A Brief Educational Intervention in Personal Finance for Medical Residents

Personal Financial Literacy Among U.S. Medical Students

“…Dhaliwal and Chou found that the average score of internal medicine interns on the Vanguard/Money Investor Literacy Test was only forty percent (Dhaliwal & Chou, 2007). Similarly, the 2013 Report on U.S. Physicians' Financial Preparedness, a national survey of physicians conducted by AMA Insurance, revealed that forty-eight percent of physicians considered themselves behind schedule in retirement preparedness and that having enough money to retire was the top concern among every age cohort surveyed (AMA Insurance, Jayakumar K, Larkin D, Ginzberg S, Patel M MedEdPublish https://doi.org/10.15694/mep.2017.000035 Page | 6 2013).…”

“…Medical students' underutilization of tax-advantaged retirement accounts is concerning, as their financial advantage over time is substantial (J. M. Teichman et al, 2001). Failure to contribute to retirement accounts may persist into residency, as a previous study found that most interns had not enrolled in or made changes in asset allocation to a tax-deferred retirement account (Dhaliwal & Chou, 2007). The shift toward increased specialization with its additional years of deferred income may make early contributions to retirement accounts especially important.…”

“…This high debt burden and many years of deferred income due to training puts physicians at a unique disadvantage (Dhaliwal & Chou, 2007). Financial strain is associated with increased stress and burnout (Collier, McCue, Markus, & Smith, 2002;McNeeley, Perez, & Chew, 2013).…”

“…Financial strain is associated with increased stress and burnout (Collier, McCue, Markus, & Smith, 2002;McNeeley, Perez, & Chew, 2013). For most medical students, their first full-time employment after college is residency training (Liebzeit, Behler, Heron, & Santen, 2011), and better preparation to manage these circumstances could yield many potential benefits (Dhaliwal & Chou, 2007;Greene & Puder, 2002) for individual physicians and the physician workforce as a whole. Educational debt impacts career choices, potentially lowering interest in fields such as primary care that have lower average compensation than other specialties (Grayson, Newton, & Thompson, 2012;Rosenblatt & Andrilla, 2005).…”

Planning for retirement from medicine: a mixed-methods study

“…7,8 These challenges are exacerbated by the likelihood that Canadian physicians will not have an employer-sponsored pension and must take the initiative to invest for retirement independently. 9,10 Inadequate retirement planning can have consequences for both patient care and the individual physician. For the individual, retiring without sufficient planning risks an abrupt loss of their professional social network and threatens the identity and purpose that their career provides.…”