Physicians Are Financially Illiterate

[Donnie]

I know I am in the minority here, and I can't remember if I posted in this thread or in the comments of a blog post, but I strongly disagree that standard curriculum for med school students should include finance as folks have indicated in this thread.  Bloating core curriculum with non-essential add-ons just leads to inflated education costs.  Med school is a specialized professional program, and the curriculum should be limited to specific subject matter only relevant to that specialized profession.  Personal finance is a general skill that should be taught elsewhere, but not in med school.

Med schools are also under no obligation to educate the students on the impact of taking out student debt.  This is America.  Be a grown up, learn basic math concepts, and educate yourself before obligating yourself to $100's of thousands of dollars of debt.

[RogueDadMD]

Hightower -- I've given these talks maybe a dozen times already to various groups on campus.

This will be the third time with the peds trainees and second with IM. I've also spoken to Med students (and will be again in the spring) and the gen surgeon trainees.

I've slowly iterated the talk -- I've learned lessons both from giving the talks and from the WCI crowd here.

Donnie -- I believe you've expressed your dissatisfaction with this concept at some point (I think we had a discussion in the comments of the WCI blog post on my research paper). I understand your perspective on why it SHOULDN'T be necessary, but since it is necessary, I'll continue to advocate for it.

[Donnie]

Rogue Dad, M.D. wrote:

Hightower — I’ve given these talks maybe a dozen times already to various groups on campus.

This will be the third time with the peds trainees and second with IM. I’ve also spoken to Med students (and will be again in the spring) and the gen surgeon trainees.

I’ve slowly iterated the talk — I’ve learned lessons both from giving the talks and from the WCI crowd here.

Donnie — I believe you’ve expressed your dissatisfaction with this concept at some point (I think we had a discussion in the comments of the WCI blog post on my research paper). I understand your perspective on why it SHOULDN’T be necessary, but since it is necessary, I’ll continue to advocate for it.

Click to expand...

To clarify, I think you and others who are basically volunteering to teach people important concepts about personal finance are doing a good thing, and I applaud you for it.

I do think you misunderstand my point though.  Understanding personal finance is not necessary for practicing medicine.  Not to be pedantic, but the definition of medical school is "a tertiary educational institution that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians and surgeons" according to Wikipedia.  We can debate the merits of Wikipedia definitions, but personal finance is not in the purview of medical school.

 

 

[CM]

Donnie wrote:

Rogue Dad, M.D. wrote:

Hightower — I’ve given these talks maybe a dozen times already to various groups on campus.

This will be the third time with the peds trainees and second with IM. I’ve also spoken to Med students (and will be again in the spring) and the gen surgeon trainees.

I’ve slowly iterated the talk — I’ve learned lessons both from giving the talks and from the WCI crowd here.

Donnie — I believe you’ve expressed your dissatisfaction with this concept at some point (I think we had a discussion in the comments of the WCI blog post on my research paper). I understand your perspective on why it SHOULDN’T be necessary, but since it is necessary, I’ll continue to advocate for it.

Click to expand…

To clarify, I think you and others who are basically volunteering to teach people important concepts about personal finance are doing a good thing, and I applaud you for it.

I do think you misunderstand my point though.  Understanding personal finance is not necessary for practicing medicine.  Not to be pedantic, but the definition of medical school is “a tertiary educational institution that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians and surgeons” according to Wikipedia.  We can debate the merits of Wikipedia definitions, but personal finance is not in the purview of medical school.

 

 

Click to expand...

I agree that it isn't appropriate to make personal finance a formal part of the med school curriculum, but voluntary lunchtime presentations are a tremendous service.

[Hatton]

Unfortunately Donnie these talks are needed. How many posts do you need to read about medical students and residents being sold predatory whole life policies or inappropriate mutual funds ?The earlier the better.

[Donnie]

hatton1 wrote:

Unfortunately Donnie these talks are needed. How many posts do you need to read about medical students and residents being sold predatory whole life policies or inappropriate mutual funds ?The earlier the better.

Click to expand...

I agree that doctors and other professionals need to be educated, I just draw a line at formal curriculum in a professional school. That's all.

I also think some context is helpful when discussing "predatory" salesmen.  While whole life policies and high load mutual funds are bad, they pale in comparison to the damage done by luring college students into racking up debt on credit cards because of the low monthly payments or the damage to low income families from payday or other high interest loans.  These products can actually prevent people from accumulating net worth, which typically isn't the case with a whole life policy or bad mutual fund.

