The Worthy Physician
"Reigniting your humanity and passion for medicine."
Welcome to The Worthy Physician, a podcast for physicians, other healthcare workers, and high-performing individuals seeking to reconnect with their humanity, rediscover their passion for medicine, and redefine fulfillment. This podcast offers reflection, healing, and authentic storytelling in a world where burnout, imposter syndrome, and overwhelming expectations are shared.
Medicine is more than a profession—it's a calling. Yet, modern healthcare often leaves physicians feeling disconnected, chasing milestones that fail to bring lasting satisfaction. The Worthy Physician challenges these narratives, prioritizing well-being, core values, and authenticity.
Why Listen?
1. Physician Burnout: Understand its causes and recovery strategies to rediscover joy in medicine.
2. Authentic Self: Explore your identity beyond the white coat and integrate it into all aspects of life.
3. Imposter Syndrome: Overcome doubts, embrace your worth, and value your contributions to medicine.
4. The Arrival Fallacy: Break free from achievement-driven dissatisfaction and find fulfillment in the present.
5. Core Values: Align decisions with what truly matters to live purpose-driven lives.
6. Financial Empowerment: Gain insights on managing debt, creating sustainability, and building financial literacy.
7. Real Stories: Hear physicians' struggles and triumphs, fostering connection and solidarity.
8. Healing Through Storytelling: Share and listen to stories that inspire resilience and growth.
What to Expect
Each episode blends:
- Engaging in Conversations with experts in medicine, psychology, and finance.
- Real-life stories from physicians who've navigated similar challenges.
- Practical Strategies for addressing burnout, improving balance, and enhancing well-being.
- A Supportive Community that celebrates your victories and offers encouragement.
Why It Matters
You are more than your profession—you're a human being with dreams and aspirations. The Worthy Physician reminds you to prioritize your values, honor your well-being, and reignite your passion for medicine.
Who Should Listen?
This podcast is for physicians seeking clarity, fulfillment, and alignment, whether struggling with burnout, imposter syndrome, or the pressures of the medical field.
Join the Movement
Redefine what it means to be a physician today. Subscribe to The Worthy Physician and take the first step toward a healthier, more compassionate approach to medicine.
The Worthy Physician
Navigating Change: A Physician’s Journey to Financial Freedom with Dr. Sabharwal
Dive into an inspiring episode that chronicles the life journey of Dr. Sabharwal, a dedicated physician who broke barriers to shift his career from clinical work to entrepreneurship through real estate investing. Discover the unique challenges international medical graduates face as they adjust to the U.S. healthcare system, while exploring strategies for achieving financial independence.
In this episode, Dr. Sabharwal candidly shares his experiences—from funding his own medical rotations to navigating the complexities of building a real estate portfolio. He highlights essential insights on understanding investment dynamics, the value of continuous education, and finding ways to generate passive income. With a focus on the intersection of personal fulfillment and professional success, Dr. Sabharwal discusses how one can live intentionally and embrace change as a pathway to growth.
As busy professionals, it's easy to lose sight of what truly matters. The episode serves as a reminder to realign your focus and ask questions that cut to the core of your motivations. Join us for an enriching discussion that offers practical advice, thoughtful reflections, and a boost of inspiration for anyone looking to blend passion with purpose.
Don't forget to check out the free resources mentioned in the episode, including Dr. Sabharwal's video series that demystifies real estate investing for busy physicians. Join us on this transformative journey—you won’t want to miss it!
What you'll learn:
• Dr. Sabharwal’s background and challenges in the U.S. medical system
• The pivotal role of education and mentorship in his journey
• Transitioning from clinical care to exploring real estate
• Insights on the importance of understanding investment opportunities
• The intertwined nature of personal happiness, purpose, and financial security
• Ways for busy physicians to consider investing and building wealth
Connect with Dr. Sabharwal:
DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE!
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Though I am a physician, this is not medical advice. This is only a tool that physicians can use to get ideas on how to deal with burnout and/or know they are not alone. If you are in need of medical assistance talk to your physician.
