Her mom worked three nurse jobs to keep the family afloat. She finished medical school with $425,000 in debt and no job history. In her first month as a doctor, she earned $50,000.
These numbers are from May 2025, when this was first written. Pay changes every year, so check current rates in Map My Pay.
She didn’t wait her turn
When your Nigerian mother works three nurse jobs to keep your family going, you don’t take “wait your turn” as advice. That’s the mindset of the doctor I interviewed.
She didn’t come from money. She went to med school in the Caribbean. When she finished residency, she had zero job experience.
What she did instead of a W2 job
- She cold-called hospitals on her own.
- She built her own schedule from scratch.
- She turned down two contracts that were flat-out unsafe.
- She paid just $15 a month on her student loans, legally.
That’s not all. She now runs several businesses. She puts everything under her LLC and uses the 1099 path to build the kind of freedom most doctors never see.
If you’re a nurse who wants to start a business, read about the top nursing businesses.
What you’ll learn in the interview
- How she got high-paying work with no job history.
- What 1099 doctors can write off that W2 doctors can’t.
- Which of her side businesses makes the most money.
- How she’s building options and peace of mind for the long run.
This isn’t a how-to from some influencer who acts rich. She grew up watching her mom hustle nonstop, and she chose a different life.
For another story of a nurse building her own path, read about the nurse who landed $20K clients. If you want to move up without leaving nursing, see where nurse practitioners earn the most.
Your next move
See what you’d take home, then make the move
Map My Pay shows what nurses take home after taxes and rent at 465+ hospitals and in 21,000+ cities. It’s the app I co-founded so you can compare cities before you pack a single box.
The Nurses to Riches Accelerator is the plan Monica and I used to go from $37 an hour in New York to $143 an hour in California: license, city, hospital, and what to do with the money after.
Get the Map My Pay app See the Accelerator plans
Every Accelerator plan is a one-time payment with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Written by Jason, RN. I went from $37 an hour in New York to $143 an hour in California and paid off $128K of debt in under a year. I share our numbers in the Nurses to Riches newsletter and on YouTube.