Financial Planning Basics for Doctors: The Personal Finance Course Not Taught in Medical School

Financial Planning Basics for Doctors is a comprehensive guide on building a long-term financial plan for doctors and their families. Subjects covered include student loans, home buying, disability insurance, estate planning, college planning, retirement planning, investments, and behavioral finance, among many others.

Each chapter starts with the basics before addressing more advanced concepts, frequently with examples and graphs, and concludes with a concise summary of the key takeaways. Throughout the book, there are links to free downloadable spreadsheets and a planning checklist to help you jump-start and organize your financial plan.

The content provided is a result of the feedback the authors have received over thousands of meetings with doctors, condensed into a thorough overview of the most relevant ideas. Teaching hospitals do an excellent job of training our next generation of doctors, yet most new physicians graduate without having had a class on managing their finances. This book was written to fill that knowledge gap.

Marshall Weintraub, Michael Merrill, and Cole Kimball are financial advisors with Finity Group, LLC, a financial planning firm specializing in working with doctors.

Marshall Weintraub, CFP(R)

Marshall’s practice focuses on the special planning challenges doctors and their families face. His areas of professional interest include student loan management, home buying, and investment portfolio design. In addition to this book, he has written personal finance articles for the American College of Cardiology. Marshall graduated from the University of Washington, where he endured an 0-12 football season. He remains a cautiously optimistic Huskies fan.

Michael Merrill, CFP(R), ChFC(R), CLU(R)

Michael Merrill is a senior partner and financial advisor at Finity Group and one of the original founding members of Finity Group. He’s directly involved in a wide scope of the firm’s operations, most notably leading marketing efforts and setting a tone of integrity and diligence as the head of our compliance supervision department. Michael also maintains a personal financial planning practice, serving the needs of high net worth families by directly assisting in the development and maintenance of their financial plan strategies. His professional certifications include CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER, Chartered Financial Consultant(R) (ChFC(R)), and Chartered Life Underwriter(R) (CLU(R)).

Cole Kimball, CFA, AIF(R)

Cole serves as the Chief Investment Officer at Finity Group and as a financial advisor to his clients. After graduating from the University of Colorado Boulder, he started his career on the institutional side of finance working at different boutique broker-dealers before transitioning to the advisor role. In his free time, Cole enjoys being active and taking advantage of all the outdoor opportunities the Pacific Northwest has to offer. In the winter, there is a good chance you will bump into him on the mountains snowboarding, and in the summer, biking around town.