Learn more about female physicians' journey through burnout to thriving!
https://www.theworthyphysician.com/books
Let's connect for speaking opportunities!
https://www.theworthyphysician.com/dr-shahhaque-md-as-a-speaker
Check out the free resources from The Worthy Physician:
https://www.theworthyphysician.com/freebie-downloads
Battle of the Boxes
21 Day Self Focus Journal
Welcome to another episode of the Worthy Physician. I'm your host, dr Sapna Shah-Hawk, reigniting your humanity and passion for medicine. With each episode, we bring you inspiring stories, actionable insight and expert advice. Get ready for another engaging conversation that could change the way you think and live as a physician. Your income is your greatest asset. Protect it with pattern light. The easy, stress-free way to find the right disability insurance, with unbiased comparisons and no jargon. Pattern helps you to choose the best policy for your needs. Secure your future today at Pattern Life. The link is in the show notes. Let's dive in. I have Dr Sabharwal today who is going to share his story. I really love what he has to share because he shares his story about coming to the US into the medical system under different circumstances than what some of us enter into and then really creating his own niche and trying to meet his own financial goals. So thank you so much for being here.
Dr. Sabharwal:No, thank you so much. We connected on LinkedIn, which is a phenomenal platform to meet awesome people like you, and thank you so much for having me here on your show. And, yeah, it's been a fun journey journey nonetheless and I came to the US about, I want to say, five, six years ago. Actually, I was here from 2008 to 2011, and I went back to India, was there for a little while, came back again and here we are.
Dr. Shah-Haque:I really want to highlight that, because the journey as an international medical graduate is quite tough and one thing I didn't realize is that when you do rotations here in the US, it's on your own dime.
Dr. Sabharwal:Yeah, it is. It is and it's tough. I think it's become a little more difficult. I remember distinctly I had come here in 2008 for some rotations, for some clerkships, and there were some restrictions on how you could come in and what you could do, and then, of course, you had to pay for it and, of course, for staying here and everything you have to pay out of pocket and I wasn't earning any money. Thankfully, my parents supported me through this and I'm very grateful for them to have been able to support me and provide me with whatever they did. But yeah, so I came here. I did a few rotations here.
Dr. Sabharwal:Then, actually, I was a visiting research associate for a year at University of Virginia, finished that, realized that research is not my gig. I do not want to be. It was basic sciences, I was dealing with mice and I was like this is it, I'm done. Then, after that, of course, all life happens. I started my residency here and I was there with my program. I finished my internship and then I had to move back to India because of certain reasons and once I moved back, I actually did residency there. I did my post-graduation in internal medicine in India, so I finished that. Then, of course, I come back here. I was like this is it? I want to go back. I'm not really interested in working in the Indian system and I'd already gotten used to the American system. I was like I want to come back to the system.
Dr. Sabharwal:So I came back here, completed my residency here, did a fellowship in geriatrics and throughout that process I realized that when you look at things, when you're actually doing something, it's very different from what you had actually thought of how it would be and medicine is very rewarding in and of itself from what you had actually thought of how it would be. And medicine is very rewarding in and of itself. But I think there are certain things in this, especially with the way it's structured in the corporate environment and don't get me wrong, I'm very thankful and I'm very lucky that I'm in a system which has been very supportive for me right, they have really helped me through my career. They've been. I have had encouraging mentors even in my current job, and. But the thing is that you're still working and you're basically getting paid by the hour, so you're replacing, you're basically making money for the time spent.
Dr. Sabharwal:And I wanted to get out of that rat race and so I had to find another way to make money while I sleep essentially, that's the cliche way of saying it and so I figured that I had to start investing elsewhere. So I obviously didn't want to continue doing that for years on end, so I had to find a way to accelerate that, and that's how I came across real estate. Now, my parents were investing in real estate in India, so I had a flavor of that, but obviously real estate in the US works very differently, so I had to learn all of that, learned it and I was attracted to it. So I started investing in real estate. It has its own challenges, no matter how lucrative it looks on the internet that people say we have X, y and Z portfolio and we have this and we have that. The ground reality is that it is certainly challenging, and I think what it did teach me was you really need a lot of patience for this business.
