Financial lessons from a doctor who became the ICU patient | White jacket

I am an academic pulmonary and critical caretaker, husband and father for four young children. I am the only income earner in our household of six, and I am the financial nerd. My personal financial journey began in 2021. That year I discovered the Witte Coat Investor, followed an online courseAnd fired our ‘financial adviser’. I became a DIY -the -self -investor.

That helped my family and me during some of the scariest moments of my life.

The Influenza season 2024-2025 was the worst since the H1N1 Pandemie of 2009. After a week at the ICU in February 2025 on the ICU, I took care of patients who are critically ill with Influenza, I came with the flu myself. It caused my asthma and in the end I got sick enough that I drove myself to a local hospital. After I was treated in the ED, I was admitted and then quickly transferred to the ICU.

I spent more than a week on the ICU, including some harrowing moments, and was then fired home to continue my recovery. At high dose of steroids I lost more than 10 pounds of muscles, I couldn’t get up the stairs without a walking stick and I couldn’t sleep. It was humiliating and disorienting.

Almost two months after my first symptoms – with excellent medical and psychological care and physical rehabilitation – I went back to work. I had regained my strength and endurance and I was excited to return to the clinical job that I loved. At home I could again be the husband and father I wanted to be.

During this trip of illness and recovery I learned a lot about myself, my family and my work. In the process I immediately confronted many of the concepts that penetrate the doctor’s personal financial space.

Financial planning can help DIY investors

In the months prior to my unexpected illness, my wife and I had a series of meetings with a financial planner for reimbursements alone. It was a different experience than before with an insurance seller who worked as a consultant. For a low four -digit fee, our new planner offered a service that would validate and adjust the financial plan that my family had. Since I am the personal financial hobbyist in our household, this approach would help in offering “Ian is affected by a bus” insurance – the spirit of the Spirit that my wife would have a detailed insight into our financial life and a first contact point in case I became incapacitated for work.

When we started to meet the planner, we had no idea that we could have that peace of mind in the neighborhood so quickly.

Have an emergency fund

A suggestion that our planner made was to increase the size of our emergency fund. As an ‘optimizer’ I had kept our money lean, about a month in costs. But in response to the suggestion of our planner, we started building cash in our bank account and on a money market fund on our broker account – cost a total of up to three months. Lying in an ICU bed it gave me a great comfort to know that my family had immediate access to those cash and the need occurs. I felt particularly grateful, knowing that many of my patients do not have the same privilege.

Receive your own occupancy insurance from an independent agent

When I started following WCI, I took my handicap policy in more detail. I had obtained the policy – along with the long -term and small entire life policy – by the ‘financial adviser’ that we met almost ten years earlier, in response to the fear that was caused by the approaching birth of my first child. When I went DIY, I canceled the entire life policy after I had applied the right term insurance, which looked on my ‘stupid tax’ on my personal financial journey. Fortunately, life only had monthly premiums with three digits. Perhaps not surprising, the handicap policy had no real occupancy driver, did not offer sufficient benefit and seemed relatively expensive.

After entering into an independent agent, I obtained quotes for real policy for own occupation of various of the “Big 5” companies. I was offered a policy with an adequate advantage, but with an exclusion for my asthma (because I had various controller medicines and had received steroid bursts for exacerbations). In the time between when my first policy was issued and the new policy ban, the respiratory viruses that my children handed over every few weeks during the winter months had taken toll.

Nevertheless, because my asthma was usually properly checked and it seemed an unlikely cause of long -term disability, I decided to pursue the new policy. I was somewhat reassured by the fact that I had submitted the employer to the short and long-term policy, which did not have the asthma exclusion.

Fast forward to my admission to the hospital after my asthma was activated. I thought of what would happen if I got so sick that my illness caused a long -term disability. I knew my employer policy would help. But I was frustrated that I had not used an independent agent to obtain a better policy when I was younger before my asthma became a problem.

