot of self reflection and it changes all the time. Your priorities change based off of where you are in your life, your family situation and life is constantly changing. So there's a lot of constant self reflection, seeing what makes you happy. Right. If you're happy with staying in academics, working at a large academics setting, and that's it. Fantastic. That's wonderful. We need people like that. For me, I love food. I have a lot of different interests and my life wouldn't be fulfilled if I, if I only did medicine. If that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah. So in some way having this, how does that impact your medical career?

Yeah, what's interesting is it's funny because, you know, when I. So I'm in private practice anesthesia now and you know, we do a lot of office based surgeries, offices, a lot of plastic surgeries on Upper east side. And you know, so our patient population and our, you know, my client population with plastic surgeons and stuff, very different than, you know, some of the academic settings. I was at Columbia for med school and residency. So, you know, very different patient population, very different surgeon population is very, you know, service oriented, which I think should always be in medicine. Right. Like that, that should always be the case. But you know, unfortunately it's not always so. And having, you know, worked in fine dining, working with, you know, Michelin starred chefs, you know, it's all about service and presentation. And I've been able to use that in my private practice. Anesthesia. You know, we're not just delivering anesthesia, you know, that honestly, you know, when we're delivering, you know, a simple sedation case, it's not super complicated. But what I can deliver is kind of the finesse of the service, which is calming a patient down in one minute. You know, having a patient that you've, that has never met you, they're about to have a surgery, maybe it's the first time they've ever gone under. Right. And they're freaking out and, and you know what I'm talking about, Peter? Because when you see that, you can tell when they're like literally like shaking and you gotta be able to build rapport literally within 2, 3 seconds, right, to make a first impression, you have like a split second. And whether that's with showing confidence or showing comedy, because sometimes you need to bring some comedy to help them relax. But it's always being professional. I always say, listen, I'm your in house mixologist or you know, I'm your bartender for today and I got a nice special cocktail. I mean, I know you're, I understand you're, you know, you're nervous, that's okay. I'm going to take good care of you, you know, and part of that is, you know, what I learned working in fine dining with that whole service aspect.

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Yeah, I think physicians have a incredible skill set. Very thoughtful, very hardworking and we're in a profession that's very stable. It's rock stable. There's always going to be a need for physicians in the whole world, not just the US and all parts and in all fields too. So I think with that it gives you a lot of stability which allows you to venture and do other things that may be difficult. If you have a family and you have children that you need to take care of and you still need something stable to literally, you know, put a roof under your head, put food on the table. But you can, you know, hopefully take some of that time and venture and do whatever side projects you want until those projects, you know, either take off completely and then you can kind of, you know, do less of and figure out what percentage of time you want. You know, if you're side hustle becomes a full time hustle becomes to like your retirement, which, you know, which could be incredible or maybe it doesn't turn out, but you have a great time kind of pursuing another passion of yours that you've always wanted to but never maybe had the time because you were in med school and studying for, you know, the board exams and residency and all that, you just got to give it a shot. And I think with medicine, it allows you the time and the money too to kind of venture and take a little risk and do something else.

I love that. And you talk about being a physician by day, chef by night. So is that literally what's happening? You're going from practicing during the day and then you're putting on a suit or whatever it is and jumping into the restaurants? Is that what it looks like?

Many days? Yeah, yeah, it's, you know, for example, you know, I've run my anesthesia, you know, I just finished this lawn rhinoplasty and then rushed home. I'm here now and then probably in an hour I need to run into a restaurant just for a little bit and, and make sure things are, you know, running okay. So it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's busy, but that's, that's how life is. And I wouldn't like have it any other way.

So how about your parents now? How do they feel about all this?

They're proud of me. Both of them passed, unfortunately, a few years back. But they were very happy to see that I had gone back to medical school, had graduated, finished residency and started work and started my practice. They were very proud of me, but they also understood my passion. They knew that I had loved, you know, food and cooking since I was, I was a child, you know, So I think they were happy that I'm able to, you know, do both in my life.

And yeah, I know that some people are going to hear this story and they're going to want. Obviously something's going to resonate with them. Something's going to click off in their mind. Light bulbs are going to go off and they're going to want to find out more about you, maybe even try to connect with you. Where's a great place for people to do that?

Sure. Yeah. You can check out my website. It's chefdrlo.com. i'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Instagram as Chef Dr. Lowe. You can, you know, DM me, shoot me an email. Yeah, I. I'd love to connect with whoever's out there. And. Yeah, and my email is Dr. Thomas Lowmd at Gmail. So after that, share whatever I can.

Very cool. When I'm in town, I'm going to definitely check out your restaurants. Let's go.

Have you.

Awesome. Okay. So for someone who wants to follow your footsteps in the sense that they want to follow their passions, but also, you know, maybe start a business, you know, what's a tip that you might have for someone?

Sure. Number one, go for it. You know, don't, don't. You can literally convince yourself not to do anything. Okay. It's all in your head. And I'm not saying just, you know, just randomly haphazardly go do whatever you want. Okay. But if you have a desire and you want to do it, set your mind and do it. And. And then. So what do you do? Well, look for mentors, number one. Look for people who have done what you want to do, whether that's, you know, a year down the road or five years down the road. Talk to them, get their advice, talk to as many people as you can and get as many different opinions, hopefully completely opposite opinions, because you want to. You want to make an educated decision. Okay. And you, you want to put your best foot forward. So you want to have all that information out there from people who know and who have done it. And it's okay if you don't know them. Ask them. What are they going to say? No. Okay. Ask the number. Next person or the next. Just keep going. Right. Like, don't give up. And, you know, and that's. That's. I think we've. We've all done that throughout, you know, school and, you know, med school residents just having that tenacity and resilience and, you know, don't let one person's. No, like, ruin everything. And it's also okay if you try something and it doesn't work out and it doesn't go as planned. That's okay. You learn something. You gave it a shot. Maybe that will lead to something even bigger.

So, yeah, such great advice, such an awesome interview, and a great example of kind of never giving up on your passions. I mean, again, being a physician is a feat all in itself. And also being a chef and being an owner of restaurants, being able to do both is just. It's an amazing thing. So really shows us what's possible for us physicians. So I just want to say thank you for that. Keep up the amazing work. And yeah, let's talk again soon.

Thank you so much, Peter. I appreciate it.

All right, bye.

Okay, take care. Bye. Bye.

Enjoy the show. Let me know by dropping a review in the podcast app you're listening to us in. And if you haven't already, make sure to hit subscribe. Are you part of our community yet? Join theater. Thousands of physicians who are also on this journey to creating their ideal lives through multiple streams of income. You can join us on our Facebook group, Passive Income Docs, and you can always learn more at our website, passiveincomemd.com thanks again for allowing me to be a part of your journey. See you next time.