Dr. Sabharwal:But, that being said, I enjoyed it, so I stuck with it, and now we're looking at larger and larger assets. In fact, I have a few deals that are lined up. Now what I'm trying to do is actually I try to be on the active side, but I want to help other physicians invest passively alongside me as my limited partners. So by limited I mean that they invest their capital. They get the returns for the capital invested, and this becomes an alternative way of investing your capital while you practice your medicine and however you do. And so we look at assets, we look at different cutoffs we have for the projected returns for any particular asset, and below that we don't consider them. And that's how we operate, yeah.
Dr. Shah-Haque:That's a great overview and I'm glad that you highlighted that, because you're still a practicing physician currently. Is that correct?
Dr. Sabharwal:Yes, I'm actually a physician and a physician advisor, so I'm 1.5 FT right now 1.5.
Dr. Shah-Haque:So, while everybody's cutting back, you're increasing.
Dr. Sabharwal:For me. What I realized was that I wanted to maximize my time as much as possible, and that can mean different things for different people. I'm not trying to say that somebody who is spending time in some of the recreational activity is not valuable, but this was more valuable to me and for me, spending more time on this made more, more sense, and I try to maximize my time as much as possible for the listener.
Dr. Shah-Haque:This goes back to an individual decision how you want to spend those finite resources of time and energy. He's choosing it to spend it a different way, and that's because it makes him feel fulfilled absolutely, absolutely.
Dr. Sabharwal:It's about that it all starts with. When we start out, we have this idea of this life and this is going to give us happiness, or that is going to give us happiness, and we buy this thing and it's going to bring us happiness. We all start like that. I started like that and I was like I want X, y and Z, and I still want some things. Right, I still want a fancy life. Don't get me wrong.
Dr. Sabharwal:I'm doing this for a reason I do want to have a luxurious life quote, unquote, right, and that's why I'm working really hard towards it. But, that being said, will that bring me happiness? No, happiness actually happens along the way. Right, it is about the journey, as people say, and I realized that because, honestly, if you're not going to be happy through your journey, you're never going to finish that journey or well, actually, the journey never finishes, but you're never going to continue on that journey and you really have to find what gives you happiness, what gives you purpose in life, and I believe that starts by looking within and seeing what you really want to do.
Dr. Shah-Haque:How long did it take you to figure that out? Like, how did you oh, I'm still figuring it out. I'm still figuring it out.
Dr. Sabharwal:I think every day I'm a new version of myself, a slightly different version of myself, and every day I'm learning new stuff about me, and you evolve as you grow. When I started out, I had a very different idea of investing. When I started out, I had a very different idea of what I wanted to do with my life. Versus now, where my outlook to life is very different, and I'm sure in the next two years, three years, that's going to change and that's going to evolve and that's okay. I think change is the only constant and I think I'm okay with that.
Dr. Shah-Haque:How did you become comfortable with change? Because, as type A personalities like change is something that we don't like, including myself. I've gotten better, but I think that's just life experience. How did you become comfortable with change?
Dr. Sabharwal:That's a great question. I don't think I'm fully comfortable with change, though. I'll give you an example. We're actually in the process of moving from New Jersey to Virginia because my wife actually got a pretty solid gig there, and so we're going to move there. I'm going to be a hospitalist there and hopefully work my way up in that system as well. That's going to be a big change for us as a family. That's going to be a big change. Am I 100% comfortable with it? Absolutely not. But I think it's about managing it more than just becoming comfortable with it and knowing the fact that everything will figure itself out. And it reminds me I was actually listening to an audio book by Tony Robbins I'm forgetting the name and it talked about something that it said really impacted me.
Dr. Sabharwal:It was about finding the resourcefulness within yourself. Right, the only way to be comfortable with change is to understand and to have that faith that you have the resources within yourself to adapt to that change, because that's the only thing that's really not going to. The situation around you can change, right, but are you going to be able to adapt to that situation? And are you comfortable with that? And I think that's the fear that a lot of people have, and I have that too. Right, okay, what am I going to do? How am am I going to do it? But knowing that, or being comfortable with the idea that, yes, change is going to come and we're going to figure it out, that makes it a little easier than it normally would.
