I just hit $100,000 in lifetime donations

Written by: Jerome Pomeranz

My giving journey started with a promise I made while at university. That promise was to God that if I became a doctor, we would be business partners. That we would split the "profits" from my profession 50-50. I was inspired by a story I had heard as a little kid about a businessman making a similar deal with his deity, and I guess it stuck. It's been over a decade since I made that promise, and a lot has changed. Every romantic partnership and full-time job I ever had started after I made that promise. I went through medical training and am now an attending, teaching family medicine residents and medical students in a town I never heard of when I made that promise. I've grown less religious, but still, I keep that promise. At the end of every month, I donate the “heaven share" of the money I make to what I consider to be high-impact charities. Around the same time as I made that promise, I learned of Charity Navigator and felt while it was great to know about what the funds I was donating went to, it didn't answer the question of whether the funds were well spent. I remember taking an online course from J-PAL and thinking there was a lot that goes into charity evaluation. My sister is heavily involved with the effective altruism movement (some of you may have heard of her), and she played a big role of me thinking about donating more internationally. Coming across Hi-Med has given me a large value-aligned community that I feel a part of through the fellowships and mentorship programs. I just hit $100,000 in lifetime donations, and while I hope to donate a lot more, it's also important to take time to enjoy the differences one already made in the world. As we in medicine get too many sad reminders already, none of us are guaranteed tomorrow, so enjoy today as much as possible.