Money, Medicine & Mocktails

Yeah, it's all complicated.

But wait, what about. But you're. Sorry to interrupt you, but how about all the weed you guys were smoking? That's not good.

Okay.

Hello.

Hello. All right. Hi, everybody, and welcome to the podcast. This is Generations md. My name is Stephanie. I'm joined here by my colleague Dr. Sarah Davis, who's also my mother and who is also famous. TikToker rdavispgy30. I am here with a celebrity.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, I don't know. The fame has kind of been going to my head. Really?

Really?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm a totally different person. Person. After posting a ridiculous TikTok video.

Just tell us the video that you posted in.

Okay, so I just posted this silly video. We were out at our lake house and my husband was said, oh, let's go for a sunset cruise. And I said, oh, well, hold on, let me just post a tick tock real fast. Open up my TikTok press record. And I just said, hey, I'm Dr. Davis and I'm posting from the lake. And when you're a doctor, you'll have a lake house too. Maybe we'll be neighbors. All right, cheers. And that was it. And somehow it's gotten like 750,000 views.

Yeah.

And like thousands of comments. People liked it.

People, you know, people were like, yeah, right on. Like, I want a lake house. And I had some friends from that go to various med schools, send it to me and. And they were just like, wow, like, look at your mom go like that. And one friend in particular said that her and her friend were talking about it because they always talk about wanting a beach house or a lake house or something like that. So they're like, okay, yeah, this is worth it.

Yeah. And you know, that's. I mean, it wasn't. I think people took it just the way I intended it, you know, being a little bit silly and funny, but also tried to be like, you know, there's good things ahead of you. You. And because it is a grind, you know, when you're studying or working really hard in residency or trying to get into med school and all those things, and you need just those little pick me ups every now and then.

Yeah.

Because really, like, and. And there's plenty of content out there and plenty of doctors who will say, oh, no, it's not worth it, don't do it, blah, blah, blah, which is just not what you need to hear when it's something that you really want to do and you're on that path and so I'm like, you know, I do believe that it's worth it being a doctor. I love being a doctor. And, you know, things like having a lake house, well, that's just icing on the cake.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, and feeling financially stable at a point in your life is also reassuring.

That's. That's what it really is. And, you know, lots of people were posting things like, okay, you know, when can I register for my lake house? I'm a doctor. And. And somebody was like, oh, you know, I've been out in practice 10 years, I don't have a lake house yet. And I'm like, look at my handle, PGY30. I mean, we got this lake house like two years ago. So when you're PGY28, okay, you can come to me.

Well, I guess, like, if you're speaking to. We've talked about finances and stuff a lot on this podcast and without kind of like getting in. So to the nitty gritty, I want to talk about finances and savings in regards to being a medical student to that audience because I think it's really hard to navigate all of this financial advice and all of coming from a lot of different places when, if you're in grad school, you're just in such a different place than other people. You're not. You don't have an income. You don't have an income to put to savings. You don't have, like, things to contribute. And kind of all, you know, is like, we've had financial planning sessions before, and honestly, they're kind of like, okay, just don't worry about it, don't worry about it, worry about it later, and it'll work out, I guess. What was your experience with that? And, like, what would you say to people in my position?

And I think that that's partly true. If you start thinking about it too much, you get really frustrated. You, you look at other people who are your same age who are working, who are saving or putting towards retirement, and you're just going deeper and deeper in a hole. And if you start thinking about that too much, it really does get overwhelming. But, but the fact is, physicians do have high incomes. You are going to be able to overcome that. It's, you know, you'll get there. It's just, you know, it's just not good to, like, look at that, look at that too much and see your net worth getting more and more negative.

Well, what about. Because everyone has a story of some doctor that they knew that ended up never being able to pay off their loans or just going into a lot of debt. Where have you seen. And you know, that can be for a variety of different circumstances. That's not always necessarily the person's fault that they made bad financial decisions, but in regards to somebody who might make bad financial decisions after they get out of med school, like, where have you seen things gone wrong?

Yeah, so, I mean, a couple of things. I mean, people who really don't live within their means in medical school, I mean, you should be able to, you know, live your life and, and have a nice quality of life in med school. But you don't use your med school loans to buy a new car or to buy like, you know, really luxury items. And once in a while you hear about people that do that who were able to just borrow more money and got a lot of things that they really didn't need. So that's a big mistake.

