Docs Outside The Box
Hosts Dr. Nii (Ghanaian) and Dr. Renee (Haitian) are first-generation physicians who paid off $662,000 in student loans in 3 years - while figuring out contracts, career moves, and money management that their colleagues learned at home.
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Docs Outside The Box
REPLAY: From panic attacks to beautiful artwork. Medicine is artistry for this doc #285
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Dr. Lucie Mitchell is a long time listener of Docs Outside. She joins Dr. Nii today to share her story about how a major panic attack in the last 3 months of residency training led her to pay off $70,000 of student loan debt in less than a year and turn medicine into art.
Things to expect in this episode:
- How a debt-induced panic attack and a phone call with Dr. Renée resulted in an aggressive loan repayment plan
- How Dr. Lucie turned her back pain into art for herself and others
- How she roped the dean of her medical school into babysitting her daughter
- How one of Dr. Nii's mindset episodes helped Dr. Lucie stop stalling and take action
Check out Dr. Lucie's artistry at www.phoenixnoirdesigns.com
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Episode Introduction and Sponsors
Speaker 1This episode is brought to you by Set for Life Insurance. Listen docs. One of the first steps we took to pay off our student loan debt was realizing we paid way too much for our disability insurance. That all changed when we found Set for Life Insurance. They helped us with a customized insurance policy that met our needs and, most of all, budget. To learn more, check out setforlifeinsurancecom.
Speaker 1Hey you, yeah you, the one listening to this podcast right now. I'm guessing you tune into Docs Outside the Box because taking control of your career is really important to you. Now our sponsor Provider Solutions and Development. They have a team of experts that are ready to guide docs, just like you, through today's job landscape. They've also got exclusive access to hundreds of positions nationwide. So whether you're looking to dive deeper into your specialty work or let's keep it real you're trying to find a healthier work-life balance, it's important to start with them right now. Contact them at infopsdconnectorg. Forward. Slash docs outside the box. What's good everyone? This is Dr Nii. We have a longtime listener on the show today. We have Dr Lucy Mitchell. Dr Lucy, welcome to Docs Outside the Box. What's good? How you doing.
Speaker 2Hey, thank you, very happy to be here. I'm a longtime listener, longtime fan. I've known your wife forever. You were just a bald head that I seen far away one day.
Speaker 1And now you just hear my voice every now and then.
Speaker 2Yep, that's right.
Meeting Dr. Lucy Mitchell
Speaker 1Well, I really love connecting with longtime listeners. I used to listen to radio when I was younger, particularly like Hot 97 and so forth, so I know people always say, like longtime listener, first time caller. So everybody, we do accept call-ins. So if you guys are listening to this show and you want to get on, just hit us up and you can be just like Dr Lucy and come on the show. So we have so many different facets of you that we are going to explore today, more than just being a listener to the show, but also, like you are taking action, you're doing some outside of the box things that we want to feature on the show. But before we jump into that, let's take a moment. Tell us about who you are, where you're from, tell us about what your training is, what your specialty, and then we'll just take it from there.
Speaker 2Okay, yeah, so originally I'm from Canada, you know. So me and my siblings and my parents are from Haiti. So you know, we're growing up in a Haitian household. You know straight parents, all about education and all that other stuff, and it's either you're a doctor, lawyer, engineer or nurse, or whatever. And it's either you're a doctor, lawyer, engineer or nurse or whatever Right Failure. None of my siblings are doing that, okay, by the way. And so then my mom said, hey, we're going to move south. So I figured, all right, we're going to move to Florida. You know how Haitian folks are, so I'm thinking Florida. So we went to Boston, I thought we were visiting, but we ended up staying for about 18 years years, oh wow okay, yeah, uh-uh nope were you in like roxbury or where we lived in dorchester and mattapan dorchester?
Speaker 1okay, I've heard of dorchester.
Speaker 2Okay, so dorchester and mattapan, and so I went to holy cross for undergrad. Um, I was an english major, creative minor league.
Speaker 1Okay, yep, pretty good, I went to lehigh so lehigh, I know that yeah, so we used to race you guys all the time, so we be calling basketball, but anyway, so, okay, okay, yeah, basketball team is pretty good. I can't front basketball team.
Speaker 2Yeah, so we used to race you guys all the time, so we'd be calling basketball, but anyway, so Okay.
Speaker 1Okay, yeah, basketball team is pretty good. I can't front. Basketball team is pretty good.
Speaker 2And so you know, after I finished Holy Cross I went to Atlanta and then went to grad school. And so you know, grad school, you know, got a master's in biomedical sciences and then took a year and a half and I a year and a half and I was teaching anatomy and physiology, histoneuroanatomy, all that cool stuff, and then went to med school to decomm.
Speaker 1Now, when you were teaching, were you in Atlanta also. Where were you?
Speaker 2Yes, I was teaching in Atlanta.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2All right, some of the colleges there, okay. So you did that for how long? So I did that for about a year and a half straight and then when I went to med school, you know how you get like maybe like two summers off between first and second year, and so during those times I was teaching the anatomy bootcamp at those colleges and also at the medical school.
Speaker 1Oh, wow, so you're busy, so let's take a step back real quick. So from the time you graduated from Holy Cross to going to DCOM and I forget which DCOM is which school- the Busk College of Osteopathic Medicine in Tennessee. In Tennessee. So by the time you, the time in between graduating from college to going to medical school, how many years?
