Traveling in Medicine
Finding the time to go on a vacation, let alone plan a vacation, during medical training can be tough. Add in trying to find call swaps and figuring out how to pay for a vacation on a resident or fellow salary can make you almost not want to take that trip. But let me tell you - going on a trip is one of the best things you can do for yourself during medical training. It gives you something to look forward to when the days and weeks are challenging. You’ll (hopefully) come back refreshed and ready to care for your patients in the best possible way.
We in medicine are so good at delayed gratification. When I started residency, I was given the advice to “still act like a med student.” What I took that to mean was to be frugal AF. But I quickly got burnt out and ended intern year feeling absolutely exhausted. By the end of residency, I found a nice balance of still taking care of my future self through investing and saving, but also taking care of my current self. Planning vacation time was one of the ways that I did that.
While I’m aware that everyone’s financial situation is different, I do feel like my situation was relatively common. I lived alone in a major East Coast city. I had a car payment, student loans, etc. Here’s how I made those trips work.
Paying For the Trip
I would start thinking about the trip far in advance. No specifics, just “I want to take a vacation Summer 2022” or whatever it was. It wasn’t until much later that I would figure out where I’m going, but the money for the trip started well before that. I would open up a new high yield savings account entitled “GTFO” and would put money into it every pay period. (I personally love my Marcus accounts as it’s so easy to add new ones).
I would get creative finding ways to add money to this account. I’m all about not putting more work in than is needed, so while my original method of funding this account was through moonlighting this quickly became a no for me. I’m not trying to spend more of my time at the hospital. Instead I would have my money work more for me. My favorite way to do this now is through covered calls and LEAP calls. This would generate income every month for me, and some of that would immediately go into my GTFO fund.
More coming on option trading in residency, because I personally think it’s a great way to build wealth and splurge a little during medical training.
Planning the Trip
First off, I love traveling during shoulder season. If you don’t know what shoulder season means, it’s basically the time right before busy season in a tourist city. I love this because it doesn’t tend to be as hot (I burn like crazy), the crowds are less, and things are a little bit cheaper particularly for accomodations.
I would pick my top 3 destinations and set alerts both on Google travel and point.me (pro tip: point.me is free with an Amex card!) and see what flights I could get with my credit card points.
If you’re like me - you’re not very good at the day to day planning of a trip beforehand. How I got around this during residency was booking one of two trips. 1 - an exploration trip. I would pick a big city, make some loose plans, and more so figure out things to do while I was there. or 2 -a beach/relaxation trip where there is very little planning needed.
Letting Go of Work
There’s nothing worse than being on a trip and still feeling like you’re attached to your work phone or logging into Epic. So make sure you have asked a friend/colleague to cover your Inbox, put an away message on your email, and go Do Not Disturb on Epic.
I promise you this will make the world of difference.
Where’s your favorite place you travelled in residency?
