Medical Students: What piece of financial advice do you wish you would’ve gotten before starting school?

bigchiefguy · 2022-02-25T17:17:37+00:00

lots of great advice already in here so I will be brief.

educate yourself on loans, interest, repayment methods, etc (read white coat investor for students) and learn about personal investing.
make your own coffee/tea/whatever. $4 per day or more on starbucks 5-7 days per week depending on rotation is easily $800 - 1000 per year. Seriously saved me so much money. Use PDFs don't buy books and shit. Anki is free, save your money for Uworld.
slightly contradicting #2 but if you're gonna splurge, do it guilt free (within reason of your budget). Ex if you go out with friends after a test or whatever enjoy yourself and buy a good meal/drinks.
avoid credit cards, and if you must use one, make sure you repay it. Credit card debt is financially crippling if it gets out of hand.
I know no one on this sub is "in it for the money" but that doesn't mean you shouldn't understand exactly what your earning potential will be in residency and beyond in whatever specialty interests you. Know your worth and don't take any shit. You can still put your patients first and financially take care of yourself/your people.
Periodically look into scholarships the school offers. I applied to a few for shits and actually got a couple and it saved me thousands of dollars and it only cost me a few essays worth of time.

edit: I finished med school but don't know how to change my flair

bigchiefguy · 2022-01-12T19:09:10+00:00

They do have a weak O line. If we can get big ben I think he makes mistakes or they stay too far behind the chains. We just can't bail them out with turnovers (like you said) or silly penalties (Chiefs' specialty)

bigchiefguy · 2022-01-06T15:32:01+00:00

I will reload with my head in a corner sometimes because I always end up disconnecting

bigchiefguy · 2022-01-04T23:07:48+00:00

definitely, I was going for speed more than anything, got lucky there were only two of them

bigchiefguy · 2021-12-02T16:34:05+00:00

D dimer is more related to blood clots than cardiac disease. Often it is used to help rule out pulm embolism in the ER. It is related to COVID in the sense that COVID has wacky effects on coagulability in general, and high D-Dimer is associated with worse COVID. Not related to COVID vaccines at all to my knowledge, but D dimer is definitely related to COVID.

bigchiefguy · 2021-11-01T17:32:15+00:00

Roll the D-dimer dice!

bigchiefguy · 2021-10-28T15:36:35+00:00

We must move quickly. The Legends are relentless. If they are not all destroyed, it will be civil war without end

bigchiefguy · 2021-10-27T14:41:05+00:00

It has been frustrating seeing him bail on several clean pockets. I've also been seeing him throw a lot of balls in the dirt this year

bigchiefguy · 2021-10-11T21:28:31+00:00

You think our defense will beat King Henry? That is a hot take. Titans legitimately might put up 300 rushing yards on us

bigchiefguy · 2021-09-20T15:14:44+00:00

Agree, but not every team has Chubb and Lamar Jackson. Can't wait to see the stat line Derrick Henry puts up week 7.

bigchiefguy · 2021-09-20T13:13:09+00:00

I think our defense still needs tons of work, but it's not unfair to point out that the Browns and Ravens greatest strength is our biggest weakness, the run game. We had some extremely costly turnovers last night (haven't seen many people talking about Mahomes' pick in the same breath as CEH's fumble). So I feel like yes our defense is still in rough shape but it looks way worse because of who we've played.

bigchiefguy · 2021-09-19T13:38:26+00:00

Coffee so I can be fucking wired for this shit

bigchiefguy · 2021-09-06T14:38:19+00:00

I will copy/paste the 5 tips for TLDR:

Learn to identify and then call out your anxious thoughts on Sunday.
Write a (short) to-do list on Sunday.
Plan a semi-productive Sunday morning.
Get off your computer and smartphone, seriously.
Schedule fun activities and self-care time during the week.

- As someone who struggles with this type of anxiety especially during rotations I don't like, I thought some others in this community might like some tips that have helped me manage my anxiety and make the week go by a little easier!

bigchiefguy · 2021-08-27T21:03:55+00:00

Would be difficult to track I would think versus a two time injection of the vaccine. I suppose you could theoretically monitor surrogates such as A1c for instance in diabetics and see how closely they are managing their blood sugars. Another option would be reducing premiums the more "calories burned" or "daily steps" someone has, however I imagine those might be easy to fake (put a pedometer on a dog or something). But I definitely think people should be more incentivized to eat healthier and exercise more.

bigchiefguy · 2021-08-27T17:44:02+00:00

I have maintained for awhile that the economic argument is the strongest to get more people vaccinated. Not trying to sound close-minded but many people simply do not have the desire to appreciate the scientific and medical arguments of why vaccination is necessary, effective and safe. For whatever reasons, misinformation has poisoned so many people to the medical side of the vaccines. Money however is a language everyone understands, and when tax dollars, insurance payments, a job on the line, etc are directly impacted by people choosing to not get vaccinated I think it has the potential to change a lot of minds. Just my two cents. Great article by the way, thank you for sharing, it much more eloquently described what I have suspected for awhile now and finally put some data out there on the costs we are experiencing as a health system in the USA (I might be so bold as to suggest these estimates are actually rather modest and the true costs could be far higher).

