Financial Talks at Residency Programs etc

[Frenchy1011]

Hey all,

 

     I had a quick question for anybody who has knowledge of, or is already doing, financial talks at Residency programs or such. I have been doing some research, and looking into ways to get some extra money/side hustle etc. Obviously, I am pretty busy, and to be completely honest, do not have a lot of other hobbies that would generate income. What I do feel I can bring to the table, and what I think most frequent contributors to this site would as well, would be to provide important and specific financial knowledge to residency programs etc.

 

     Is anybody doing this? Do you charge for your time/is it lucrative? I feel that I did not get almost any financial talks in residency, and that is definitely an area that I was not prepared for. Now that I am out of residency and have done a lot of reading on the subject, I feel that I can make good contributions. I have researched becoming a more "legal" financial advisor through starting a sole proprietor RIA (and becoming an IAR), but that seems pretty convoluted and time consuming, especially since I would not necessarily want to take over people's investments and such. Do I need this to give conference lectures? Or is it fine to not do so, as long as I don't give specific investment advice (like specific index funds etc)?

 

Any thoughts on this subject would be greatly appreciated. Not only would this be a potential income maker, but I would also feel good about imparting the knowledge that I've obtained through this site and more to new docs who really need it. Thanks again.

[CM]

I would be surprised if you can earn much money giving financial talks to residents. I don't think you'll find many residents or programs looking to spend money on this. Rogue MD does this at no charge.

You don't need any formal qualifications to give such talks. You only need to convince the customer that your talk is worth the charge.

For most physicians looking to earn extra money, the best option is to work more at their primary job; more shifts, longer office hours, moonlighting, locum tenens, etc.

[Dr_JB]

I do this at my residency at no charge. 

[G]

I give personalized advice over beers to friends; I keep it very generic for residents, students, etc. I like your hustle, but in terms of making it a sidegig: a) not sure there is a market, and b) I'd feel kinda slimy taking money from residents for what I consider part of their education.

[Zaphod]

I've only ever done it for free or at most hotel reimbursement if at a conference level event. Not that I would turn down money, but its mostly been to help out, also residents dont have any money.

[Frenchy1011]

I wouldn’t take money from the residents themselves, I agree that is morally questionable. I would look for compensation from the programs themselves, not the individual residents. But sounds like there’s not much of a lane to monetize that anyway. Thanks for the responses.

[StarTrekDoc]

If you really are interested in monetizing this - create a LLC with two arms - financial and real estate -- build your empire that route by having employed fiduciary advisers and real estate agents for the local market.

Then you can develop your relationship with residency program directors and hospital administration afterwards to steer foot traffic to the company as a built-in referral basis.   You'll have the inside track with any and all residents and incoming faculty.

Forget the dollar reimbursement of the talk itself.

 

That's if you want to have a business attached to it. 

 

I, myself, KIS and like G a beer and chat over the game of the day is good for me

[The White Coat Investor]

Frenchy1011 wrote:

Hey all,

 

     I had a quick question for anybody who has knowledge of, or is already doing, financial talks at Residency programs or such. I have been doing some research, and looking into ways to get some extra money/side hustle etc. Obviously, I am pretty busy, and to be completely honest, do not have a lot of other hobbies that would generate income. What I do feel I can bring to the table, and what I think most frequent contributors to this site would as well, would be to provide important and specific financial knowledge to residency programs etc.

 

     Is anybody doing this? Do you charge for your time/is it lucrative? I feel that I did not get almost any financial talks in residency, and that is definitely an area that I was not prepared for. Now that I am out of residency and have done a lot of reading on the subject, I feel that I can make good contributions. I have researched becoming a more “legal” financial advisor through starting a sole proprietor RIA (and becoming an IAR), but that seems pretty convoluted and time consuming, especially since I would not necessarily want to take over people’s investments and such. Do I need this to give conference lectures? Or is it fine to not do so, as long as I don’t give specific investment advice (like specific index funds etc)?

 

Any thoughts on this subject would be greatly appreciated. Not only would this be a potential income maker, but I would also feel good about imparting the knowledge that I’ve obtained through this site and more to new docs who really need it. Thanks again.

Click to expand...

Yes, I do this. No. It's not lucrative. You will be paid better to practice medicine even if you wrote the best selling book on the subject or write the most read blog on the subject and have done it for half a decade. That's just the way it is. Relatively easy to find gigs that pay $500-$1000-$2000 plus expenses, much more difficult to get paid the $4-8K worth of time you put into the process if you are traveling there to do it. Like medical education, it pretty much just happens out of the goodness of the hearts of those willing to do it. 

[Frenchy1011]

Thank you for the insight. That is good to know. I don’t see myself doing long traveling, big conferences etc. Mostly staying within my city/state. So definitely not a big scale thing, but nice to know that I may be able to find a little (albeit very small) amount of money in it. Mostly this comes about as I recently did a lecture for my old residency program, and there were 6 residents there and one faculty member who had to leave early to go do scopes, so didn’t really find that it was worth my time. Knowing that I may have gotten $500 out of the process would have at least made it worth my time.

[G]

Hm, 6 residents is a bit insulting.... however, I recently spoke to a PD who thought financial talk was taboo/silly/unnecessary, so don't be discouraged by the showing, since it's probably coming from the top.

