By Mollie Frost
With so many competing priorities, early career physicians often don't know where to begin with their personal finances, said Amy K. Holbrook, MD, FACP, who is associate program director of the internal medicine residency and director of medical student education at Abbott Northwestern in Minneapolis.
"You go to school forever, and then you come out and you start making great money as an attending, and you have no idea what to do with it necessarily," she said. "And there's a lot of really good uses for your money in that transitioning time when you're starting out as an attending, and you can really change your trajectory of where you're headed based on those decisions."
Her Saturday talk, given with finance expert Disha C. Spath, MD, FACP, will be a modern, accessible take on financial planning for early career physicians. Their presentation will outline how early career physicians (as well as those in training or already in practice who want more know-how) can get their financial house in order in a stepwise fashion.
"We'll also be talking about how to evaluate financial planners, how to select them, and what to look for," said Dr. Holbrook, a member of ACP's Council of Early Career Physicians, which is sponsoring the session. "And … it's still really important for physicians to have a baseline knowledge about financial planning, so that they know that they're not being taken advantage of and that they're making the right decisions, even with the help of a planner."
The talk will offer eight simple steps to building wealth that are tailored to physicians rather than the general population. The first, most crucial step is for physicians to protect themselves and their families with disability insurance, life insurance, and estate planning, including a will, said Dr. Spath, who is an internal medicine physician practicing in New York and Vermont and founder and CEO of The Frugal Physician.
The second step is to put aside a starter emergency fund. "For physicians, we recommend at least $10,000 or the amount of [your] lowest deductible," Dr. Spath said.
Step three is to invest, as well as to create a game plan for managing any student loans. "Just start putting money into some retirement account, because you need to get the magic of compounding working for you," Dr. Spath said. "We're already 10 years behind our peers because we've spent so much time studying and investing in ourselves. Now we need to catch up."
Other steps cover approaches to paying off student loans, savings strategies, and more. "If you come to the talk, you'll learn all the rest of the steps, and we'll talk about why we recommend these steps as well," Dr. Spath said. ■