My experience is a reminder of young doctors to contact an independent agent and to obtain a suitable handicap policy if they have not yet done so.

Low fixed costs offer flexibility

Consider a scenario in which our family income was considerably lower for a certain period – or even permanently – I was grateful that we had made various decisions to limit the fixed costs in our budget. We bought a modest home after Fellowship and we refinanced when the interest rates were less than 3%. Despite our growing family, we were sitting when we looked at the market and we realized what it would cost to move to a larger house. Two of our children share a room; They survive even if they are sometimes reluctant. Thanks to good timing and careful decisions, our housing costs used around 10% of our take-home wages.

We had also eliminated all non-mortgage debt in previous years. After we have made various suboptimal decisions with regard to new car purchases while we have added children and their extensive car seats, we have at least limited the damage by holding on to Hondas and Toyotas. We had paid off the most recent pair, so we had no car -consumed. Our student loans – which at a certain moment were combined more than $ 300,000 – had also disappeared. We paid off what was left of the loans of my wife – which she built up in the Psychology Graduate School – when she made the decision to stay at home after our fourth child was born, and I had eliminated mine by a combination of IDR payments, nih -back payments and PSLF. We have not worn any consumer debt.

With limited forced expenses I knew that we had flexibility if we had to make important changes to our family budget.

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Learned financial lessons from a doctor who has become a patient

Doctors worked and approaching risk protection

There are many advantages to practice ownership, including professional autonomy and the possibility to achieve upward income. My experience is not the reality discount, and I do not claim that one practice model is necessarily better than the other. But I received a new appreciation for the downward risk protection that I enjoyed as a work doctor with a considerable disease.

First, as a member of a large academic group, my employer was able to manage my absence of clinical services through a combination of our clinical backup schedule and the flexibility of a large group to absorb the shifts. If I had been an owner of a small or solo practice or to be honest, an owner of a small business of any kind can be the reality very different and I might have had a professional and financial pressure to get back to work before I was recovered enough.

Secondly, I enjoyed various employee benefits that are relevant to my illness. I had a short -term handicap to limit the loss of income in the short term and a long -term policy sponsored by the employer in the event that the consequences of my illness held. I also benefited from a very subsidized, generous health insurance for myself and my family. It is unlikely that the direct costs of my illness amount to more than $ 1,000, although the explanation of the benefits made it clear that I had confronted many thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs with a different policy.

Money is just a tool; Other things matter more

Of course I am not a financial robot and the most important lessons of my illness were not financially. I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from my friends and colleagues at work and from Buren at home. They reminded me of the depth of the relationships that I have built up for more than a decade at my current institution. And in the midst of the chaos of the Midlife with four children, I received a renewed appreciation for my incredible wife and great family.

Being a doctor is a privilege

I recognized how happy I was to have a job that I love, a job that offers me the means to maintain my family and cultivates the professional meaning and the goal. I suppose some people can go through a disease like mine and feel shocking to make a professional change because they felt that they somehow wasted their time in life. Instead, as an IC patient I was reminded of how important my work is for my patients and their families. My fear was not that I would regret how I had led my life, but rather that I might not return to the life I was privileged to lead before my illness. I hoped to regain the position I held as an academic lung and critical care, to collaborate with great team members to do important work in the ICU.

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Gratitude helped me to heal

During my illness and recovery I found contact with gratitude to heal. I am grateful to the medical professionals who helped me return home. Thankful for my patients and their families, by whom I have the privilege of becoming a doctor. Thankful for the friends who helped my family by getting a scary time. Thankful for my children for their love, courage and healing hugs. Thankful for my wife, whom I am so happy as my partner in our lives of mainly beautiful chaos. And yes, grateful for Dr. Jim Dahle and the WCI community for inspiring my own personal financial journey, which caused some peace of mind in a difficult period of my life.

What lessons have you taken from a trip to the hospital or a longer than normal illness? Did you make changes in your financial life afterwards? Have you found gratitude?