Dr. Shah-Haque:Absolutely, Absolutely. Those are very true teaching points. I think that we pick up throughout our lifetime and based on experiences. I think that we pick up throughout our lifetime and based on experiences. I think people pick them up at different points, but that is really. How has that impacted your thoughts too? And I think it's brilliant to look at not sources of passive income or to augment, to obtain the lifestyle that you want or the retirement that you want.
Dr. Sabharwal:I think I have goals and I have a vision of where I want to go with this, and I don't think that has changed per se, but I think how I perceive my relationships with people, how I perceive the environment around me, that has suddenly evolved, and how I operate as an individual, that has changed. It's been more of working on myself as a person that I've done in the last few years, more so than what is done externally, because I think the work has to start within and I have had to really work on myself. I'm a very different person than what I was a few years ago, and so it has required a lot of understanding myself, a lot of going through a lot. I've gone through a lot of audiobooks, a lot of books, a lot of contemplating on my thoughts, understanding why am I having those thoughts, and having some mentors guide me along the way. That has really helped me come to this point where I understand myself a shade better.
Dr. Shah-Haque:I still have a long way to go, but, yes, I do understand myself a little better and it helps me be a better person so you've worked on yourself, you've sat down with your needs, your goals, your maybe even identifying your core values, yeah and but it's not taking you just one sitting like literally. This came over with a lot of time and a lot of work on the inner self that you're able to project what you are now it is.
Dr. Sabharwal:It's taken me years because, like I said, you evolve over time.
Dr. Sabharwal:I don't think it's like you sit down one time and you have everything figured out, because there are layers to us and all of that.
Dr. Sabharwal:All what I'm saying right now may sound very much out there, very nebulous, like something very hard to pinpoint, but it really starts with sitting with yourself and actually thinking about where you are, where you're headed, what's the purpose of all of you are where you're headed, what's the purpose of all of this, why you're trying to achieve what you're trying to achieve. I encourage everybody to go through that activity of five why's, wherein you ask yourself the first why. Then you ask yourself, why do I want this? And they ask their next, why, and the next why? And by the time you get to the fifth, why you'll get to the core of okay, what's really driving you to be there? Is it really worth it? Is this really connected with this core thing that's been causing you to have these things that you're doing, and so it becomes a process of self-introspection and understanding what's motivating you thank you for that, and the reason why I want to highlight that is because you're doing amazing things.
Dr. Shah-Haque:you're doing amazing things and you're investing in real estate, which is not easy. It's not easy. It takes a lot of time to understand that. It takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where you are on top of having a family getting ready to move and being a 1.5 FTE physician but I want to showcase how much time and effort you've put into yourself in order to make those steps and make that happen. I know I'm impatient when it comes to a lot of things that I think a lot of physicians are, but you have to sit with yourself. You have to go through shadows and the mucky stuff really to get onto the other side.
Dr. Sabharwal:No, absolutely. I think you really need to spend time and you really need to understand. You really need to go through a lot of texts, a lot of other mentors or other programs whatever have you to understand yourself better. For example, I actually trained as a life coach as well. I don't use that skill as a business, but I am trained as a life coach and that helped me understand myself better and that helped me understand a lot of people around me better, and so it's these skills that accumulate over time that really help you and mold you into the person that you are.
Dr. Shah-Haque:Absolutely, absolutely, and so tell us more about the Immigrant Doctor and more about your real estate investing.
Dr. Sabharwal:Yeah. So I started this brand about a year ago the immigrant doctor and the reason being I'm an immigrant and I'm a doctor. I was very simple. I was like, okay, this is what I'm going to do, but I understand that I've had some challenges here. I came on a visa here. I'll tell you this I'm board certified in obesity medicine. I wanted to actually start a business around that and I used to have a podcast on obesity medicine, which I stopped some time ago. But I really wanted to start a business around it and I could not do it being an active, starting an active business while on a visa because of the restrictions that it brings in, and I understand that sometimes that can be frustrating. So what I wanted to do was I wanted to help other immigrant physicians invest passively with me into these other opportunities that I have access to Right now.