Speaker 2So college I graduated in 2007 and I started med school in 2011. And so between that there was a grad school.
Speaker 1Okay, so realistically about three and a half years, four years, four years. And in between that that's when you got your master's, that's when you were teaching. Then you went to medical school okay. And then in between your summers of medical school, you were making some extra cash by using your skills as an anatomy specialist. So you were teaching anatomy at your school as well as at the other schools that you were at also. Yeah, okay. And then, third year, it's time to make a decision, right? You got to make a decision as to what specialty you want to go into, and you decided to go into PMNR.
Speaker 2So that's physical medicine and rehabilitation, that's not how I heard.
Speaker 1I heard it was plenty money and rehab and relaxation. That's what I heard. Why are you changing the definition? What's this?
From Canada to Medicine: Lucy's Journey
Speaker 2I mean, you know I'm chilling, all right. So you go into PMNR. We got a bunch of med students who listen, you know, as far as Guillain-Barre, to anything from let's see, any of those neuromuscular disorders that you hear as a child, that you only see in books, and strokes, brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, trauma, yep, lots of trauma, lots of orthopedic trauma vehicle trauma.
Speaker 1I think, like 80% of our patients, end up in your hands in a physical medicine or rehab doctor's hands?
Speaker 2Oh, probably, I don't know.
Speaker 1When you want to accept them. Excuse me, let me just clarify that Y'all don't want to accept nobody.
Speaker 2No, they're criteria and sometimes y'all just want to hand us to anybody.
Speaker 1When y'all want to get paid. Anyway, move on.
Speaker 2We have to get, we gotta make some money.
Speaker 1So everybody listen. So the majority of my patients that I take care of like going home immediately after their trauma or even at the hospital is really not an option. So usually the options for them are going to a skilled nursing facility, so like a nursing home or going home, which can be really difficult if they have, like, orthopedic injuries or they have a brain injury or if they they have a spinal cord injury or you know. Let's say, I operate on them and I have to remove organs. Like that takes time to recover. So the other option is for them to go to something called inpatient rehab and that's where Dr Lucy is taking care of patients who are acutely injured. They're recovering. They're no longer like acutely injured, but they're recovering and they need someone like her to help them get to the next process, which is hopefully getting home.
Speaker 2So yeah, and the thing about that is a lot of like people, especially y'all, y'all surgeons, y'all don't know the difference between acute and patient rehab, nursing home, skilled nursing facilities, long-term care, because all those are all different things. So a nursing home is not a skilled nursing facility, because a lot of people will get those two confused Come and educate us.
Speaker 1please Tell us the difference right now.
Speaker 2That's why there's a lot of miscommunication there. So a skilled nursing facility is where somebody is, you know, not at the point where they can tolerate the acute inpatient rehab, but also not at the point where they're going to require, like you know, 24 seven ongoing care like in a nursing home. So a skilled facility is like the in-between, and then your insurance usually approves that for about a 20 day stay, versus acute inpatient rehab is an average of 10 to 14 days and again it could be less, it could be more depends on how you progress while you're there. And so those are the options. Nursing home is more like of a, you know, between a long-term place where somebody will say, hey, I can't take care of my mother anymore, Maybe she can go to a nursing home and she can stay there for X amount of time, but it's a lot longer than 20 days like a skilled nursing facility.
Speaker 1Okay, and usually the big difference between a skilled nursing facility and inpatient rehab for those who are listening, the big difference is is how much rehab can that person do right, Like, how many hours can that person do Correct? How many can they tolerate Right?
Speaker 2A lot of times, even for acute and patient rehab it's about three hours a day to tolerate. But somebody who needs a skilled nursing may not be able to tolerate that intense rehab, and so they can only do an hour, one hour and a half a day, and so that's when a skilled nursing becomes more appropriate day, and so that's when a skilled nursing becomes more appropriate. But they're there longer because they can actually, you know, do better in that period of time versus a three hour that they're shorter because they get more therapy in between those times.
Speaker 1Okay, All right, cool. So how long was your residency?
Speaker 2So total is four years. So your first year is your intern year, which is, you know, it could be a combination of either general surgery or internal medicine, or transitional, transitional year, which is a combination of the two. So that's what I did, um, and then three years of rehab and after that I went into a fellowship. So I did my fellowship in interventional spine and pain. So I do a lot of minimally invasive spine procedures. You know your bread and butter like epidurals and stuff, do all those too. But of course your spinal cord stimulators, your VertiFlex, which is, you know, implanting a device between the spinal processes on the back to, you know, help with somebody with spinal stenosis, for example.
Speaker 1So oftentimes you're in the operating room you're wearing scrubs you have like lead on because you're using a lot of fluoroscopy and so forth.
Speaker 1So wow, so that's pretty impressive. Here's a tip when looking for your next job, understand your strengths and weaknesses. For example, if you've been practicing for a while and you know you have a problem with closing charts, then it's important that you find a place that's going to help you have administrative help right. So there are plenty of options when it comes to your career in medicine. But just like every patient is different, every physician has their own personal definition of success, and that's where our sponsor steps in Provider Solutions and Development doesn't bring just one answer for all. They are recruitment experts focusing on who you are before helping you find what you're meant to be. So whatever you're ready for next, they'll help you find it with no quotas, no commissions to get in the way. So even if you're looking for a more collegial feel at work or just heck, a more healthier work-life balance, they can help find the right fit for you. So reach out today at infopsdconnectorg. Forward slash docs outside the box, all right. So you? So that's a total of four years of training.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Okay, four years of training and now. Where are you located now?
