New white paper reveals financial challenges facing medical professionals

By Neal Durling and Sean O'Kane.

Most people - including many medical professionals - believe that a medical career necessarily delivers very comfortable financial outcomes.

But the truth is more complicated than that, with doctors and other medicos facing four unique challenges that must be overcome if they are to reach true financial independence.

I explore these challenges in depth with my colleague Sean O'Kane in a new Medical Financial Group white paper: "Are you planning your journey to financial independence? A white paper for medical practitioners".

Our white paper shatters a number of myths about medicos and money, and gives you intelligent financial insights based on evidence. Sean and I dug deep into statistical data, read relevant articles from medical journals, and held a series of frank interviews with specialists themselves to put the paper together. I believe we now have a resource that is essential reading for any medical practitioner who wants to achieve long-term financial security.

Some of the fascinating findings we made in researching and writing the 12-page paper:

• Medical practitioners often have higher earning potential than many other professionals once they start work, but they spend an average of 25% longer in training, so generally begin their careers later and often with a large debt incurred during training.
• All practitioners interviewed said that providing a good education for their children was a top priority, and many worried that their family's wellbeing would suffer if they were unable to work due to illness or injury.
• Many practitioners wish they'd sought financial advice from trustworthy advisers at the start of their careers.

And the four unique financial challenges for medical professionals that we uncovered? I'm happy to share them with you here:

1. Financial complacency/over-eagerness
Practitioners tend to fall into two camps either complacent that they are now earning good money so don't need to plan financially, or eager to finally enjoy the rewards of all their hard work so they want to spend now! Neither approach will set you up for long-term financial success.

2. Less time than other professionals
Medicos especially specialists are busy people, with little time to spare. And, because of your training and the nature of your work, a practitioner's earning life may actually be shorter than that of many other professionals. Both make it harder to research and implement a financial strategy.

3. Lack of financial understanding
By definition, medical practitioners are intelligent people. But finance is a whole new world. Some of our interview subjects told us of medicos who invested less than wisely, and lived to regret it.

4. Lack of trust
High-earning professional people often worry that they could be a target for financial experts. It's vital to find a credible, transparent financial adviser whom you feel you can trust.

Our full white paper gives more information about each of these challenges and how you can overcome them. The paper also contains words of wisdom from your colleagues about their own financial journeys, plus advice characteristics that most doctors value.

Download your free copy of the white paper now -  I promise that it's intelligent, relevant, and shouldn't take you longer than 15 minutes to read.