Let's get into a little more of that. But like, because from my experience, I guess as a medical student, there's so much anxiety about it because you are just going into more and more debt and people are trying to cut costs here and there. Cut costs here and there. Do you think, do you think the person who gets a Starbucks once a week is going to.

No, that's not going to make any difference.

Yeah, yeah.

That's actually one of those things that kind of drives you crazy because you hear that from old timers that are like these kids today, they're buying Starbucks now. You know, you don't need to get a Starbucks every day as your regular coffee. You can get yourself a coffee maker. So I mean, that's a little bit. I mean, that's a little bit waste of money, but, you know, you've gotta have some of those treats. And getting Starbucks once a week is not going to put you in insurmountable debt.

Yeah, yeah. I guess it's just you can't make like a big purchase of a car or something like that. Yeah.

And again. Or just things that now if your car dies and you need to get a new car, yes. You get a car that works and that, but you don't go out and buy, you know, a really expensive car that you're gonna have to take out, you know, tens of thousands of extra dollars of loans for, I mean, again, to me that's just like, that just doesn't seem worth it at all. And there's things of, you know, yeah, you're not going out to like, fancy dinners every night and things like that, but there are some Stuff that you do, you have to spend money on. You have to have a place to live. It has to be a decent place to live, live that's comfortable. You do have to have reliable transportation. So you do need a vehicle for, you know, most places where you live in the country. So all of those things are, you know, stuff that you, you just have to spend money on and, you know, and let that go.

Yeah, because I mean, it's just the, the balance of it too. Like you are young and you want to be able to have experiences like traveling and doing that sort of thing and, and taking out an extra grand for a trip in your 20s. Like what would you think about that?

I, you know, I think that that is fine. I mean those are experiences. The way you Travel in your 20s is totally different from the way you Travel in your 50s. And you can go, you can travel very cheaply when you're young. And so to me that's, those are, those are great experiences again. But that's my perspective. Yeah, those are things that I think are important. I mean some of the other things that, that I was just talking to another friend about is, you know, you're at the age where people are getting married and you are in people's weddings and you gotta fly to their weddings and fly to their bachelorette party and all of these different things. And those things are really hard too. But at the same time those are kind of once in a lifetime experiences with those different people. And you know, you honestly remember when somebody made a big effort to come to your wedding, you know how hard it is. And so some of that stuff you do, you just gotta like, oh, okay, I gotta spend some money, but it's really important to me to go to this friend's wedding.

Yeah. And I guess from, I feel like my understanding and correct me if I'm wrong, but like, like a thousand dollars to me now versus a thousand dollars to me when I'm a PGY 30 is very, very different. But they're both still the same amount of money.

Yeah, yeah. And right. So you have to kind of look at, look at all of those different things. Paying money for certain experiences when you're young may, may well be worth it, you know, just as long as it's within reason.

Yeah. And it's like, okay, then if you do have to buy that car, then you're not going to be able to do those other experiences or you know.

Yeah, you can have many things you want, but you can't have everything that you want. You don't have to live like you're completely penniless because. Okay, so, like, you look at it, you could make so many different cuts in your budget and save, like, $5 here and $10 there. And then you go from. Okay, either you borrowed. You were going to have to borrow $250,000, and now you only had to borrow $240,000. Is that really that different? Yeah, but contrasting that with, you know, okay, you need to borrow $250,000. Okay, let's not borrow $500,000.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it's just. It's, you know, it has to do with. With a lot of those different things.

Well, beyond med school, just continuing what we were talking about. Where do you see, you know, you get your residency and you finally start making money. Where do you see things go wrong there?

Well, you know, you're still not making that much money in residency, so you certainly, in residency, you do not want to be living beyond your means at all. But you. You should be able to have a decent quality of life on what you're making in residency. Now, sometimes you do have to make some of those loan payments, so you have to factor that in. But you should be able to have somewhere to live and have transportation and that type of stuff. And not now. You're not borrowing more money. You just still owe all that money.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, it's still just like, it's all a balance.

And.

You know, like, just thinking back to your lakehouse video of, you know, when you're here, you'll have a lake house, and you'll make it. And it's like, just balancing that delayed gratification with also trying to, like, enjoy your life, because you don't want to just be like, all right, I'm just gonna put my head down and wait.

Till I get to that. Yeah.

Lake house.

And. And just along those lines, like, I think I've heard that med students are not allowed to have jobs. Is that true?