Speaker 2So right now I'm in private practice. I'm in Rome, georgia, okay, and so that's where.
Speaker 1I am Okay, all right, and you've been listening to Docs Outside the Box for how long? Now, sis, how long?
Speaker 2Man since forever, because you started back what three years ago almost.
Speaker 1No, I started 2016.
Speaker 2So I started listening in 2017.
Teaching Anatomy Between Medical Training
Speaker 12017. Okay, so yeah, you definitely been there for a long time, because 2016,. That was the time when I only put out for the entire year. I put out like 16 episodes because I just wasn't sure exactly what I was doing, how consistent I wanted to be. And then, around late 2016, and as we start getting into 2017, that's when more and more people more physicians, more med students, more people in healthcare in general are jumping onto the podcast wave and that's when I was like, oh man, like I need to get more consistent with this, and that's when I think we started to get a lot more listeners because we were just putting out episodes every week. So I cringe listening to those episodes, but I appreciate people like you for sticking with us, so I really appreciate that.
Speaker 1Now, as everybody who's listened to the show knows, we feature docs who do things outside of medicine. So I wanted to highlight what you do in the hospital, and that's really great, but let's jump into what you do outside of medicine. You have a design studio, you have a company, a business called Phoenix Noir Designs and Photography. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2Yeah, and so what it is is because I specialize or sub-specialize in spine and pain, and so what I ended up doing is getting images of my own spine, not just for fun, but because you know they were needed at the time, you know.
Speaker 1I was about to say I was like, wait, you just going in there just doing floor on your back, how you do that.
Speaker 2No, it was actually needed for specific reasons. And so, um, what I ended up doing is saying, wow, because my L5 S1, you know, the disc is almost gone and I'm young. So people are like, you know, wow, that's crazy. But also I have a you know listesis, so that's like a slippage of one vertebrae over the other, right at that same level. And so I was like, wow, my spine looks, you know, jacked up, you know. And so I started just kind of playing around with it in some of my programs and and I'm doing some abstract, turning my spine into some abstract art and people were like, wow, that's pretty cool. You know, what is that? What'd you get it from? And I'm like what? No, that's my spine, like what you mean. And so I started doing more of it and people started like what are you doing Like?
Speaker 2I have Element, I have ToolWiz, I have all these different, you know, like programs that I use Because I used to. I was doing art since I was in middle school.
Speaker 1But when you started, you were just like. You did this on purpose at first, or were you trying to like look at your spine better? It was on purpose?
Speaker 2No, it was on purpose. I was kind of messing around with it.
Speaker 1Okay, I was in lectures.
Speaker 2I was like, okay, well, that's pretty cool, people are starting asking more about it. And then one time a nurse said, hey, you know what you get that, how much is it? I'm like, well, what? And I just gave a random price and she was like, all right, cool, sold. I was like, oh, okay, yeah, wow, wow.
Speaker 2So people will pay for your artwork, okay yeah, and so then I started doing more of it, more of it, and people would say, hey, you, I have like a need that has been jacked up. You know, here's my MRI, you know how much you charge. And so then that's when I started saying, hey, you know what this can be, my little you know thing.
Speaker 1So this is now like 2018, 2018. Okay, yeah 2018.
Speaker 2So it wasn't, you know, nothing serious. You know I was kind of saying, okay, here and there, kind of doing stuff, but then I really took it seriously, you know, after this whole panic attack that I had, you know, in 2019. And that's when I started, you know, jumping on that even more seriously and, you know, started getting the website out. I think I got the website out last year and then now it's, you know, full-blown running and I do a lot more than just spines. I do different body parts. You know I've done like an initial emblation for like an OBGYN. You know I also do a lot of abstract acrylic paintings, and so a lot of folks want the original paintings, and so I've been doing that as well too.
Speaker 1So do you got to get permission for. So who like you're getting this is like patients that you're taking some of the photos, the images of and no, they were my.
Speaker 2They were originally all mine.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2Yeah, so they were all my spine images, so I didn't have any patient images. They were all mine that I was using to create the different designs.
Speaker 1But the current art that you're using right now.
Speaker 2So my our current art is all mine still.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2Gotcha. So there's so many different ways to use. You know your spine images and so, but they're all mine. The one that I sell and put out, they're all mine. If somebody were to ask me to do theirs, you know I do theirs, you know to pay for it, I get them theirs, but I don't resell like their spines.
Speaker 1How long does it take to do a piece of art?
Speaker 2It depends. Sometimes it could take me, you know I'll go all day Saturday and just be in my zone and just you know focus on that. At times it could take anywhere for like several days to a few weeks, and that's for like spine stuff. If I'm doing acrylic paintings, you know it'll take me about, you know, several days to do the painting, but then the painting itself needs to cure or dry for at least like three to four weeks, cause there's a lot of layers on it. And then, once it's dried, then I have to like do a varnish or add resin, which is the top coat layer, and all those take time as well too. So before we hopped on this show, I was actually doing some layers to some paintings okay, so for those who are listening to the show.
