Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Building Financial Freedom to Fight Physician Burnout with Jordan Frey, MD

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Building Financial Freedom to Fight Physician Burnout with Jordan Frey, MD · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

0:02
This is where health care leadership comes together.
0:04
Becker's sixteenth annual meeting brings more than 3,500
0:07
hospital and health system executives and nearly 800
0:10
speakers to Chicago, April
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the sixteenth.
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This series event includes keynote conversations with Dallas
0:17
Cowboys legend Troy Aikman and former president George
0:20
w Bush. For the agenda and event details,
0:23
visit beckershospitalreview.com
0:25
and click on the events tab in the
0:26
upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you
0:29
in Chicago.
0:32
This is Scott Becker with the Beckers Healthcare
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Podcast.
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We're thrilled today to be joined by a
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brilliant physician.
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But but more than just being a a
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a brilliant physician, we're talking with doctor Jordan
0:45
Fry. And Jordan's the founder
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in in in the blog writer and podcaster
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and author
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of the Prudent Plastic Surgeon.
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He he's got an absolutely fascinating origin story
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as to how he developed this, what drove
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him towards it, and a lot more an
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incredibly authentic leader. Doctor Frey, can you take
1:05
a moment to introduce yourself and and tell
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us a little bit about yourself and then
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the Prudent Plastic Surgeon and how this all
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evolved.
1:14
Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Scott. So,
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you know, a little about myself currently. I
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am,
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a full time
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practicing
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reconstructive plastic surgeon. My,
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clinical focus is on,
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breast reconstruction after cancer, specifically microsurgical breast reconstruction
1:32
and, treatment of lymphedema
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after breast cancer and its treatment.
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I'm in my six year practice,
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and that's also the age of the prudent
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plastic surgeon. So I've been doing that for
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about six years.
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And how that started was basically because I
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was,
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you know, six, seven years ago, I was
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at the end of my my training, the
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long road going from, you know, a pre
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med student to,
1:57
someone who is about to finish,
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residency and fellowship,
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and and I was burned out.
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And that was a surprising
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realization for me.
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It was something that I had the symptoms
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of for a while but hadn't recognized. And
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when I did and kind of looked back
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at what were the the factors causing it,
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which there are obviously a bunch, but a
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huge one for me was a lack of
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financial well-being, which
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it that was not something I even thought
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of as a component of overall well-being
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before that. But I was in this situation
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where, yeah, I was about to graduate. I
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was finally at the end of this long
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road, and everyone was telling me, oh, this
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is fantastic. Everything is great. You're gonna start
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making all this money. In my head, I
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was just going like, no. It's it's not
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all great. I have half $1,000,000
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of student debt.
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I have credit card debt. I have Stop
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for a second. Stop for a second. Give
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us that number of debt again that you
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came out of residency with. Give us that
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number because that's a It was wanting number.
3:00
Yeah. Half $1,000,000.
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A a little bit more, actually, because I
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had taken on
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debt to pay the full tuition of a
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private undergrad and,
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private medical school.
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That is
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remarkable
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and a lot of money. How how how
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much is
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that how normal is that to come out
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of residency with that much debt?
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It's
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I would say it's slightly more than
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average.
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But, yeah, the average is probably somewhere in
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the range of, like, 3 to 400,000
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now based on, you know, the residents that
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I'm talking to.
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Right. And and one of our colleagues whose
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daughter is a pediatrician
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just started her first job, and the job
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offers were private practice, $170,180,000.
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The other
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job offer for a health system job was
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220,000.
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You should come out with 3 to 400,000
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in debt.
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You gotta remember that 200,000
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in salary
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is 130,000
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after taxes. Those are very hard numbers, aren't
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they?
4:04
Yeah. Exactly. It's there's this
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even for for any doctor,
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there's
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the the public perception of them as as
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extremely high income
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and,
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you know,
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driving a certain car, living in a certain
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house, etcetera. But there's there's definitely a squeeze
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on doctors nowadays in terms of declining compensation
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and the increasing costs of
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of becoming a
4:30
doctor, in addition to just the the rising
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cost of of just about everything these days.
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So, yeah, it's it's definitely a big squeeze.
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So, yeah, I didn't mean to take you
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off track, but the numbers, the 500,000
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compared to what my colleague's daughter is making
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as a starting physician
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and I know it's different in different specialty.
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Some specialty start up really well, some poorly,
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but those are daunting differences if you're 3
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to 500,000 in debt, making 200,000 a year.
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Go back to your origin story and how
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you really got started with the prudent plastic
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surgeon. No. A 100%. That that's such an
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important point to make. But, yeah, exactly, as
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I was realizing all of this.
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And I like, yes. My salary is gonna
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increase, but I just realized how much I
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was gonna need to pay the debt service.
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I everyone was just telling me again, you
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need to buy this fancy car. You need
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to get this fancy house. You need to
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do all this stuff. And I was like,
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my income is increasing, but my expenses are
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increasing even more.
