Leaving Medicine and Achieving Financial FreedomCoach Chels MD

Have you ever thought about leaving clinical medicine, but felt worried about the money? Financial freedom is something you can absolutely achieve and it isn’t dependent upon whether you are working in medicine or not.

This week’s episode of Life After Medicine features Dr. Christopher Loo. During his second year of his orthopedic residency, Dr. Loo heard his intuition telling him that he was living a lie and that he needed to get out of there to discover his true passion and his true nature.

This all happened at the start of the financial crisis in 2008. While people were losing their jobs and losing their houses and the country was going into a panic, Dr. Loo decided to run towards his fear. He followed his intuition and resigned from residency. It was the biggest gamble that he’s ever made, but it’s paid off big time.

Listen in as Dr. Loo and Chelsea talk about feeling disillusioned with the healthcare system, following your intuition and creating financial freedom so you can live a well balanced life on your own terms.

“We are all created to pursue our highest calling and our highest destiny. Sometimes you try to pursue this well trodden path and it’s not the best path for you. “
Dr. Christopher Loo

Financial freedom doesn’t come from a job

Dr. Loo began to see early on in his professional career that there was no such thing as job security. He watched some of his friends, who were earning high six figure salaries working in Silicon Valley, lose their jobs, due to various economic events. He started to educate himself on financial freedom and read books like “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and “multiple streams of income”.

He started to realize that the best form of job security to be able to go out and create your own economic success. If you are able to create value independent of a job you will be that much better off.

He did his graduate school years at RICE which was one of the top destinations for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. He was surrounded by college aged entrepreneurs who were starting businesses and becoming millionaires at the ages of 19 and 20 years old, and was so inspired by these success stories.

During graduate school, Dr. Loo created an options trading company and poured the profits from that into real estate investments. By the time he graduated medical school, he had a real estate side hustle, with multiple investment properties and was on his way to achieving financial freedom.

Disillusioned and thinking about leaving medicine

Dr. Loo started to question his chosen profession of being a physician when he started he clinical rotations in medical school. He noticed that the residents were all pretty unhappy and the attendings had undergone multiple divorces, seemed angry and unhealthy. They were making good money, but were emotionally unhappy, and he did not want to become like them.

Although he had hesitations about becoming a clinical physician. he ended up applying for residency anyways because that’s what all of his peers and advisors encouraged him today. He matched into orthopedic surgery at Rutgers, and when he walked into orientation on his first day, he immediately knew he had made a mistake. He had a gut feeling, from his intuition, that very first day of residency that he was interested in leaving medicine. However, he ignored this message and kept pushing through the first 2 years of residency.

Listening to your intuition to find your highest calling

The 2008 financial crisis was the best thing that ever happened to Dr. Loo. These economic events gave Chris a new perspective that spurred him to finally listen to his intuition and turn in his resignation letter.

He got to a point where he couldn’t look himself in the eye anymore. He knew that he was living a lie by staying in residency. He heard his intuition telling him that he had to get out of there. He had to discover his true passion and true nature by leaving medicine.

(I had similar experiences with my intuition during medicine and have written several posts about this as well if you are interested in reading more about intuition check out these posts- How to Tap Into Your Intuition and The Dangers of Ignoring Your Intuition)

So while everyone was losing their houses and losing their jobs and the country was going into an economic crisis, Dr. Loo, followed his fear.

He resigned from his residency program and began accumulating residential real estate. He continued this until 2016 when he finally achieved a point of financial freedom where he no longer had to work.

Quitting residency and leaving medicine, especially during those unstable economic times, was the biggest gamble he’s ever taken, but it’s paid off big time. Now, Dr. Loo has a thriving online business writing books, speaking and consulting on financial freedom for physicians, and feels like he is actually living the life he was meant to be living. If the 2008 financial crisis wouldn’t have happened, Dr. Loo speculates that he never would have left residency and would be severely depressed now.

Achieving financial freedom after leaving medicine

Financial freedom could be achieved when your passive income streams equal your living expenses. Another way to say this is, you achieve financial freedom when, you could lose your job (your active income stream), and your quality of life/ livelihood would not be impacted.

These passive income streams could be from your savings, your dividends, real estate investments, digital products, etc. The most important thing to do to achieve financial freedom is to start building multiple income streams.

Dr. Loo recommends that people, especially in high earning professions like physicians, increase their savings rate to 20% (instead of the generally talked about 10%), and put their savings in a low cost index fund. You can increase your savings rate by both reducing your expenses and creating sources of passive income.