Speaker 1on just a podcast you can't see, but if you're watching on YouTube, you can see a piece of artwork that Dr Lucy has sent to us. Let me see if I can get this centered better. Like this is some beautiful artwork, so is this you.
Speaker 2This is me. This was at the very beginning of the pandemic.
Understanding Rehabilitation Medicine
Speaker 1So this is you. It looks like you have a mask on and your hair is over one eye. You look like Aaliyah.
Speaker 2All right, I was actually crying, I was just upset, I was mad, I was pissed off, I was angry because, you know, I was seeing a lot of people my age, you know dying and in a matter of days, and it was just exhausting. I couldn't go home to my kids you know my husband, so it was a lot going on at the time.
Speaker 1Now, dr Lucy, you are PM&R, so like tell us about like what happened in that situation. Did they, did you get like deputized and you had to do like different types of? Did you have to do things outside of your scope during the like the height of the pandemic?
Speaker 2So during that time I was actually in fellowship during the pandemic, and so, as a fellow, even though we were doing all the individual spine and pain stuff, we still had to, you know, do our duties at the hospital as well too. And part of the rehab unit was converted into, you know, a COVID ward basically, and so even though they were on, you know, covid patients, they would still have your responsibility because they were technically on your unit at the end of the day, and so there was a lot of that going on, and I actually had the first COVID patient in the hospital at the time when I was doing my fellowship.
Speaker 1Where did you do your fellowship?
Speaker 2at. I did it at Alamo OrthoSports and Spine in Birmingham.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2All right, and so we did the PM&R part at Grandview and St Vincent's East.
Speaker 1Got you, got you Okay. So that I mean that had to be a little crazy, though right. Like I mean, this is not the typical type of patient that you're doing most of your training on. You know, I'm sure you have to isolate for C, diff and all these, but that's a different.
Speaker 2That was a different beast, yeah, and so because there weren't any protocols, and so myself and my co-fellows, we ended up writing a protocol for COVID, for the rehab unit, which ended up being the protocol for the hospital at the same time, also during our time. Yeah, we try.
Speaker 1Okay, okay. Well, that piece of art that you guys just saw, that is dope, that's going into the studio. You can find more about her paintings, her design, at Phoenix Noir. Let me see Where's the website. I thought I have that I'm going to put in the show notes. If I don't have it up here, I should have it here, but-.
Speaker 2SOSPhoenixNoirDesignscom.
Speaker 1There you go, so I'm going to put in the show notes so people can support that. So you say it takes anywhere between, like what, 24 hours to maybe several weeks, depending on if it's an acrylic painting for you to get something out like that. And then you said that you were painting when you were in middle school. So from the time when you were in middle school to when you became a physician, or even to the point where you started making this a business, were you still dabbling and working in paint, or did you have to lay that down so that you can really focus on medicine?
Speaker 2So I was still dabbling here and there, but I did lay it down during residency, like the first couple years of residency.
Speaker 2It kind of laid down just a little bit, but then I started picking it up just here and there, once in a blue moon, like for the photography portion portion. You know, when you're a resident you get like those pictures of you on a website so they can see who the residency class is. Well, so far, the class before mine and all the ones way before that, they all looked like dull and it was a cloudy day and it looked it just looked a hot mess. And so I asked my program director. I said, hey, can I take over and do like the pictures for our class and the class that comes after us, because these pictures don't look right. And she was like yeah, yeah, sure, whatever, go at it. So I did that and everybody would from different programs would say, hey, what y'all got pictures done, where y'all go, is it the'm like? No, this is outside the building, we just made it look nice you know, and so that kind of started yeah, and so that started, you know, getting business in that direction.
Speaker 2As far as other programs wanted me to, you know, do some of their photos for their residents and things of that sort too, so I enjoyed doing that during residency. So that's where I started kind of slowly picking that back up even more and more during that time.
Speaker 1So, when you're working or not working, when you are creating, where's your mind at? Like how you know cause it's? I can imagine, like you, it's related to anatomy, it's related to what you do, it's your, you know, it's your body that you're basically manipulating and creating into art. But I just am interested where does your mind go when you're doing this, this, like the doctor mind that's creating, or is this the other side of your brain?
Speaker 2yeah, it is definitely not the doctor mind, because at that point I try to shut down you know, the outside from like work and everything. If I had a bad day at work, you see it in my art because like dark colors and it's like what the hell is this? You know, it's just very dark. Sometimes if I'm having a great day, it's going to be these bright colors. You know it's colorful. And sometimes if I'm just having a just a regular, like you know, just go around day, then it can be a mixture of things. But my mind is usually not on work, or how do I make this look like more like a spine, or how do I do this? Definitely not in my mind. At that point I'm usually have, like you know, some ratchet music in my ear, you know, whatever just going why you got to be ratchet Dr going why you got to be ratchet.
Speaker 2Dr Lucy, why you got to be ratchet. Sometimes I be ratchet, but for real, and a lot of times you know I'm playing my TI in my ear and I'm on go.
Speaker 1Okay, all right, all right. Well, look like, I think, from the outside looking in, someone who's listening to this show, you know you can hear little things that you're saying here and there. That's piecemealing what's going on behind the scenes. But let's go get under the surface right, because I think surface level is like oh okay, pm&r, you're fellowship trained, you're doing your thing, you're working on design. On the side, you know people are buying your artwork. I have a piece of your artwork that's great. So let's go deeper, because, from the way how I understand things, it seems like you have things together now. But the way how I understand this, all of this started with a panic attack in residency. Is that correct?