Dr. Sabharwal:I have, over time, been able to build a network of individuals when I started with smaller real estate and my goal was OK, I'll just buy a few cash flowing properties, guess what, they'll just make me go, get me good money monthly and I'm going to be enjoying my life. But it's been. The truth couldn't be farther from this, because it's a lot of hands-on work that I need to do on these properties. Firstly, I have to make sure that they're stabilized. By stabilized, I need to make sure that the tenants are there, because they're my properties. Even though I have property management and this, I have to oversee that right. I've had an experience where one of the tenants completely destroyed one of my units and we had to get a rehab. Now, even though I make some money now, all of a sudden a lot of the money is going into rehabbing this particular asset right. So there are challenges that I've run into running it as an active business. I realize that these smaller units are not going to be the highest and best use of my time and I was like I need to go to the larger scale, which I run more like a corporate company, where you have other partners and they can take off some of your load. Right now, what's happening is I'm the one looking at the property, I'm the one doing the due diligence, I'm the one underwriting it, I'm the one who is touring it and this and that, but now the larger asset I have a team. Do I still play a part in all of these things? Of course, none of the properties that we put an offer on go to that offer stage without me having looked at the underwriting, me having looked at the numbers and understanding what the numbers are.
Dr. Sabharwal:Because, at the end of the day, I want to help other physicians like myself invest passively into this with the properties that that we look at. The projections are typically double-digit returns which, unless you're very savvy in the stock market if you're just investing in S&P 500, typically you would not see this. Now, that being said, there is a caveat here. These are all projections, right. These are not absolute, real numbers that are happening.
Dr. Sabharwal:So obviously, each investment is different and each investment can give you either higher or low returns, and we've seen in the recent past that people have had points where they've actually lost money. They've already lost their principal, and sometimes it was because of poor operations, sometimes it was because of the market changing. So there are, of course, risks there in the investment, but the returns can be pretty high, right, and so I want to offer people those opportunities outside of the S&P 500 where the return projections can be higher and the returns can be higher. For example, we're looking at a project right now which is projecting about a 20% return on investment, which is pretty good, which you will normally not get. And this is just for being passive.
Dr. Sabharwal:Now, on the actor side, I have had to put a lot of effort into this to actually make sure that the deal is, my smaller assets are working. So I try to shy away from that because I want to be in this larger space and operate in the larger space, which is much more structured, much better way of doing business. And that's how this whole brand of the Immigrant Doctor came about, where I want to help people who have their W-2s or want to continue being a physician, but want an alternative way to invest their capital into real estate, into something that may give them higher returns, potentially along with me, because I understand the numbers, I can look at the property, I can do the due diligence, I can vet the team for them and they should do their due diligence on me and I encourage that and then come alongside me and let's invest together.
Dr. Shah-Haque:And this is a great opportunity. Again, it's about diversifying a portfolio and this is in no way financial advice, so I'm going to give that blanket statement. But this is an option, and if this is an option that sounds interesting to the listener, how do they get? How do they get in touch with you?
Dr. Sabharwal:I think the best way for anybody to get started, and I encourage everybody to do that, because I was actually in some conversations and I'm not going to go into the details of that and there was a lot of back and forth about how syndications are bad and what's happening in the market and nobody should invest in syndications. So I think my belief is that any investment that you make, it has to start with proper understanding, or at least some basic understanding of what you're investing in. Whether you're investing in a mutual fund, whether you're investing in anything else, at least have an understanding of what you're going to invest in, because it's, at the end of the day, your money. So what I did was I actually created a free video series for people to understand some of the terms that we use. For example, I use the term IRR internal rate of return. Right Now, people will not understand what internal rate of return is AAR average annual return.
