When we started medical school, investing was the last thing on our minds, and books about it were not on any reading list for medical students. We were too busy trying to survive anatomy and figure out how our student loans actually worked. Nobody around us was talking about it, and nothing in our curriculum came close to covering it.
The more we learned about personal finance, the more we realized how much we had missed just by not knowing where to start. You don’t need a financial advisor or a degree in economics to get your head around this stuff, though. A few good books go a long way.
These are the investing books we have found most useful and would recommend to medical students and anyone else in medicine who wants to get a handle on it.
1. The White Coat Investor: the Investing Book Medical Students Should Read First
This is the one we recommend first, every time.
James Dahle is an emergency physician who felt that financial advisors never really understood the situation doctors are in, so he wrote this book to fill that gap. It is useful for medical students and residents because it addresses our situation directly (a late career start, high student debt, high future income) instead of giving generic advice that doesn’t quite apply.
It walks you through budgeting, managing debt, investing, insurance, and more, all in plain language. Most people we know who have read it say it is the most practically useful finance book they have come across. [1] We think of it a bit like First Aid for your finances, the foundation everything else builds on.
2. The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John C. Bogle
Once you have the basics down, this is a great next read.
John Bogle founded Vanguard and spent most of his career making one argument: the average investor is almost always better off in a simple, low-cost index fund than picking stocks or paying someone else to do it. He backs this up with a lot of data, and we found it pretty convincing. [2]
For medical students this is a reassuring message. You don’t need to watch the markets constantly or make complex decisions. The evidence suggests that keeping things simple and staying consistent beats most other strategies over the long run. If you have ever felt that investing is only for people who really understand finance, this book will change your mind.
3. I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
The title is a bit much, we know. Stick with it.
This is probably the most practical book on the list in terms of telling you exactly what to do. Sethi walks you through setting up your bank accounts, credit cards, and investment accounts in a way that is meant to be as automated as possible so you are not constantly having to think about it. [3]
It is written for people in their twenties who feel a bit overwhelmed and just want someone to tell them what to do. That described us pretty well when we read it. If you learn better from a step-by-step plan than from theory, start here.
4. The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
This one is a little different from the others.
It isn’t really a how-to guide, and there is no list of steps to follow. Housel explores how people think about money and why we so often make poor financial decisions even when we know better. His argument is that personal finance is mostly about behaviour rather than knowledge. [4]
We found this one especially relevant for anyone going into medicine. After years of training on a tight budget, the moment you start earning an attending salary there is a real pull toward spending more. Understanding why that happens, and how it can quietly derail your finances, is useful. The chapters are short and easy to read, and the book stays with you.
5. A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel
This is the most academic one on the list, but we think it is worth it.
Malkiel is an economist who makes a careful, data-driven case that stock prices are essentially impossible to predict consistently, and that most attempts to beat the market fail over the long term, including those by professional fund managers. [5]
You don’t need to read every chapter. The argument helps explain why the index fund approach Bogle describes works, and when the market drops and everything in you wants to do something, having read this book makes it much easier to stay the course.
Where Medical Students Should Start With These Investing Books
If you are completely new to this, start with The White Coat Investor. It is the most relevant to your situation and gives you a clear picture of what you actually need to think about as someone in medicine.
From there, I Will Teach You to Be Rich gives you a practical setup, The Little Book explains the logic behind index investing, and The Psychology of Money helps you understand your own relationship with money before the big income years hit.
None of these books are long, and most take a few days of light reading. The decisions and avoided mistakes that come out of them are worth far more than the time.
We are still figuring a lot of this out ourselves. But these are the investing books that helped us most as medical students, and we hope they do the same for you.
References
- Dahle, J. M. (2014). The White Coat Investor: A Doctor’s Guide to Personal Finance and Investing. The White Coat Investor, LLC.
- Bogle, J. C. (2007). The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns. John Wiley & Sons.
- Sethi, R. (2009). I Will Teach You to Be Rich. Workman Publishing.
- Housel, M. (2020). The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness. Harriman House.
- Malkiel, B. G. (1973). A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing. W. W. Norton & Company.