Speaker 2Yeah, it sure did.
Speaker 1Let's get into that. Take us to residency.
Speaker 2So it was. I was on EMGs that rotation, right and I was done for the morning. You know we still have some afternoon patients, but I was just starting, you know I was done for the morning. You know we still have some afternoon patients, but I was just starting, you know I was done. Then you know it's time for me to pay my monthly student loan payment, because I didn't have it on auto draft at the time, right? And so I see that figure literally every single month by clockwork. But that day I don't know what happened. But when I opened it up to make that payment and I legit just screamed, I was pissed, I screamed.
Speaker 2I was like you know, the computers that belong like even like little boost and stuff in your program. I was shaking my computer. My tenant came running down the hall so I'm like what's wrong? Are you okay? I'm like look at that shit. He was like what? I'm like, look at this shit. And he just looked. He's like whoa, what is that? I'm like that's how much money I gotta fucking pay.
Speaker 2And he was like, just, you know, calm down. I'm like, no, I'm not gonna calm down. I'm like this is fucking. I mean, I'm going off. You know, just like he's calm, he's cool. You know he's like yo. He's like do you need a moment? I don't want a fucking moment. I need to get out of here. I can't stand this place. I love my program I really do but that day it went from A to Z 100, whatever. I was not having it. I was legit panicking, like my heart rate was up, my blood pressure was through the roof and I was like you know what? I got to go. I got to go and I walked out. You know and luckily you know he's still a very understanding you know he texted me, said hey, just take the rest of your day off, I'll finish up this afternoon.
Speaker 2But just be all right. So you know I was going to go home.
Speaker 1Have you ever had a panic attack before this?
Phoenix Noir: Art From Medical Images
Speaker 2Nope, not at all. So I was going to go home, but I couldn't even drive home. Like literally, I got in my car, I drove one block and pulled into the CVS parking lot and I was literally, you know, hitting my steering wheel. I was going, I got out, hit my car a few times, that shit hurt and it came back inside and I was like you know what I got to call somebody.
Speaker 2And at first I called my husband, you know, and I'm just like yelling at him and he don't know what's going on. And he was like, well, are you in any danger? I was like no, but you're about to be, you know, just going off. And he was like, well, take your time. Just, you know, chill out, relax. You don't do what you got to do. And then you know when you're okay, you know, just come home. Thoughts as far as, like you know how, you know FedLoan, suck and all the other stuff, whatever. So I'm like you know what, who's going to get this? I'm like you know what I'm going to call Renee. So I called your wife.
Speaker 2Luckily she picked up the phone and we had a long conversation, you know, in the sense of student loans and debt and you know how. You know it's not just me going through all this stuff. A lot of people are going through this. But having their head in the sand and literally that was my head popping up, I think that moment was for me. It was like I literally opened my eyes and popped up out of the sand and was like what the fuck?
Speaker 1Yeah, that's the best way to describe it. Yeah, everything just seems like numbers in the cloud, or it's just these letters that you get, emails, and you're like that's not that big of a deal until you, until you get your head out of sand and you realize the implications and you're like oh yeah, and for me that moment, yeah, it was it.
Speaker 2Whatever happened that day. I mean, the light bulb came on and I was like, oh shit, you like I have to pay this shit back.
Speaker 1So how did you calm down? What calmed you down I've obviously talking to Renee calmed you down.
Speaker 2Yeah, a whole lot. But then, you know, while I was in the car, you know, I took out a piece of paper and a pen and just started writing things down as far as, like, I went through all the debts that I had, from my credit card debt to-.
Speaker 1In the car you were writing this down.
Speaker 2In the car? Yeah, because I was parked. I was a CVS parking lot parked, okay, you know. And so I'm looking at, like, my student loans. I wrote all those things down. I looked at my loans from grad school because I didn't have any undergrad loans. So I'm looking at grad school, writing all this stuff down Credit cards, car.
Speaker 1I mean the whole nine. So I have like a list and I still have that list to this day. Actually, can I ask how much you totaled it all up to be in terms of debt? Let's go, let's go, let's go, come on, come on.
Speaker 2Dr Lucy tell us oh yeah, it was over 630K, Damn.
Speaker 1Like of your debt.
Speaker 2Of mine. That's not including my husband's anything.
Speaker 1That was me, so for so medical school was obviously the majority of that. And then you had undergrad debt and then, no, I didn't have any undergrad debt.
Speaker 2Undergrad was 100 paid for okay, so I had a full ride for that.
Speaker 2I was I'm in boston at the time when if you were valedictorian then you got to go to whatever school you were accepted to free of charge. So who was it? Thomas marina was the mayor and that was like one of his little things that he had going on at the time. Um, and so undergrad full ride, grad school not so much, and so that's you know, had to pay for that. And then med school was the big, you know, yeah, and so then I was like you know what? All right, here's my debt, here's all this stuff. I had the interest rates, you know, I had the whole nine. All this is all in the car, all in the car, all in the car.
Speaker 1Oh, wow, so you yeah.
Speaker 2Until I had it all mapped out and had a plan, because I had to go. When I went home, I wanted to be calm, I want to be cool. You know I have kids. You know I didn't want to go for them, which I do sometimes.