It's discouraged.

Okay. Discouraged. You know, like, one of my friends worked at the little fitness center in IT at our med school for, like, you know, at the time, it was like, $5 an hour or whatever. And he was like, oh, you know, I. I have to work and do this so that I don't have to borrow as much money and that I was just like, okay, $5 an hour. A few years from now, you're going to be making so much more than that. It just didn't seem worth that hourly wage to, you know, to do that at Least not to me. I don't know. Same thing kind of goes to that, all right, you know, $5,000 more in the grand scheme of things. I don't know that that's a big enough difference to do that unless he enjoyed doing the job. But. So the biggest, the biggest mistake that people make is when they go from resident to attending. Okay, now your salary is going to increase multifold. I mean, perhaps quadruple, you know, maybe five times. I mean, it's, it's gonna. It's a big jump in your salary and there's been this delayed gratification all of this time. And a lot of people are like, oh, I'm so ready to buy a big house, to buy a nice car, buy fancy clothes, go on luxury vacations. And they are so excited to do all of those things, and they just go all in. And that's, you know, that's. I think that's just a mistake when you have that much money that you owe and during that time, they're just making very minimal payments on their loans. And those are the people that, I think a lot of times takes so, so long to pay back their loans. So I think that that's a mistake personally. Now, some of those things you may have to do, and again, some of these people, you know, you may have a family by that time. There's. There's things that you do need to spend money on, and buying a house is. Is certainly very important, but you don't have to get like the most house that you can possibly buy.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think, like, this is all important to talk about because again, there's just so much financial advice out there. And we're not a financial advice podcast at a hole. And we're not.

We are not the finance bros. We're not.

But it's like, there's not a lot of resources tailored to this career path. Cause it is just really different. Like, I'm just thinking about, like myself right now. Everyone's like, okay, you need to put money aside for your Roth ira. Like, you need to put money aside and do that. And it's like, well, again, that thousand dollars that I could put in there, it's okay. Yeah, it's gonna.

Yeah, it's. Yeah. And you can, like, run those so scenarios too. And it's sometimes, you know, compounding interest. Everybody loves to talk about that. It is, you know, it is amazing if you can put a lot of money aside and have it grow and grow. That all sounds so great. But. But really, I mean, when you look at, like, putting away $1,000. It. It's still not that much considering.

But it is so much to me now.

Right, right. And then. But so you really do have a chance to make that up. And I think that that's what people can sometimes forget. And because, like, like you said, a lot of the financial advice, it's just different that for most people, if you are making $75,000 a year at your job, you don't have debt, and you're 25 years old. Yeah. You should be putting a lot of money in savings because 10 years from then, you maybe are going to be making $100,000. It's your. Your income does not have this huge increase the way that ours does. And so, yeah, the rules just really are different.

Yeah. Yeah.

And that whole thing. And so what they say, what you. The advice that you hear all the time is, you know, as soon as you become an attending, still live like a resident. And, you know, your dad and I did do that pretty much, and that was helpful. And so we kind of kept our lifestyle pretty much the same. And when we. We would save up some money or get a big check for something, and then we would pay off one of our loans with that. And so we were able to do that, but we were on the younger side.

We weren't.

Like, we didn't take, like 20 million gap years like a lot of people take. We didn't have a family yet. And so, yes, we were able to do that. And I think sometimes people can take that to the extreme, like, okay, live like a resident for five years. And people are like, you know, I don't want to do that for five years. I think that's a little excessive.

Well, something that I kind of want to talk about. Something that. A generational difference that we've kind of touched on a little bit on this podcast. But I made a TikTok about it, but just with my generation drinking less and more people going sober, I feel like alcoholism is getting identified earlier. There's a lot of sober, curious, and I think that it is a big generational difference between Gen Z and older generations. It is.

Although it's also kind of topical in that I think that. That it is just people. I think everybody is more aware of the fact that alcohol really is pretty bad.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, we really. I really thought when I was young that there were just. There were two types of people. There were alcoholics, and they knew they were going to be an alcoholic. Like, the first time they had a drink, they Had a drink, they, like, loved it. They started drinking it all the time. They had a big problem, and then they either died or got sober.

Or.

You were just a regular drinker and you could just drink every now and then, and that was perfectly healthy. And now we've really realized there's a whole lot in between there. I mean, we don't even call it alcoholism in the medical world anymore. We call it alcohol use disorder. So, like, yeah, you're, you know, who knows if you actually are technically an alcoholic, whatever definition you. You use for that, but alcohol has become a problem for a lot of people. And for people, you know, if they're just drinking more than they really should be, that's a problem.