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And and, again, all of this was just
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leading to burnout, especially because I had just
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given,
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very prime years of my life to becoming
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a doctor where I sacrificed family and friends
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and a lot of things. And,
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so I just felt really bitter towards medicine.
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And
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what I ultimately ended up doing was, along
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with my wife, we
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just started learning the very basics of personal
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finance that I had never learned,
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things like, you know, creating a savings rate,
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how to invest money wisely, etcetera.
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Even understanding the concept of financial freedom, this
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idea that you can work because you want
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to, not because you have to, which was
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completely foreign to me.
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And and from that, we just started making
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very
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simple,
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concerted changes. And
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this all culminated a few months,
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you know, after
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where we just had a a one page
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Microsoft Word document where we laid out a
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financial plan, a very simple, that we would
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reach financial freedom in twenty five years.
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And that's now become more condensed. But, again,
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just that idea that, hey. I can just
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follow this simple plan
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and get there.
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That allowed me to
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really rekindle
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and and rediscover what I loved about medicine,
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what I loved about reconstructive plastic surgery, and
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I honestly found my burnout
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improving. And that was what was a huge
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epiphany for me. And, doctor Frey, take a
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moment in that journey and and what all
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the prudent plastic surgeon involves today.
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Tell us a little bit about the financial
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journey and and how you started writing and
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blogging about it.
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Yeah. So I basically started writing and blogging
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about it in order to share my story.
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And and what I was looking for was
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someone who was going through a similar thing
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to me. And I didn't find that. I
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found a lot of people who are out
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of clinical medicine or or,
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the like or who had already reached financial
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freedom.
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But I just thought, you know what? I'm
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gonna share this as as honestly and and
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genuinely as I can and talk about, you
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know,
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really actionable and simple steps that doctors can
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take to reach financial freedom because I honestly
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think that is so important for the health
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care profession, for doctors on an individual level
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in terms of their well-being.
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And so that what is what the platform
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is is really about is sharing those kind
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of stories
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and general
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advice and what I've done that's worked, then
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that hasn't worked.
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And talk about your personal network story if
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you'd like to your financial journey itself.
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Yeah. So I started when I first checked
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my net worth. It was, like, more negative
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than negative $500,000.
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Today, as we stand now, it's around $2,000,000,
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which is not at our goal yet, but
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certainly is enough that if, you know, I
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wanted to stop working, I could.
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My wife has been able to transition from
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she was a a college professor,
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to now where she does real estate investments,
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so that's freed up a lot of her
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time. And in general, like I said, it
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just truly has made me a better doctor
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where that is. The the plan I have
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is
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pretty much on on an autopilot. It's not
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something I have to stress about every day
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or worry about or check the markets or
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anything like that.
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And so I'm just really able to focus
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on the things I love doing. Tell us
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a little bit about the core parts of
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that plan and how important is controlling
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spending to financial
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freedom.
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Yeah. Controlling spending is the number one thing.
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So if you think about what's, like, a
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really simple
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path to to wealth at an individual level,
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it's you have to create a margin between
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what you earn and what you spend, and
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then you have to invest that margin so
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that your money starts making money. So, really,
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the main driver is what you spend. Right?
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What we earn is
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gonna be in our control, but within a
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range.
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And what you spend at every point of
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your life is always a 100% in your
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control. And and, yes, that requires some tough
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decisions at times. But,
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so, yeah, what what you spend is the
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the real baseline driver of your wealth.
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And I think for doctors, a good rule
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of thumb that I always talk about is,
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like, if you have a savings rate of
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your gross income, so before taxes,
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of 20%,
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that's that's a good starting point. You know?
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Certainly, you can accelerate things by going higher.
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When I started, you know, our savings rate
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was 0%,
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so we just tried to increase it slowly
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every month until we we met our goal,
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which,
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ultimately, was around 30%.
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So, yeah, that's that's the main driver. But
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but so so starting with that starting with
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that, it it it is so hard, of
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course,
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to control spending,
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because there's so many just dopamine fixes that
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come from it. Plus, the more if you're
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a physician or a professional and you're exhausted,
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then it it becomes easy to give into
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that
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those those decisions. But the things that really
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can hurt somebody,
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buying too big a house, getting car crazy,
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how do you avoid that when, you know,
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everybody wants the bigger house, the second home,
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the big car?
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How do people sort of get business in
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the mindset
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to protect themselves and avoid those kinds of
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things?
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My biggest thing with spending is
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is spending intentionally.
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So you're exactly right. Usually, when people spend,
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you know, we do it for for the
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don't mean hit. We we buy something. We
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get that don't mean hit. Eventually, that starts
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wearing off, and the joy we're getting from
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the purchase we made wins as well. And,
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you know, you go and make another purchase,
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and that's a recipe for overspending.
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In contrast, what we have to do is
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sort of when we spend bring two questions
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into the the forefront of our mind, the
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the conscious thinking part of our mind. And
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one question is
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whether you're buying something that's a dollar or
11:07
a million dollars, can I make this purchase
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and still reach my financial goals?
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Okay.