Speaker 1But that's another story. $600,000 in student loan debt and you had a plan before you came home, or you just had everything written out by the time you got home.
Speaker 2No, no, no, I had a plan.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2Oh, I was in the car for hours.
Speaker 1How come Dr Renee didn't tell me about this? Call yeah.
Speaker 2I was in the car for literally hours. I'd run inside a CVS for snacks, drinks, go back in my car and just hash it out in my car. So by the time I got home I lit out, you know. I said, hey, this is my plan, here's what I'm going to do. You know, it was ABC XYZ kind of situation, and so the first thing I wanted to tackle was my what I had left for grad school, which is about 70K for grad school.
Speaker 1Okay, and what point of your residency is this now?
Speaker 2This is my last year of residency.
Speaker 1Your last year of residency. So you decided that you want to take out your grad school loans while in residency.
Speaker 2Yep While making a resident salary. Yes, here's the kicker. And so this was the spring of 2019. So that means that I'm going to graduate in a few months from residency.
Speaker 1Right, right when most people should be stacking cash. You trying to pay off Right, I got you.
Speaker 2And also starting my fellowship. My fellowship didn't start until later on that year, and so my goal was to in 2019, this shit got to go like that. At least the grad school stuff needed to get out of there, and so I started moonlighting like crazy.
Speaker 1What specialty were you moonlighting in?
Speaker 2I did urgent care.
Speaker 1Urgent care Okay.
Speaker 2So I started and the thing is that, you know, I didn't know anybody in the urgent care industry. I just started, like you know, asking people around because none of my residents, of course, moonlight. And so I started asking around, you know, other residents and things of that sort, and then one of the urology residents hit me up and said hey, you know she's moonlighting here, but she's about to start her fellowship in Atlanta, so you know she'll put in a good work for me, which she did. And I started, you know, maybe about a month later. After all the credentialing stuff started a month later and moonlighted any time I had.
Speaker 1I mean just so you decided that the first thing was to get all of your debt in one place, figure out on a piece of paper or whatever it is, find out what debt you have, all the interest rate where all your debts are belonging like, who owns them, and so forth. And I guess this next step was you just realized that you had an income issue, so that's why you decided to do urgent care.
Speaker 2Yeah, because the thing is that you know, when you're a residency, you don't get that much money. First of all, right, and you know there's two kids. Right, and you got to eat, you got to stay, whatever. And so what I'm doing was saying the credit card debt got to go and the grad school debt got to go. All that just needed to be just out of sight, because I wanted to, by the end of the day, just have, you know, the car and my student loans.
Speaker 2And at the time, you know, you know it was just like an apartment kind of thing, right, well, it was a house that we were just renting, and so I worked my ass off, like even a fellowship. You know, now that I'm done, I can say whatever I want to say. So you know, we're supposed to moonlight during fellowship, but I, I did All right, because I have things to pay off, you know, because you're not going to get paid a lot when you're a fellow either. So I ended up in 2019 paying off about 70K worth of debt, and so that knocked out all credit card debt and grad school.
Speaker 1So 70K in residency. So, and you said you by the time this occurred, when you had your panic attack and you made the plan, this is towards the end of your residency.
Speaker 2Yep. Wow, I was a couple months shy from graduation, from residency.
Speaker 1So this was all done right before you finished residency.
Speaker 2So the plan was. But then so 2019, that whole year. So finished residency and started fellowship, and so then during that entire time that's when that was paid off.
Speaker 1Wow, man, that's props to you. So what was that feeling like when you finished that set of debt? What did you think in your mind when that was done?
Speaker 2I was like, oh, you know, I could keep going. So what ended up happening was that the credit card was paid off first, and so that was cool. And then for the grad school, there were two separate loans for grad school, and so I remember making a big chunk payment to pay one of those off, and that feeling I mean just to press send, you know, cause that's a lot of money going out with that kind of money.
Speaker 2And so it was some hesitation to send you know. But once I did and then after a while you see it all cleared off and you see it on your credit report cleared off, it was the best feeling in the world. I was like you know what, let's tackle this next one, and then you know this next one. And so we kind of became that roller coaster. But even though I was able to accomplish you know all that, I felt good about it. That still doesn't take care of the rest of the $532K left for med school, because my med school was not a state school, it was a private school. So they're super expensive, super expensive. And then I was taking out the max because when I started med school my daughter was two. She's 13 now.
Speaker 1Yeah, let's talk about that, because I did an episode about that, how I did the same thing. I maxed my loans out, for the main reason is I just didn't want to have to ask my parents for any money.
Speaker 2They have any money. My parents you know Jack, you know they. They, you know they're immigrants from Haiti. You know when they came to this, you know Canada and the States my, my dad worked, but then I remember seeing his paycheck when it was on a table, cause he would come home when he gets paid and gave my mom the paycheck, and I remember seeing how much he made my dad was making. You know, less than $9 an hour, less than $9 an hour in Boston, y'all, and so we didn't have any money like at all. And so when it came to med school, whatever like, my parents couldn't help for anything, period.
Speaker 1Did you see that? There was a report that came out several years ago, maybe like two or three years ago, where it said like the average black family in Boston, like their net worth is like $8. Did you see that? Did you hear that's crazy.
