Personal loans for doctors

[Doc Spouse]

This is a bit of a weird situation, but I'm looking for ideas.

We have a friend who is one year into completing their fellowship.  They're here on a J1 visa and they have plans to stay in the US after fellowship.  Unfortunately, they had a family emergency back home which requires a large monthly money transfer, more than they can handle on a salary as a fellow.

At the moment, their plan is to leave fellowship and start as a hospitalist.  They've already been offered a few different positions that will also handle the visa issue.  This would allow them to make the money needed to send back to their family.  They love what they're training to do, and are pretty broken up about having to leave training, as the possibility of coming back after multiple years is slim.  Most of the positions they are being offered are requiring a multiple year commitment to go along with the visa.

My question is - Are there any other avenues open that you can think of?  Personal loans from banks and such are iffy, considering they're here on a visa.  I understand the hesitation there, but looking at this objectively, they're going to be a high earner in less than 3 years and their chosen track lends a lot of credence to the statement that they are staying here in the US.  I've been looking around at various angel investors as a possibility, but thought the people here may know of another avenue.

I hate to see anyone give up on a dream, especially since they're so close to getting there after so much hard work.  Any ideas?

Edit: Should also mention that they explored the idea of moonlighting, but the visa is the obstacle.

[Eagleeyes]

Peer to peer lending? Lending club or Prosper

[CordMcNally]

Angel investors aren't really into loans, they do investing and this really isn't an investment opportunity to them. They need to decide what is most important to them regarding their career and life or becoming a hospitalist to be able to send money to their family. How come the people that need the money can't get the loan?

[The White Coat Investor]

SoFi does these. The rate I saw in the one that hit my mailbox yesterday was 5.2% variable.

[Doc Spouse]

Eagleeyes wrote:

Peer to peer lending? Lending club or Prosper

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Ah, this is more what I was thinking. Thanks.

CordMcNally wrote:

Angel investors aren’t really into loans, they do investing and this really isn’t an investment opportunity to them. They need to decide what is most important to them regarding their career and life or becoming a hospitalist to be able to send money to their family. How come the people that need the money can’t get the loan?

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Yeah, but I figured I'd find something along the same lines - private investors who are looking for a higher rate of return in exchange for more risk.  As for getting a loan in the other country, that isn't really an option for the family back there.  It is indeed a hard choice that he's having to make.

[Hank]

The expense / need overseas seems awfully vague. Who is responsible for this obligation? What suggests that this is just a short term need?

Without additional information, it sounds like this is someone else’s problem. Your friend might leave a good residency and send a bunch of money towards this problem and see that it doesn’t go away even after three or five or ten years. Why jeopardize a good specialty and the ability to work legally in the United States over a problem that might belong largely to other family members?

[MPMD]

Hank wrote:

The expense / need overseas seems awfully vague. Who is responsible for this obligation? What suggests that this is just a short term need?

Without additional information, it sounds like this is someone else’s problem. Your friend might leave a good residency and send a bunch of money towards this problem and see that it doesn’t go away even after three or five or ten years. Why jeopardize a good specialty and the ability to work legally in the United States over a problem that might belong largely to other family members?

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Agree with this. Have been peripherally involved in similar situations and in some the american doctors were being used as ATMs.

Not to say they shouldn't help their families or that the need isn't real, just that in some cases they dynamic is complex and weighted against the doc.

[adventure]

MPMD wrote:

Hank wrote:

The expense / need overseas seems awfully vague. Who is responsible for this obligation? What suggests that this is just a short term need?

Without additional information, it sounds like this is someone else’s problem. Your friend might leave a good residency and send a bunch of money towards this problem and see that it doesn’t go away even after three or five or ten years. Why jeopardize a good specialty and the ability to work legally in the United States over a problem that might belong largely to other family members?

Click to expand…

Agree with this. Have been peripherally involved in similar situations and in some the american doctors were being used as ATMs.

Not to say they shouldn’t help their families or that the need isn’t real, just that in some cases they dynamic is complex and weighted against the doc.

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Agreed. If someone is willing to significantly alter their plans and sacrafice themselves, so be it, but that isn't always wise.

Sometimes in life you can have A or B, but not both.

 

-- I know 2 of the banks we use offer unsecured personal loans. Usually rates are not ideal.

[G]

Doc Spouse wrote:

family emergency back home which requires a large monthly money transfer

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I get each of these words: "emergency" "large" and "monthly" but I'm having a hard time coming up with a situation where all three fit together.

AmEx and Wells Fargo both offer me a personal loan whenever I log in to my account.  As others have said, the rates are sub-optimal, but so is the situation of a large monthly money transfer.  I didn't realize residency status made a difference.

I would be tempted to loan my friend the money myself, splitting the difference between the Wells rate and prime, which would be a good ROI for you and a big savings for him.  The problem is that you could lose your friends when they don't pay you because the family emergency has doubled in severity/size/frequency.

If they do put something out on a peer to peer platform, let us know.

[Doc Spouse]

I was being deliberately vague to avoid any chance of identification. You never know, right?  The family is well below what we consider poverty level and has been supported by the fellow for the last few years.  Their country is one in which personal loans are not really a thing, except by people who consider loan repayment a physical issue.  Any normal loan there requires equity, which they don't have.

A medical emergency for their mother came up which required the fellow's sibling to take out a large personal loan and now they're up a creek without any way of paying it back.  Hence the fellow's tough decision - The fellow can't increase the amount they send back now; so a loan or leaving the fellowship is the only option.

I appreciate the interest and the information on the peer to peer.  I've passed the info along and we'll see what happens.  I have no skin in this game, but it does bother me when someone is backed into a corner like this through no fault of their own.  It has far reaching implications for their professional happiness; so I wanted to see what was out there to help them out.

Thanks all!

[FIREshrink]

As a potential lender I'd be most interested in a percentage of future earnings.

[Dont_know_mind]

I am not sure if I understand this:

They have a poor family in a poor country and a mother with a medical emergency.

Why would this require ongoing large loans ? Your friend is getting first world wage to pay off third world medical costs so this should not be gargantuan. This would be more understandable if the mother came to the US and had to have medical treatment at US costs without health insurance or something.

But it is hard to make sense of if she is getting treatment in the low medical cost country. Is it possible the money is going to mother's emergency plus maybe supporting the rest of the family and a few debts here and there and maybe a real estate venture or drugs or booze or gambling and something else ?

 

 

 

 

[Doc Spouse]

Dont_know_mind wrote:

I am not sure if I understand this:

They have a poor family in a poor country and a mother with a medical emergency.

Why would this require ongoing large loans ? Your friend is getting first world wage to pay off third world medical costs so this should not be gargantuan. This would be more understandable if the mother came to the US and had to have medical treatment at US costs without health insurance or something.

But it is hard to make sense of if she is getting treatment in the low medical cost country. Is it possible the money is going to mother’s emergency plus maybe supporting the rest of the family and a few debts here and there and maybe a real estate venture or drugs or booze or gambling and something else ?

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Lol, no.  Evidently I did a horrible job explaining things.  There is no requirement for ongoing large loans.  There is a need for one loan.  After the medical emergency, the fellow needs to send more money back home than they can currently do with their fellowship salary.   That can be solved by either getting one loan here and paying off the loan back home, or moving to a hospitalist position with a higher paycheck.

I'm a born cynic when it comes to requests for money from overseas.  Almost a decade in the military and many years OCONUS has left me rather jaded in that regard.  I've seen some things, man.   From what I can see, that isn't the case here.

Secondly, I never said they came from a third world country.   I merely said the family are well below what we consider poverty level.  The medical costs are still significant.