KMA offers unbiased basic financial planning seminars to medical students and residents. Last year, a residency director complimented this training at a KMA Board of Trustees meeting and when he did, heads around the table shook and more than one board member said, “I wish I had that when I was in training.”
Are we physicians different from the rest of society in our ability or lack thereof to manage our money? Not really, but we do make more that could be saved and invested. Oftentimes, we simply hire people to tell us what to do and pay a percentage of our total investments no matter if the investments go up or down. That cost adds up over time.
And do we save enough money? Savings create freedom, freedom to do what we want with our time. It gives us flexibility. And it allows us to perhaps contribute to our families, society and others in ways we may not be able to do when we live paycheck-to-paycheck. Having worked with and managed physicians in my career, I can say categorically that physicians generally do not believe they have such freedom, especially today.