[Hatton]

Donnie wrote:

hatton1 wrote:

Unfortunately Donnie these talks are needed. How many posts do you need to read about medical students and residents being sold predatory whole life policies or inappropriate mutual funds ?The earlier the better.

Click to expand…

I agree that doctors and other professionals need to be educated, I just draw a line at formal curriculum in a professional school. That’s all.

I also think some context is helpful when discussing “predatory” salesmen.  While whole life policies and high load mutual funds are bad, they pale in comparison to the damage done by luring college students into racking up debt on credit cards because of the low monthly payments or the damage to low income families from payday or other high interest loans.  These products can actually prevent people from accumulating net worth, which typically isn’t the case with a whole life policy or bad mutual fund.

Click to expand...

I don't think it needs to be part of the curriculum either.  An optional noon time talk is ok.  I mean predatory in the sense that well educated but financially illiterate docs with little time but a potential high income post here all the time about unethical "financial advisors".

[Miss Bonnie MD]

Donnie, I see your point, but with the rising number of physicians undergoing burnout and experiencing financial calamities in life, graduating with a crap ton of debt, personal finances falls under physician wellness IMO. If you want happy MDs practicing for a long time, you better make sure they are taking care of their finances enough.

[RogueDadMD]

I'm with Miss Bonnie. I have and do consider it physician wellness, which is already something that is advocated for both for trainees and practicing physicians. If talks on sleep deprivation can be a requirement (and they are), and they can talk continuously about "work-life balance," then we need to actually teach something that directly helps those things and not just give platitudes.

There is no official or proper time to learn this stuff. It's life long, just like medicine is life long.

It may not help me reduce a fracture, but just like a good night sleep, having a life that is in order does help me be better with my patients by allowing me to perform better at my job.

I should point out that 3/5 of our curriculum is VERY medicine specific. One hour just on student loans, which I consider an obligation from the medical industry to help with. One hour on contract negotiations, and one hour on understanding physician practice structure (necessary to help pick a job).

[Donnie]

I hear where you guys are coming from, and I think you have the right intent and objectives. That said, I am viscerally and logically (I think) opposed to increasing educational costs by trying to provide everything to everyone. College and professional school tuitions are out of control. The best thing you can do for future doctor wellbeing is to advocate for the reduction of the costs of med school and amount of debt that doctors have when they graduate by reducing curriculum bloat. When a doc graduates with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, they really have no choice but to grind it out as a doc even if they find they don't like it to pay off the debt. Free seminars provided by generous folks like Rogue MD are one thing, but pushing through special programs into curriculum under the cover of wellness is another.

[q-school]

I'm with Donnie. These are personal matters as far as I'm concerned. There's plenty of clearly clinical things they can spend more time on imo.

Things that are important to us may not be perceived of as equal import by everyone.

[Doctor Money Matters]

I think this material is necessary but other than education about loans, can probably be left for residency training. Not sure contract negotiation is that useful at the med school level. But if we physicians educate our students during clinical time or refer them to this site and others like it, we do them a valuable service.

[Gamma Knives]

When in medical school I often felt like discussing money was taboo. The vibe was very much if you care about money you are impure and you should only be a physician for altruism. Should finance be core curriculum? I would say no. People will learn if they want to learn. When you force students to take a course many will not get value as they will see it as another hoop to jump through. However, I think medical schools should try to make more resources available to students. There should be courses or other resource on students loans, physician reimbursement, contract negotiation, and so on. I would have signed up for those. I bet most medical schools could get people to teach these course without increasing their costs. I would consider contributing to such a course without expecting to be paid by my local medical school.

Unfortunately, the attitude in medical school (in my experience, n = 1) seems to be don't worry about money; you will be fine. This attitude gets physicians into financial trouble.

[CM]

Gamma Knives wrote:

Unfortunately, the attitude in medical school (in my experience, n = 1) seems to be don’t worry about money; you will be fine.

Click to expand...

N = 2.

I think about money often now, but it didn't cross my mind until very late in med school when I began to date women who had some. Then I thought about it a little. Still, I would have skipped any personal finance offerings as a student or resident. It wasn't until I began earning an attending paycheck and paying off loans that I became interested.

Nevertheless, everything did turn out fine, even with many career detours.

 

[q-school]

Aren't most physicians eventually fine financially? They may be right.
It may take some longer than others, especially if they choose a lavish lifestyle. But that's a choice.

Should they also have marital counseling?
It appears that divorce may be the biggest risk to financial independence.