Watching fellow physicians succumb to exploitation, burnout or moral injury breaks my heart.

Helping them flip the script and win at life fills my soul with joy and purpose.

I’m Stan, a practicing cardiologist who once felt trapped in an unsustainable career. Today, I’ve created a medical career is sustainable, financially rewarding and with complete autonomy to practice according to my values. I love medicine more than ever.

Our entire physician community deserves to feel this way. That is why I became an independent financial planner whose sole mission is to give fellow physicians the financial power to serve their patients, families, and communities on my own terms.

It started with a choice: a) Walk away from my career as a beloved academic cardiologist, or b) tell my son I could never walk him to the school bus stop in the morning.

During my last year as a full-time cardiologist, unexpected changes in my position forced me to choose between being the husband and father I wanted to be, and the academic cardiologist career to which I had devoted nearly a decade. Complicating this was the fact that my job had an 18-month/20-mile non-compete clause, my wife could not move without disrupting her career, we had two young children and a mortgage, and I had not even started thinking about a job search.

Thankfully, my wife Andrea and I had a solid financial foundation and had spent years putting ourselves in a position of financial strength. After running the numbers, we made the calculated risk for me to resign without a job offer in hand. We successfully rode out the next 18 months – without uprooting our family, hurting Andrea’s career or disrupting the wellness of our kids – and I emerged on the other side with autonomy I once only dreamed of.

Today, I practice medicine sustainably and with purpose. I eat breakfast and dinner with my kids every day, I salsa dance with my wife, and I am a dedicated volunteer, advocate, and philanthropist for my community. I now practice cardiology part-time in two settings: a) as a direct contractor for Sage Health, a value-based care start-up providing concierge care for high-risk Medicare and Medicare Advantage seniors in Baltimore, and b) as a locum tenens cardiologist at UPMC Western Maryland (Cumberland, MD), where I serve an entirely different rural population in my state. I am still a medical educator whose cardiology expertise is regularly featured on Hippo Education’s Primary Care Review & Perspectives CME Podcast. I now prioritize my health, Andrea’s career and wellness, and my children more than ever before.

I also became an advocate for career flexibility in the American College of Cardiology (ACC) as well as an advocate against non-compete clauses for employed healthcare workers. Thanks to the incredible work of my colleagues in the Maryland chapter of the ACC, we helped pass H.B. 1388 in 2024, which made non-compete clauses illegal for healthcare workers making under $350k (the hospital lobby managed a carveout for physicians making over $350k, but no more than 1-year/10-miles).

I will never forget the personal satisfaction of standing in the Annapolis state house and watching our governor sign that bill into law so that many physicians in the future will never have to go through what I was enduring personally. As the current Chair of Maryland ACC’s Advocacy Committee, some of my most important work is advocating for the changes needed to benefit our patients and our profession.

My story could have been completely different. Trapped by my mortgage, my non-compete, and the financial needs of my family, I could have stayed at my old job and burned out as my health, marriage and family slowly paid the price.

But it didn’t happen because I had a skill that helped me create a more sustainable career: my ability to create an intentional, evidence-based financial plan that created the short-term changes my family needed in our lives while staying true to our long-term goals. Too few physicians ever learn this skill or even recognize how critical it is to physician wellness, and I set out to change that.

I became a licensed financial planner, earned a Certificate in Financial Planning from Emory University and passed the CFP® examination, one of the most highly respected accomplishments in the financial planning profession. I have used that expertise to help multiple physician clients across the United States reclaim autonomy in their lives and careers while staying true to their highest values.

As the only prominent practicing cardiologist and financial planner in the United States, I bring a rare perspective into the underrated connection between physician wellness and financial planning. My insights have been featured in Medscape, PracticeLink Magazine, and KevinMD. I am a highly sought after speaker at medical conferences and webinars across the United States for my expertise on financial planning, and my ability to apply it to the physician community as a trusted peer.

DocEmpowered is a celebration of physician agency, wellness, and empowerment. If you are open to transformative growth that will give you the power to chart your own career and life according to your values, schedule a free meeting with me to see how financial planning can help.