[spiritrider]

You have to be very careful about charging a fee for investment advice. This is heavily regulated by the SEC and others. Many states have even stricter requirements than the feds. In many cases registration and certifications are mandatory even for just financial advice having nothing to do with SEC defined investment advice.

From the SEC, an Investment Adviser is anyone who: for compensation; is engaged in the business of; providing advice to others or issuing reports or analyses regarding securities.

What constitutes advice: Advice to others about specific securities, such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, limited partnerships,and commodity pools. Advice about real estate, coins, precious metals, or commodities is not advice about securities.

The following less specific advice, or advice that is only indirectly about securities. Also, constitutes advice.

• Advice about market trends is advice about securities;


• Advice about the selection and retention of other advisers is advice about securities;


• Advice about the advantages of investing in securities versus other types of investments (e.g., coins or real estate) is advice about securities;


• Providing a selective list of securities is advice about securities even if no advice is provided as to any one security;


• Asset allocation advice is advice about securities.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

The White Coat Investor wrote:

Frenchy1011 wrote:

Hey all,

 

     I had a quick question for anybody who has knowledge of, or is already doing, financial talks at Residency programs or such. I have been doing some research, and looking into ways to get some extra money/side hustle etc. Obviously, I am pretty busy, and to be completely honest, do not have a lot of other hobbies that would generate income. What I do feel I can bring to the table, and what I think most frequent contributors to this site would as well, would be to provide important and specific financial knowledge to residency programs etc.

 

     Is anybody doing this? Do you charge for your time/is it lucrative? I feel that I did not get almost any financial talks in residency, and that is definitely an area that I was not prepared for. Now that I am out of residency and have done a lot of reading on the subject, I feel that I can make good contributions. I have researched becoming a more “legal” financial advisor through starting a sole proprietor RIA (and becoming an IAR), but that seems pretty convoluted and time consuming, especially since I would not necessarily want to take over people’s investments and such. Do I need this to give conference lectures? Or is it fine to not do so, as long as I don’t give specific investment advice (like specific index funds etc)?

 

Any thoughts on this subject would be greatly appreciated. Not only would this be a potential income maker, but I would also feel good about imparting the knowledge that I’ve obtained through this site and more to new docs who really need it. Thanks again.

Click to expand…

Yes, I do this. No. It’s not lucrative. You will be paid better to practice medicine even if you wrote the best selling book on the subject or write the most read blog on the subject and have done it for half a decade. That’s just the way it is. Relatively easy to find gigs that pay $500-$1000-$2000 plus expenses, much more difficult to get paid the $4-8K worth of time you put into the process if you are traveling there to do it. Like medical education, it pretty much just happens out of the goodness of the hearts of those willing to do it. 

Click to expand...

And in case it isn't clear, I'm talking about ALL talks to physician groups, not just residents or students. But I've been paid just as much by medical schools, residency programs, county medical societies, and other groups. 

[MPMD]

As an assistant program director at an extremely financially solvent institution i can guarantee you that there is no money in any residency budget for paid conference speakers.

Residency didactics are usually part of an ACGME mandate to cover certain material and FP is not on there.

The only way you can get some compensation for talking to a residency is to give grand rounds and that is never going to be more than flight+hotel.

Keep in mind that within any given field of medicine the number of people who can actually command a speaking fee is going to be VERY limited in any context (100 max is my guess and that's probably high). For those of us in EM I'd say Weingart, Rob Rogers, Amal Mattu, Stu Swadron, maybe Greg Henry. Hard to come up with many others.

[CM]

spiritrider wrote:

You have to be very careful about charging a fee for investment advice. This is heavily regulated by the SEC and others. Many states have even stricter requirements than the feds. In many cases registration and certifications are mandatory even for just financial advice having nothing to do with SEC defined investment advice.From the SEC, an Investment Adviser is anyone who: for compensation; is engaged in the business of; providing advice to others or issuing reports or analyses regarding securities.

What constitutes advice: Advice to others about specific securities, such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, limited partnerships,and commodity pools. Advice about real estate, coins, precious metals, or commodities is not advice about securities.

The following less specific advice, or advice that is only indirectly about securities. Also, constitutes advice.

• Advice about market trends is advice about securities;


• Advice about the selection and retention of other advisers is advice about securities;


• Advice about the advantages of investing in securities versus other types of investments (e.g., coins or real estate) is advice about securities;


• Providing a selective list of securities is advice about securities even if no advice is provided as to any one security;


• Asset allocation advice is advice about securities.

 

Click to expand...

.

[RogueDadMD]

I have been speaking to our peds and IM residents for a few years, also speaking to our med students and surgery residents, and potentially our ENT and EM residents.  Fairly soon I'll frankly be speaking to every residency/fellowship in our university in addition to the med students.

I've never been paid for any of them, but I have won lecturer of the month x 3 from our peds residency (came w/gift cards).  I have not been paid for any of it -- I think that would go against the grain of what our university does.  Just because we're talking about money doesn't mean we get it.

Publishing a manuscript on the topic of (lack of) resident financial education last year has gotten me more attention, but still no one paying me.  I did get an invite (WCI may have referred me to them) to speak at a colo-rectal surgery conference on physician finance (I'll probably be the first ever peds EM doc to speak at one of those), but that is only covering cost of coming (hotel, travel, etc).