By Josh Katzowitz, WCI Content material DirectorThe explanation the topic of private finance is so intriguing (heck, one of many massive causes the web site you’re studying proper now exists) is since you might fill a guide (or a number of books) with all of the methods you may make investments and shield your cash.
You possibly can go together with the tried-and-true, no-frills technique of placing your cash into low-cost index funds. You can speculate to your coronary heart’s content material. You could be as conservative as William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater and put most of your cash into bonds or money, or you may loiter on the road nook of Loosey and Goosey and tackle as a lot danger and leverage as you will get (and perhaps much more than you may afford).
In case you make sufficient revenue and save sufficient of it, you’re most likely going to have a fantastic life and a pleasant retirement, even for those who go just a little nuts together with your investments. However most individuals who proceed to go browsing to this web site (learn the weblog, hearken to the podcast, and inhale a course or two) are most likely extra in the Bogleheads mildew, emphasizing “common saving, broad diversification, and sticking to at least one’s funding plan no matter market circumstances.”
However not all physicians or different high-income earners take their cues from John Bogle, Dr. Jim Dahle, and their mixed acolytes. Some have their very own concepts about how you can make investments their cash, and in its 2025 survey, Medscape sought to find out how physicians had been taking part in this recreation.
The outcomes most likely aren’t stunning. As Medscape summarized, “Physicians wound up trying like a reasonably conservative lot, even when they like to consider themselves as aggressive traders.”
When requested about the place they really feel snug investing their non-retirement accounts, 33% of the survey respondents stated “securities,” 26% stated “actual property,” and seven% stated “non-medical companies.” In keeping with the survey, 21% of medical doctors aren’t investing outdoors of their retirement accounts, which might converse to a scarcity of economic information that increase a 401(okay) most likely will not be sufficient to guide you to monetary freedom.
Here is a extra detailed have a look at the place Medscape medical doctors are investing.
Evaluate that to the annual WCI survey from 2024. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparability (WCI wasn’t distinguishing between retirement and non-retirement accounts), nevertheless it appears to be like just like the individuals who learn this web site take a extra aggressive strategy to investing in shares and actual property however take a extra conservative strategy to treasured metals, collectibles, and particular person shares (solely 20% of WCIers say they purchase particular person shares). Curiously, each surveys have the identical share for crypto investing.
Here is what these respondents in WCI’s 2025 survey stated. The info is pretty just like 2024, however there apparently has been extra curiosity in crypto and treasured metals. 
We’ve spent loads of time within the final 12 months or two distinguishing between DIYers (those that deal with their investments themselves), validators (those that principally do their very own investing work however who generally need the recommendation of a monetary advisor who can inform them whether or not they’re heading in the right direction), and delegators (who can pay anyone else to arrange and preserve their monetary lives for them).
In keeping with the Medscape survey, medical doctors cut up practically evenly between these three choices: 37% say “I make my very own funding selections,” 33% say “I persistently use skilled recommendation,” and 30% say “I generally use skilled recommendation.” That’s quite far off from WCI’s 2024 survey, the place 65% of respondents stated “I handle my very own monetary selections,” 14.5% stated they solely often get assist from an advisor, and roughly 8%-10% stated they “commonly use a monetary advisor for all of my monetary selections.”
Here is one different piece of fascinating data from Medscape. These physicians who earned lower than $300,000 per 12 months had been more likely to explain themselves as much less aggressive traders. On a scale of 1 to five, with 1 being “very conservative” and 5 being “very aggressive,” 47% of those that made lower than $300,000 rated themselves as a 1 or 2, and solely 15% rated themselves a 4 or 5. In the meantime, for individuals who earned greater than $300,000, 34% rated themselves as a 1 or 2, and 27% rated themselves a 4 or 5.
That is sensible in some methods, however as wealth administration advisor Becky Vogt-Lundeed instructed Medscape, those that are earlier of their careers (a few of whom may make lower than $300,000 now however finally will surpass that whole) ought to be those who’re extra aggressive.
“I’ve observed this with residents, fellows, new attendings; the much less cash they’ve, the extra they concern dropping it,” Vogt-Lundeen stated. “However investing extra conservatively at that age means they’re not getting the market good points they need to, given their time horizon.”
What does all of this imply? It may be self-serving and braggadocious to say (and possibly pretty apparent), however those that are part of the WCI neighborhood are most probably the medical doctors who’re going to get richer and attain monetary independence faster and simpler. That simply reveals the facility of economic literacy and the way it might web you tens of millions of {dollars}, simply by understanding what to do with all your cash.
Extra data right here:
Which Medical Specialties Are the Most Burned Out?
What Doctor Specialties Have the Happiest Marriages?
Cash Tune of the Week
After I was in fourth grade, Poison was one in all my favourite bands. I used to be massive into Nineteen Eighties metallic (I hate the time period “hair metallic”), and together with Def Leppard and Weapons N’ Roses, I rocked out to a number of the largest bands of that period as a lot as doable.
By some means, Poison nonetheless survives as we speak. Though a lot of the lyrical content material of its tunes hasn’t aged significantly nicely, the band remains to be taking part in stadium reveals (as an opener, at the least) and earning money.
And Poison practically all the time performs Nothin’ However a Good Time, which tells the story of an individual who resides paycheck to paycheck however who nonetheless feels the necessity to celebration in any respect hours. Inform me, does it get way more hair metallic than that?
As frontman Bret Michaels sings:
“Not a dime, I am unable to pay my hire/I can barely make it via the week/Saturday evening, I might wish to make my woman/However proper now, I am unable to make ends meet.”
Now, enjoy a number of the glammiest of the glam as we watch an MTV mainstay.
Poison is actually an ‘80s metallic success story. Whereas a couple of bands from that period nonetheless exist (and even fewer can nonetheless pull in vital cash on the highway), tons of glam bands have been left behind and forgotten. And whereas Poison as we speak actually isn’t the superpower it was from 1986-1991, Michaels and his bandmates most likely aren’t going hungry. Why? As a result of they had been sensible early of their careers.
Michaels additionally stated this on Sirius XM, through Blabbermouth, in 2022:
“One of many largest blessings that got here from that’s we held all of our publishing,” he stated. “ . . . We had been supplied these actually small affords, and we had been, like, ‘We’re already poor. Let’s simply keep right here and simply maintain on to controlling our profession.’ And I am going again to this now. That ended up being the most important gem for Poison.”
Contemplating the band has offered tens of tens of millions of data throughout its 40-year profession, that should be fairly a big gem.
Extra data right here:
Each Cash Tune of the Week Ever Revealed
Tweet of the Week
The everlasting query.
Actually do not know how you can earn that fifth star pic.twitter.com/YdnR50pQTP
— Mark Lewis, MD, FASCO (@marklewismd) April 2, 2024
What do you assume? Do the odds of medical doctors and their investing habits make sense to you? The place do you stand together with your investments?
[EDITOR’S NOTE: For comments, complaints, suggestions, or plaudits, email Josh Katzowitz at [email protected].]