Speaker 2But I don't, I mean, I believe it.
The Panic Attack That Changed Everything
Speaker 1Yeah, because it's crazy, yeah, you know, because if you're not owning, if you don't- own a home if you're renting right if you don't have anything saved up for retirement. I definitely believe it. It sounds shocking until you actually start to put things together and you're like, oh yeah, that's believable, yeah.
Speaker 2Yep, it sure is. And you know, being up there for about 18 years, yeah, definitely, most definitely. And so med school my parents couldn't pay for or help pay for anything. So you know you gotta be out there to live, right. So I had an apartment and stuff. You know, gotta raise the kids and all that good stuff. My husband's law enforcement, you know at the time as well too, still is, but you know it's very beginning stages of stuff, right, and so you pretty much don't have anything, and so my account was always, you know, red, because they was looking at and that's how the credit card stuff, you know, kind of started back up again, right.
Speaker 2You, you know well, started in med school because you know what else are you going to push the phone, but then when you're applying for residency, you're traveling, you're interviewing. All that adds up at the end of the day, you know. And my daughter was two years old again when I started. Now she's 13,. But you know, and in between that you know, we had a. I have a son too now, so he's four, and you know my daughter grew up in that time as far as seeing the whole cycle in the sense of when I started med school she was two. So when I was studying for anatomy or whatever, I would literally sneak her into the lab before hours, you know, and her and a couple of my great friends to this day.
Speaker 1You know we'd go in there and then we'd study.
Speaker 2You know, I had to put her in a trash bag so that way I could keep her clean. Talking about my daughter Gotcha, I had to put her in a trash bag so that way I could keep her clean.
Speaker 1Talking about my daughter Gotcha Gotcha, and if so I could sit her on a cadaver. So while we're dissecting and studying, she's right there so I could keep my eye on her you know, wow, wow Say that again you had to do what, like you weren't playing Like.
Speaker 2This is dedication. I want to hear this again. Yeah, inside, pick her up, sit her on a cadaver, put a scrub top on her, give her some gloves you know so that way and put scrunchie around because she's little. So push, crunch she around her little arms with the gloves, that way, you know, she could keep clean while we're studying on a cadaver and keep an eye on her.
Speaker 1Wow, and she wasn't freaked out or anything by the, by the dead bodies, I mean she was too well, she, she don't know that for real right, you know right. Does she talk about it to this day like, does she? Does she still remember that?
Speaker 2well, she remembers part of it because she remembers sometimes being in a study room and me setting up a little tent for her. She thought she was going camping but we'd be studying overnight, you know, in the study halls or whatever. So she remembers some of that. She remembers some stuff in the cadaver lab, but not much, you know at the time and so, but that's how we know we had to get it done. So, you know, I had a village, you know, in med school, and that village is still my village to this day. But I would not have been able to get through without my homegirls, you know, because you know I have to study just as much as everybody else. And so, yes, I had a daughter. But, hey, I had to make it happen.
Speaker 2There were times when I take her to daycare, daycare be closed for no reason. I take her to daycare Daycare be closed for no reason. It's not a holiday, it's nothing, and I have a major test that morning in like minutes. So I remember one time I literally just say you know what, fuck it Ran to school, ran to the Dean's office it was Dean Stowers I ran upstairs to Dean's office with my daughter, got back on hand, I was like, hey, here you go, dr Stowers, I'll be right back. And he's like what? I'm like, look, I got a test to take. But you got this right, you got kids, you got this.
Speaker 1And I would bust out the door, leave my daughter with D Stowers and take my test and I would come back upstairs and they would have the whole suite turn into like a little play thing for her no-transcript that maybe be able to be a little bit of a side hustle, like a viable side hustle, where that could help you pay off your loans or even just provide just a certain level of lifestyle for you.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's definitely getting there for sure, because I've been getting a lot of requests for commission pieces, for paintings, even the hospitals, and so right now if you go to some hospitals you'll see my paintings up there, originals and also prints that they have, and so I've been getting a lot of traffic and so a lot of requests and so I think last week, I think I shipped off six paintings last week and they went to different places in the US and even to Canada. So I'm trying.
Speaker 1Good, good, no, you're doing, you're doing, which, actually, what you just said leads me to my next point. Like you know, one of the last things that when I talk with my guests or when I have them fill out forms for them to come on the show, is, like, what are the action steps that you want the audience, the listeners, to walk away from? Right, and I make them list three steps, and you've listed three steps. But number two is the one that, for me, I think is going to resonate with a lot more people, which is stop waiting and stop being scared, just get out there and get started now, which definitely is like, apropos, considering what you're doing right now. Right, it's not even I'm trying, it's I'm doing. Right, like, you are doing it, you're starting it. So let's, let's talk a little bit about that. Like, how important is it to like really stop like the whole, like conceptualizing and, you know, describing things and planning things out and just doing.
Speaker 2Talk to us about that things and planning things out and just doing Talk to us about that, yeah. And so even for Phoenix store. I remember when I spoke to Renee one time and I said, hey, you know, I'm thinking about getting a website up and started getting myself out there. But then I spent so much time on the planning and thinking and said, well, maybe it won't be good enough or I don't think we're really going to dig it for real, and so I took literally about eight months in that space.