Yeah, I just. I think that. I mean, I don't know. I. This is all just thinking, and I'm not like, using data to back up any of this, but I do feel like that, yes, it's more topical now and people are talking about it more, but I do think, like, my generation has a big. Is a big push of that and just talking about it on social media more and people talking about being sober, being sober, curious. I think also an aspect of this is people, my generation is. Is going out less and isolating themselves more as well, which, you know, is a part of that. But kind of putting that aside and just talking about it more on kind of like a mental health part of things, I just think that there's just. I. I mean, I don't know. Correct me if I'm wrong. I feel like people in their 20s considering themselves an alcoholic and going to AA is on the newer side. I don't know. Maybe not.

I don't. I don't know the answer to that. You know, it's hard to. It's hard to know. Depends on who you're exposed to, all of that. I mean, I will say going to my 30th med school reunion was so interesting. We were having this happy hour, and I bought all of this booze for this happy hour. I was, like, thinking back to our med school days about how much we did all drink at that time. I got, like, really probably about five times as much alcohol as we really needed. It was kind of ridiculous. And whole lot of my friends from med school show up there like, nope, I don't drink anymore. I don't drink anymore. I mean, just like, you know, everybody, of course, drinking less, but a fair amount of people just, you know, not necessarily going to AA or anything, just said, you know what? This is just not serving me I'm not drinking anymore.

I do think that's a part of aging, though, for a lot of people.

I don't know.

It has been studied, and it's not just in the United States. This is worldwide too. So I just asked open evidence. And Generation Z consumes less alcohol than previous generations, with higher rates of abstinence and lower overall consumption across multiple countries. Most of these studies are looking at, like, at. In, like millennials in their 20s, baby boomers in their 20s, Gen Z or Generation X in their 20s versus us now in our 20s, and sees significantly less drinking now, which is true.

But I'm just. I'm curious because I think that. I think all generations are drinking less now. So I think you kind of have two factors in there. It's not. It's partly your generation doing that, but it's partly that everybody is drinking less.

No. Global alcohol consumption has increased over the past several decades. So in 2020, like the. In. In. By 2020, in the global pandemic.

Oh, well, okay, that. That's a little blip. I don't. I don't know.

This is looking at. Worldwide, the total volume of alcohol increased by 70% from 1990 to 2017. Yeah, I mean, I'm seeing that my generation is better.

Okay, yes.

Because we are health conscious and talking about these things, and we consume less alcohol than previous generations, even though there's still a static global increase in alcohol consumption.

Okay, well, the. Yeah, okay. You guys are better.

And that's what this podcast is about.

Keep being better.

Genzan versus the Forgotten Generation.

Yeah, yeah, we're just. We're just sad. Well, okay, but. But the. The point is also, like, I mean, truly, the. When I was young, let's say like 15 years ago, 20 years ago, truly, like, everybody I knew drank regularly. The only people that didn't drink is either they were pregnant or they had a history of alcohol abuse. Like, they had gotten sober because of that. It's almost like. It was almost like a thing like, oh, you know, so and so doesn't drink. Like, I just didn't know that many people like that. And now it's just. Nobody says anything to you when you. And again, even with a group of people my age or whatever, or younger people, I mean, it really used to be somebody with like, oh, hey, here you are at this party. You know, here you go. You want a glass of wine? You're like, no, do you have some Sparks sparkling water or something? They're like, oh, well, why aren't you drinking? Like, which is Just so weird. I'm really glad that people don't do that anymore.

Yeah, people, definitely. Yeah, people don't. I think there's a cultural shift. But do you think that, that, do you think 15 or 20 years ago, people 15, 20 years older than you would be experiencing a similar thing or you think that they would still also be.

