3 retirement topics to think about: target date funds, TIPS funds, and asking for help.
Accumulation for retirement comes with its anxieties, but decumulation, and spending down on retirement money comes with its own set of hurdles. On fear, getting used to the unknown, thinking about money, and taxes.
We spend years arguing about withdrawal rates and asset location and whether 25x is enough. We build spreadsheets that project out to age ninety-five. And then a physician hits the number, walks away, and discovers he has no idea what to do on a Tuesday.
When it comes to money matters—and life—people tend to fall into one of two camps: optimizers and satisficers. One thing I’ve noticed is that optimizers who dispense advice to others—financial advisors and pundits who make their opinions known—spend a lot of time and energy on certain financial decisions that frankly, I can’t get too worried about. Here are some of the big ones.
A game needs rules, effort, and uncertainty. Without those things, there is nothing to play. The trouble starts when winning becomes the only acceptable outcome. You stop enjoying the work, noticing what you’re learning, or appreciating the people around you. Everything becomes a means to the next result.
After all, all this drama about data centers is being driven by hyperscalers—companies built around taking things that work and scaling them as far as they can possibly go. But not everything has to be big.
College is more expensive than ever, yet a growing number of parents say they’re willing to foot the entire bill to spare their kids student debt—and give them a financial head start.
How to Fund a 529 Plan in 2025: Complete Guide for Physicians and Families
There is a pervasive belief that wealth is automatically squandered by the third generation—the whole “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves” phenomenon. The argument goes like this: wealthy parents give their children too much, which makes them lazy, and eventually, the grandchildren blow whatever is left.
Do you need rich parents to get ahead? Parents can offer you money but also cultural, social, and psychological capital. So, when we talk about parental privilege, it’s not just that some people get a bigger headstart it’s that some people get to play a completely different game.
Changes are coming to FASA. But will it be ‘delightful?’ The college financial aid form has long been a stressor for high school seniors and their parents. Fixes have made it simpler and faster to complete, officials say.
The best-paying side gigs for 2026 span from $75-an-hour telemedicine visits to seven-figure biotech equity events, but which one is worth your time depends on where you are in your career and what you actually want the money for.
Retain connects law firms with board-certified physician expert witnesses across 25+ specialties for medical malpractice, injury, and litigation cases.
The Shot You Don’t Get to Take Later
 |
 |
Photography sorted my life into two categories without me asking it to. Some work requires a body. Some requires only a mind. The Alaskan backcountry, the pre-dawn scramble, the twelve-mile approach to an alpine lake nobody photographs because getting there is miserable and the reward is an image nobody else bothered to earn. All of it carries an expiration date stamped somewhere on my lumbar spine, in ink I don’t get to read.
Physicians are terrible at this arithmetic. We start earning at 32, we spend the next two decades stacking retirement accounts, and we treat travel as something that begins after the last shift. Meanwhile the ridge is right there. It has been right there the whole time.
I’ve watched colleagues retire at 65 with a beautiful portfolio and a shoulder that won’t hold a camera above eye level anymore. The money arrived. The capacity left. We are trained to defer, the trip until fellowship ends, fellowship until the partnership vests, the partnership until the loans clear, and we carry that habit straight into the one account that never compounds, a body drawing itself down on schedule whether or not we ever spend it. They do not negotiate.
So I take the trip now. I book the Iceland thing while I can still walk on ice without thinking about where my feet land, while a fourteen-hour travel day costs me a nap instead of a week. The 403(b) will survive one fewer maximum contribution year. My cartilage will not survive an extra decade of deferral.
Ask what on your list needs a working body. Move those to the front. Everything else, the reading and the printing and the sitting quietly somewhere beautiful, keeps until later.
Later is when you’ll want something to sit with.