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Usually, the answer to that is gonna be
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yes, more or less. But the second question
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we have to ask is, okay. Is the
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purchase I'm making, is the joy that I'm
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gonna get from it greater than or equal
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to the price tag? And that's a very,
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like, subjective question, but it's one we don't
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actually think about very often. If the answer
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is yes, then you should get it. If
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the answer is no, then you shouldn't. And
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the example I always give is for the
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first five years of my practice,
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I drove a,
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a $4,000
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used Toyota
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that I bought. And the reason is that
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I'm not a car person. I don't derive
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a lot of joy from cars. I just
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need someone getting me from point a to
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point b.
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In contrast,
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we bought certainly a doctor house. Like, still
11:54
to this day, our our biggest monthly expenses
11:57
are mortgage, but that gives us a lot
11:59
of joy. We are going from New York
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City where we lived in a small apartment
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with two kids, slept on an air mattress.
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We wanted a place with a yard,
12:07
enough rooms, and and a lot of stuff.
12:09
So but it fits within our financial plan.
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So I always tell people who accuse me
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of being overly frugal. You know? I'm I'm
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not saying don't spend the money. I'm just
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saying spend it intentionally. We have to think
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about how we're spending it if we're ever
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gonna manage our our expenses and and build
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that savings rate and get to financial freedom.
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No. And and and I love that. And
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so keeping spending in control,
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putting away 20%
12:34
of your gross income. So if you make
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300,000, you're putting 60,000 a year. You're trying
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to live on the other one eighty that
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you have, which is the 300 minus the
12:44
40% in taxes,
12:45
and put 60 away
12:47
and whatever the number is. Whatever that number
12:49
is, I I I love that. So a
12:51
couple pillars,
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20% of income away. If you could do
12:54
more more, and, obviously, the more you make,
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the easier it can be to put more
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away, but the harder it can be to
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control spending,
13:01
control your spending. And then how do you
13:03
think about investing? Is it
13:05
how do you balance investing between
13:07
index funds, individual stocks, safe, safe investments? How
13:11
do you think about that?
13:12
Yeah.
13:13
I, again, I'm like a very you know,
13:16
I I live by the KISS principle of
13:19
of keep it simple.
13:21
So what what I did when I became
13:24
an attending and was like, okay. It's time
13:26
to start building this wealth was I created
13:28
that savings rate. It was about 30%.
13:31
And I said,
13:32
alright. I need to reduce my liabilities. I
13:35
need to build my assets.
13:36
The two assets I see that seem to
13:39
work really well are, you know, stocks, bonds,
13:41
and then real estate. So I took a
13:44
third of my savings rate, and I used
13:46
that to pay off debt,
13:48
student loans, etcetera. Credit card debt first, then
13:50
student loans. I took a third of it
13:52
and invested,
13:53
primarily in my retirement accounts at that time
13:56
in stocks and bonds.
13:59
I I am just invest using index funds.
14:02
I don't have any individual stock holdings.
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I since I'm young, I have a pretty
14:06
aggressive asset allocation. It's
14:08
aggressive asset allocation. It's 90%
14:11
stocks, 10% bonds. But I took 30% and
14:13
invested in that. And then I took
14:16
30% and invested directly in real estate. So
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I used that money to save up on
14:21
a down payment.
14:22
We bought a duplex.
14:24
Using that money, that duplex cash flowed, we
14:27
used,
14:28
the cash flow from that to save up
14:29
for another property. Now we have nine properties,
14:33
that cash flow. So that's kind of how
14:36
I created the building blocks.
14:39
Fantastic. I I I love that. And so
14:42
how can people I love your newsletter. I
14:44
I now signed up for it since I
14:46
got to visit with you a couple weeks
14:47
ago. I love it. Can you tell people
14:49
how to find more about the prudent plastic
14:51
surgeon? I just absolutely love what you do.
14:53
If you don't mind telling more people and
14:55
and and what Jordan does, what doctor Frey
14:57
does, is helpful whether you're a hospital executive,
14:59
whether you're an entrepreneur, whoever you are. The
15:02
advice is mindful and useful for all of
15:04
us. Doctor Frey, how can people learn more
15:06
about you and the Prudent Plastic Surgeon?
15:09
Yeah. Thank you. The the easiest way is
15:11
probably if you go to prudentplasticsurgeon.com.
15:14
And from there, that's kind of the hub,
15:16
and you can sign up for the newsletter
15:18
and see everything that we're doing. And then
15:20
if anyone wants to reach me directly, my
15:22
email is jordan, jordan,@prudentplasticsurgeon.com,
15:27
and I I respond to all the emails
15:28
and stuff. So, yeah, that's probably the best
15:30
way to reach me.
15:32
Thank you so much. Doctor Frey, I I
15:34
I love what you do. I'm a huge
15:36
fan. You know? I'm whatever amounts older than
15:39
you and following some of these principles, I
15:41
love it and just fantastic.
15:44
Thank you so much for taking the time
15:45
with us, on the Becker's health care podcast
15:47
today, and and congratulations
15:49
on your journey and sharing your journey with
15:52
so many people.
15:53
Thank you so much for having me, Scott.