Dr. Sabharwal:A lot of times, physicians will be sent these offerings and there'll be these terms. There'll be these metrics that people look at. I look at it. I can understand it, but does a physician understand that? Normally, no, can understand it, but does a physician understand that? Normally, no, they're busy seeing patients, taking care of patients. So what I did was I created a free video series. It's available at RERXcoursecom. That's Real Estate Rx for Passive Investors is what I call it. It's a free video course. You can go and register there, rerxcoursecom. I have a free video series goes through some of the basic things understanding how the syndication works, some of the metrics that we look at, stuff like that so that they can get a better idea and make more educated decisions and actually understand what questions to ask me. And some people have actually gone through that and they've asked me those questions and I'm very happy about it because now I can give you an answer and we can have those discussions where you're understanding your investment before you're making that decision.
Dr. Shah-Haque:Yeah, that's incredibly smart and that's because we're going to educate a patient about a disease process. This is educating the potential investor about. Okay, this is the lingo and this is what we're looking at. These are the metrics we use, so let's educate you about it, so that way, when they invest money, they know what they're doing, and that's brilliant.
Dr. Sabharwal:And it's not hours and hours of education that you need, right? I've spent that time and I understand that it's not something that you either want to do or maybe not. You don't even need to do that. You need to at least understand some of the basics and some of the basic stuff that you need to ask whether you're investing with me or whether you're investing with somebody else. Just make sure that at least you're asking these basic questions and getting those basic answers for them, Because if you don't know this, then you're literally shooting in the dark, and I don't encourage that in any form of investment.
Dr. Shah-Haque:Yes, absolutely, absolutely. That's honest and ethical and that will be in the show notes. So if they wanted to reach out to you on social media, what is the best way?
Dr. Sabharwal:The best way to reach out to me is on LinkedIn. That's the best way you can search for me. I'm fairly active on LinkedIn. That's my platform of choice. That being said, if you are not active on LinkedIn, that's perfectly fine. I'm available on Instagram at the Immigrant Doctor.
Dr. Sabharwal:I have a podcast on YouTube, again by the same name the Immigrant Doctor. You can certainly go and check that out. I've had some cool guests there. Actually, we had a discussion about oil and gas. We've had discussions about other investment opportunities, like affordable housing, how we look at it. My internal team has come on and we've done some shows there as well, so it gives you a better idea of how we look at investment opportunities and how we can help you invest passively, whether through your direct directive, from your capital or if you have a retirement account. Actually, we're working with a company that helps you create a self-directed IRA and invest through your retirement accounts as well, and so that episode, I think, is going to come out soon as well. So a lot of fun stuff, a lot of good information there for people if they want to check it out.
Dr. Shah-Haque:And that's also great information, because that's always a question of, okay, how do I move assets? So thank you for pointing that out. And what is one last pearl of wisdom you would like to leave our listeners?
Dr. Sabharwal:I think the key that I have realized in whatever I've done right, the key is getting yourself educated. Even when I did a lot of this internal work, I had to get my knowledge up to there before I could start doing it. I had to be ready for it. I had to understand all of it before I could start implementing it. Even for real estate, I had to get my education. I've been in this space for four or five years and every time there's a new thing, I'm reading on it, I'm learning about it. It's a new thing, I'm reading on it, I'm learning about it. It's a constant process. It never ends. When I was a kid, I used to think that I'm going to become a physician or I'm going to do X, y and Z and that's the end of it. Right, that's. I don't want to read anymore, I'll just make my money, blah, blah, blah. But guess what? We still have to do our CMEs. It never ends.
Dr. Shah-Haque:It never ends the learning never ends, and I think it's about finding the joy in that learning which really helps me move forward. Thank you for that. I really enjoyed this conversation because not only did we cover finances, we also covered an internal, and just doing that work and going through your values, asking your why and those really go hand in hand because you can't have one without the other. So thank you so much.
Dr. Sabharwal:Absolutely.
Dr. Shah-Haque:And for the listener click on the links below, because I really am very interested in this course and I'm going to look at it myself. If this has been helpful, share with a friend, because we can all use camaraderie.
Dr. Sabharwal:Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.
Dr. Shah-Haque:Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to another episode from the Worthy Physician Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with someone who'd love it too. Don't forget to follow us on YouTube, linkedin, instagram for more updates and insights. Until next time, keep inspiring, learning, growing and living your best life.