Speaker 2And then there was an episode that you had about mindset you know as far as all, about changing your mindset. And instead of you know saying, well, maybe, maybe this just okay, you know what this is, what it's going to be and after that episode I was like, you know what, you know, he's right, you know what? Just screw it. I've been thinking about this forever. I've been planning, critical planning forever. I'm just going to do it and just, you know, go live with my website, go live with everything. You know I joined some other like art groups on Facebook. Before this, all my groups on Facebook were all medical related, right, and so now I joined some art communities on Facebook and Instagram and so just put myself out there and the response has been overwhelmingly great, you know.
Speaker 2And all because of a mindset shift, because a lot of times, you know, if we're in a space of okay, well, I'm planning this and I'm planning that, but there's no action being taken except for just planning, then you're not really going anywhere. You're spending too much time planning when you could have been doing something and been so much further along than before. So if I started this, you know, when I started planning I said, okay, I'm planning this, but then you know, let me just start putting things out there I would have been a lot further along than I am now.
Tackling $630K of Student Debt
Speaker 1Yeah, and you know. So here's what I always tell people, so what I always tell people. So I started Docs Outside the Box in 2016. I've actually been conceptualizing it since 2014. I didn't take action and actually start putting out episodes since then. And if you went to, if you looked on my Google Docs that's where I keep all of my notes there's notes that go far back as 2014, talking about how to start a podcast, which way, which microphone am I going to get, and so forth.
Speaker 1So for me, in my mind, prior to that, the work was being done, you know, prior to 2016. But whenever I tell people when I started the podcast, when I'm, how long have I been doing this, I say 2016, because when you really look at it, like the work is when you actually start doing things right. So when people say, well, how long you've been paying off debt, it's not like how long you've been conceptualizing, it's like when did you start putting in that work? Same thing with students who are in professional school. Like you know that whole concept of well, I won't start practicing for a test until I start studying the entire book for the test, when it really should be. You need to start doing questions first, so that you know exactly what the so you know exactly where you stand.
Speaker 2first, so that you know exactly where you stand.
Speaker 1Where you stand or even what the test takers want. Right, that's the most important thing. What do the test takers want? And the only way you can understand that, to pass this test, is by taking tests, reading the book and reading the chapters. How do you know what's the most important concept to take from there? So, the same thing with this podcast, the same thing with Phoenix Noir it's all about literally taking action, and I think that's the thing that I want the listeners to take away from is like the work is not in conceptualizing. The work is in actually doing something, taking a choice and then dealing with the consequences afterwards. That's where the work comes in. Well, I took, you know I took. There was a fork in the road, I went left and because of that, x, y and Z happened, and this is what I did to mitigate it. That's where the work is at Nodding, drawing all of these different diagrams on your wall and on your vision board and saying that's not where all the work is done.
Speaker 2Yeah, because I see it as far as if you're going to a code, you're not saying, all right, let me get my ACLS book out, let me see plan Oh're in B-Tech, what do we do for B-Tech? You're not doing that, and that's what we spend so much time doing in real life, versus just saying, hey, you know all right around an epi or whatever, whatever you know, just going into taking charge. And so the same thing as far as if you have a plan or an idea, just take charge and just go for it. Otherwise you're going to be hitting yourself on the head years down the line saying, well, I could have been so much further, I should have done this, I should have done that, I should have, could have, would have whatever you know, just do it.
Speaker 1Or you're going to be pissed. Someone took your idea.
Speaker 1There's always room there's always room for multiple people to come into a space and you could always do things your way, but when you are the first person in there, that founder's effect there's nothing. There's nothing like that. But this was super dope. Dr Lucy, Thank you so much for sharing your story. Thank you so much for sharing this piece of artwork. Let me show it again For all the people who are on the podcast. This is what y'all get. You should be listening or watching on YouTube anyway, but this is some of the dope artwork that Dr Lucy is creating. You can check it out on her website. We're going to have the links to her website and the show notes, but once again, this is Dr Lucy, longtime listener, artist, PM&R, mom, wife paying off her debt, and she's going through the process. Right now. You still got $500,000, a little bit plus and more to get towards it and you will get through it, absolutely For sure Because nobody else is going to pay it off, hey listen.
Speaker 1When you finish paying off your debt, you come back on the show. We'll have you do a debt-free scream Forget Dave.
Speaker 2Ramsey, oh sure.
Speaker 1You do a Docs, outside the Box, debt-free, scream up on this. All right. So listen, dr Lucy, tell people where they can once again, tell people where they can once again tell us about the website where they can find your artwork and maybe even purchase them.
Speaker 2Yeah, so the website is wwwphoenixnoirdesignscom. You can find me on Facebook and Instagram under Phoenix Noir Designs. I answer all your questions. As far as your DMs and everything else, I'm always in there. I was not as active on social media until I started putting myself out there and I have loved the response ever since then, and so I'm very active on my social media feeds and stuff.
Stop Waiting, Start Doing
Speaker 1So there it is, guys. So listen, go and check the show notes. You will find links for Dr Lucy's artwork Phoenix Noir Designs and Photography, where she transforms images of human spines into beautiful abstract artwork. Dr Lucy artwork Phoenix Noir Designs and Photography, where she transforms images of human spines into beautiful abstract artwork. Dr Lucy, thanks again for coming on. Docs, outside the Box, make sure you come back when you pay off all your debt. All right.
Speaker 2Oh, I, sure will. Bye.