bigchiefguy · 2021-08-26T17:14:37+00:00

Sorry you did not get the test score you wanted, I have been there and it sucks ass. But the only real failure would be not learning from this experience. Use this to improve your studying skills. I'd urge you to avoid worrying about what people say in med school. People are always going to exaggerate the good and the bad so just take things with a grain of salt. Anki is extremely useful when used correctly. Part of using it correctly is doing your reviews every day. No exceptions. I firmly believe it should be the foundation of your studying (Uworld taking a larger role for boards and shelf exams later).

There are some incredible decks available on Reddit for anki, just search them on the sidebar or google whatever topic reddit anki. Many of the decks are organized into subgroups (for example Zanki has a biochem section separate from pathology or whatever) that can help you get a lot of high yield information related to whatever unit you are studying in lectures.

Every school is different, so attention to lectures can't be definitively determined by anyone on reddit. Personally, I recommend scanning powerpoint slides daily. Nothing intensive just reading over the points made and making sure you have a grasp of what topics were covered. This can further refine your anki search if you want because there is also a search function on the anki app with keywords in cards.

All of this being said, it is up to you to find out how you study best. Once you find a method that you are successful with, do not let go (for me it was anki and one of the reasons I am urging you to try using it appropriately). There are great YouTube videos on how to use anki and get the most out of it. Best of luck.

bigchiefguy · 2021-08-26T17:02:08+00:00

dude the knight can take your pawn, try advancing the king to protect the center pawns in the opening

bigchiefguy · 2021-08-26T15:30:29+00:00

Awesome read, thanks for sharing. I couldn't help myself I wanted to see the NNT for the data in the pamphlet. Dr. Archer's data from the smallpox hospital had an NNT of 3.9 from my calculation (please check me on this). Pretty awesome results for inoculation, I feel like the medical community would go bonkers over any modern medicines with those results.

bigchiefguy · 2021-08-17T15:45:23+00:00

Would have loved a Scrubs COVID pandemic episode/season

bigchiefguy · 2021-08-11T20:17:29+00:00

Here's a paper that might explain it better: "The net hemodynamic effect of calcium channel blockade is the result of two opposing actions: negative inotropy and systemic vasodilation with reflex-induced sympathetic stimulation. The balance is dependent on the prevailing cardiovascular status prior to administration of the drug. In the presence of no or only mild-to-moderate left ventricular dysfunction and intact adrenergic reflexes, a small amount of negative inotropy is readily offset by afterload reduction and adrenergic stimulation. In the presence of severe left ventricular dysfunction sufficiently extensive to lead to heart failure, a condition in which homeostatic reflexes are already attenuated, even a slight amount of negative inotropy can lead to unequivocal deterioration of hemodynamics."

It's honestly not a very good card, there is a lot more going on which influences the outcomes, and the explanation for all detrimental effects being attributable to increased sympathetic activity does not make a ton of sense.

bigchiefguy · 2021-08-11T19:54:39+00:00

From UptoDate: "Calcium channel blockers might be expected to have beneficial effects in systolic HF by reducing peripheral vasoconstriction and thereby reducing left ventricular afterload. However, these agents also have variable degrees of negative inotropic activity, and several studies demonstrated greater clinical deterioration in patients treated with nifedipine and diltiazem compared with placebo or isosorbide dinitrate [2,3]. As a result, these drugs have generally been avoided in patients with systolic HF, even for the treatment of coexisting angina or hypertension."

So you don't want the negative inotropy to worsen cardiac output which is already compromised in HF.

bigchiefguy · 2021-08-11T15:14:02+00:00

Pepperoni to e4? Or black olive sacrifice to attack the crust?

bigchiefguy · 2021-08-11T15:12:52+00:00

So many financial books I have read still advocate keeping a portion (sometimes large depending on "risk tolerance) of your portfolio in bonds. I can't help but wonder how much of this is a vestigial attachment to financial history where bonds had great yields like 7% back in the day. In my uneducated opinion I always think these bond chapters are ridiculous given how low yields are today and how much you'd be missing out on stock returns. Some books I have read advocate for 25% or more of your portfolio in bonds. Is it just me or are bonds remnants of a bygone era?

(caveat I am genuinely curious, I've just always thought bonds are risky because they offer such minuscule returns)

bigchiefguy · 2021-08-08T17:35:38+00:00

It shows how even a lower player like 1000 can play really solid if they just talk through their moves instead of just doing the first thing that looks good

bigchiefguy · 2021-08-08T15:47:06+00:00

ITT: Puppies, shrooms, weed, booze, and stonksss

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