I, I don't know. I just think that at least I feel like I have seen a shift. And I don't think it's just because of age. I think it's just more information keeps coming out about the harmful effects of alcohol. You know, we really did. There was all this literature that having one to two drinks a night was like heart healthy. That's really what, that's what we were told. And people would say, oh, you know, oh, doctor, well should I start drinking? It was this whole thing of like drink. When was this? In the 90s or something? This is not that long ago. I don't remember exactly when. But this whole thing of drinking red wine, it was good for your heart. People really thought that the. And you know, and you can. This is something that there's lots of literature about. I mean, so there's this kind of J curve where it's that, that the people who didn't drink at all had a higher mortality than the people who drank like one to two drinks per day. It was like if you went mortality versus number of drinks. And so there was this little part of the curve where these people who didn't drink at all were a little less healthy. Then it was like, okay, it, you know, then it. Then that, you know, comes down a little bit. But then of course then the more you drink, then the curve goes up. And of course then that gets, you know, way worse. Your mortality increases a lot the more you drink. But the problem with so that little part of the curve was like, oh, well, you know, maybe it's healthier to drink. But the, the fallacy there is that a lot of those people who didn't drink and weren't healthy, they used to drink. They used to drink a lot and that's why they weren't as healthy. Yeah. So they. Mark. Yeah, I'm not drinking now. Well, that's because I've got a cardiomyopathy from my, you know, 50 years of alcoholism.

Yeah, I think that's just so hard to study too, because I do think that there is. There are also just so many other co founding variables. Like is are people who socially drink more social media and like. And we know that having Social support and good, like, social environment increases your lifespan. So it's like. It's just like, so much. Yeah, exactly.

People who exercise a lot drink more.

Yeah, yeah.

So, okay, so there may be healthier, but it's because the exercise, not because of the drinking.

Yeah, I don't know. It's.

It. That's.

It's a really hard thing to study.

The other thing is that higher socioeconomic status, people do drink more than lower, which I found when I started my current practice in a very upscale part of town, that my patients there did drink a lot more than other demographics that I had interacted with. So I don't know. So again, people who are. Who are wealthier do tend to be healthier. They have more access to health care and all that stuff. So they drink more and they have, you know, better health. But it's not because of the drinking. It's because of the money.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all complicated.

But wait, what about. But you're. Sorry to interrupt you, but how about all the weed you guys are smoking? That's not good. What? That has gone up a lot with your generation. You're not drinking, but you're smoking weed.

You're just trying now. Now you're just trying to come back at me after I said that we're so much better because we don't drink as much.

Are you denying that your generation does that?

I mean, I guess. I don't. I don't know.

You grew up in the 80s.

People were smoking dope all the time.

Well, the bad people. Oh, my gosh.

Let's not moralize it. Wow.

The. Well, but the. The big difference is that it. It was not legal then, and it's legal now in many, many states. Still not legal here in Texas, but it is legal in so many states. And so that's just a huge difference. There's so much more access to all this different, you know, all different cannabis products, you know, including edibles and lots of other things that are just a lot easier for people to take. I mean, it just. It just used to be a lot more work than to go buy drugs from someone like.

No, I think it's a good point. I mean, like, all in all, I think that it.

It's.

Yeah, just as you were talking about at the beginning, you thought, oh, there is either somebody who is an alcoholic or there's somebody who is not an alcoholic. And I guess, like, understanding the spectrum and understanding it as substance use disorder, I think that we're finding more and more that it is so genetic. I mean, everything is nature. Like, psychiatric illnesses and a lot of things are nature and nurture, but we're finding that, like, it is so much nature. So I just think it's. It's cool to just continue to talk about it and, like, identify it early and.

Yeah, I guess. But. But my point on all of those different substances is that somebody can be using whatever substance and not be addicted to it. It's not really causing a problem in. In their life until it does. You know, it can. They can be kind of going along and being a social drinker or. And then all of a sudden, they start using it more and more, and then it does become a problem, even for somebody that might have been drinking for 20 years. Yeah, which I just. I didn't know that when I was younger. I thought it was just like, boom, you're an alcoholic or you're not an alcoholic. And if you're not an alcoholic, you can just drink and not have to worry about it at all. And I think that the only people that you know will never become an alcoholic is somebody who doesn't drink.

Yeah, true.

So kids don't do drugs. Just say no.

Just say no. Well, guys, um, thanks for listening. Um, you want to plug your stuff, your.

Oh, yeah. So, Dr. Davis, PGY 30 on TikTok. I'm not on Instagram yet. I haven't. I'm not quite ready. But, you know, later on, I'll. I'll. I'll try the gram. Okay.

And for our podcast, Instagram Generations MD. And you can find me on TikTok Generations MD. And if you have any questions or interested in being a guest on the podcast, you can email us at ask generations MD gmail.com and we'll talk to you guys soon. Bye.

See you at the lake.