"I'm Not Good with Money" and Other Lies Residents Tell Themselves about Personal Finance.

Abstract

Some physicians believe that they have difficulty managing their own personal finances, and many medical schools and residences do not have formal financial curricula embedded in education. Given that many medical students have >$200,000 in school loans, physicians are expected to navigate the complex financial world without guidance. In this article, the authors developed a personal finance curriculum for Internal Medicine residents with the aim of evaluating the proportion of residents engaging in active personal finance activities, increasing their knowledge of financial literacy and their comfort with personal finance concepts using a pre- and postintervention survey. The content of the curriculum included four modules structured around different financial themes and delivered to trainees in 45-minute sessions. A majority of the residents were able to participate in workplace retirement, log into their retirement account, possessed a Roth individual retirement account, manage a budget, and check their credit score. An area prompting concern postintervention was the level of discomfort engaging with personal finance that disproportionally affected the female trainees more than their male counterparts. It is likely that an individual's comfort level managing finances stems from money beliefs, rather than actual ability given the requirements to graduate from medical school and the demands of an Internal Medicine residency.