Joel Greenwald is a physician-turned-financial adviser who now helps doctors and dentists with their financial planning.
A native of New York, Greenwald earned his M.D. from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City before completing his medical training at the University of Minnesota. He then practiced internal medicine in St. Paul for 10 years.
In the late 1990s, he began studying to be a certified financial planner. For two years, he practiced medicine three days a week and practiced financial planning two days a week. In 2000, he made the switch entirely and has seen only clients since.
In August he opened up his own wealth management group, Greenwald Wealth Management. More than half of his clients are physicians, a quarter are dentists and over the past several years, he has taken on only physicians and dentists as new clients.
QWhy did you decide to switch careers?
AAfter practicing for about 10 years, my wife and I realized that having a two-physician household was very difficult. We had three young kids, and you know, with two physician schedules, nobody can be home reliably, long hours, etc.
My lovely wife loved her job, loved being a physician. I would say I liked being a physician, but I was the one who at first considered the idea of switching. So while I was practicing full-time, I started studying to be a certified financial planner. The more I did that, the more I enjoyed it.
We kind of decided that, gee, where the heck is medicine headed? I don't know, but is it a risk to have all of all our income come from a field that looks so uncertain?