Good morning. Welcome to the Postcall newsletter: the chillest weekly newsletter for Canadian doctors.

We’re like your favourite pair of jeans - comfortable, reliable, and always there when you need us.

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Let’s get into the good stuff:

• Has Zuckerberg invented a Twitter killer? 🐦️ 🔫 

• You get a family doctor, you get a family doctor! 🏆️

• 🏀 Baller of the Month: Dr. Amanda Whitten

• Show me the MONEY 💰️ 

• Quick bites 🍉

• 😆 Memes of the Day

Some of you have been asking… what is the greed vs. fear index? fear not. Postcall’s got your back. Basically, it’s just a simple measure of emotion in the markets.

Has Zuckerberg invented a Twitter killer? 🐦️ 🔫 

Buckle up, buttercups, because the social media turf war just got real, and it's looking like Twitter may be the biggest loser.

What happened: Instagram's new messaging app Threads just hit 100 million users in less than five days, making it the Muhammad Ali of apps, shattering records left, right, and center. 👊 

Notably, it made our favorite AI buddy, ChatGPT, look like a slowpoke for taking two whole months to reach the same milestone. For reference, Instagram itself took two and a half years to hit the 100 million club. Meanwhile, Elon Musk's Twitter, with its delightful cocktail of technical glitches and alienated users, is hanging on with 200 million regular tweeters.

Why it's interesting: Not that we're suggesting Twitter is on its deathbed, but Instagram's Threads might as well be holding a 🔫 menacingly close. It's not that other rivals haven't tried to dethrone Twitter - they just lacked the backing of a social media titan like Instagram, which clocks in with over a billion users. But Threads isn't just riding on Instagram's coattails. While Twitter's boss Musk was busy introducing charges for free services and reinstating banned right-wing accounts, Threads simply capitalized on the drama. And just when you thought things couldn't get juicier, there's also a lawsuit threat from Musk, a rebuttal from Meta, and a promise of a cage fight between Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.

Bottom line: While Musk is busy picking fights with Zuckerberg and the entire EU, Instagram's Threads just might sneak in and steal Twitter's 👑 . But don't worry, we're sure Musk will have a tweet or two about it.

You get a family doctor, you get a family doctor! 🏆️ 

Adrian Dix has unveiled an expanded Health Connect registry to pair patients with family doctors and nurse practitioners.

But wait, you might ask, don’t we already have a waitlist for that?

Well, yes and no. Up until now, we didn’t have a centralized provincial wait-list - just a bunch of smaller, community-wide ones. As of July 1st, BC has joined a growing list of provinces, including Alberta and Ontario, that offer a province-wide database. Once you’ve signed up, a coordinator can connect you with an available provider or patients. In other words…healthcare matchmaking.

How’s it going? Over 3,300 physicians have already jumped on board, including 156 fresh GP grads. It seems promising, right? Well, some skeptics have argued that this might actually make wait-times longer and create barriers for marginalized individuals. It sounds like patients will be triaged based on health status, but inevitably region and provider factors will still play a role. At this point, I guess there’s no harm in joining the queue and getting more patients!

Bottom line: For those of you with family patiently waiting in line, fingers crossed that your future family doctor swipes right.

Details

Baller of the Month 🏀 

Every month we’re going to showcase a medical professional that’s grabbing life and dunking it like they’re Vince Carter at the 2000 dunk contest. We show them off, whether their greatness is money related, achievement related, or something else.

This month’s Baller: Dr. Amanda Whitten

Why is she a Baller? She’s a family physician who went from being $250K in debt, to positive net worth and debt free, in under two years of practice. 🧧 

How did she do it?

• She didn’t have advantage of a dual-physician income household. Her partner is a social worker (manager).

• When transitioning to practice, she said “Oh gosh, paying it off in 5 years would be amazing.“

• She then wrote out a plan, with a payment schedule, and stuck to it. Every paycheque, she took half of it and sent it straight to her LOC.

• Best of all, she understood the psychology of building the habit - she got the positive reinforcement of seeing the number drop each month, so she was rewarded for doing it.

• She just kept living like a resident after residency. Continued to rent, continued to drive a used car, continued to meal prep. By living in Vancouver, her hobbies are inexpensive: running and hiking.

Wow, how do I do the same thing? 🥳 

Amanda advocates for long term thinking. When she was paying off her debt, she was in a low-interest rate environment (0.25%). Her debt was cheap, so lots of her friends said “wow that’s free money, keep the debt“!

But she had a feeling that over the long term, the debt would cost her. She said “there has to be a time when this ends“, and rather than maximize short term returns, “stocks and bonds go up and down, but return on debt is guaranteed”.

Shoutout to WCI for featuring Dr. Amanda Whitten.

Doing cleft palate surgeries abroad? Baller. They started a sick side hustle? Baller. If you know of any ballers in your life you want to nominate, let us know at [email protected].

Show me the MONEY 💰️ 

Job growth is steady. In June, Canada made 60,000 new jobs — three times more than expected.

What happened: Even though the unemployment rate bumped up a bit from 5.2% to 5.4%, we added a ton more jobs which is great for keeping the economy up (hello, TFSA returns 🤑). Things looked pretty similar in the US, with employers creating 209,000 jobs, and unemployment dropping to the lowest it's been in 60 years, at 3.6%.

Why it’s not all sunshine: But it could also mean that those in charge feel okay to raise interest rates. Some people keep saying a slowdown is coming soon, as they've been for about a year and a half, especially with the centrals banks on both sides of the border continuing to increase the rate. But as The Wall Street Journal said, this expected slowdown keeps being delayed and might never happen - if we're lucky 🤞 .

What’s next: If Canada keeps moving at this pace… CAD$ is going to be looking 💪 compared to the USD$. Look south of the border for some good deals! Just stay away from NFTs (the Biebs lost more than $1.2 million USD on his Bored Ape).

🍔 Quick Bites

2: More Women Than Men Are Going to College. The rising gender gap in college education — currently three women for every two men — might turn out to be one of the most transformative trends of our time.

3: How to Use A.I. for Family Time - Plan meals, find gifts and create stories using generative A.I.

4: If you’re an Amazon Prime member, there some big savings to be had right now as it’s Prime Day July 11 - 12 (note: affiliate link).

5: How ‘Barbie’ crossed a line in Vietnam’s dispute with China and ended up banned. And it has nothing to do with the film’s excessive use of pink.

6: Postmedia and owners of Toronto Star end merger talks with no deal.

Memes of the Day 😜 

This week’s Postcall is brought to you by Black Tusk Gear ⛺️ 

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