Jeff Brown, MD

Good advice – it’s the hardest thing in the world to find, but let’s start with this mental trick from Wharton Professor Rom Schrift. When you are facing any decision among choices, financial, or otherwise, add the option of “do nothing” to the list.

Sometimes the best money advice doesn’t come from a financial adviser or CPA. Sometimes it comes from… a bumper sticker?

Now that most docs are associated with some group, it behooves us to learn how to flourish in this new environment. And, like so many other subjects covered here on Physician’s Money Digest (PMD), there is little or nothing in our professional training to guide us.

If there’s one thing that everyone loves bragging about, it’s how much money they saved on a great deal. Here’s some tips that will help you do just that.

A large 2016 study from Harvard showed there is an “atrocious” gender wage gap in medicine. The income gap by specialty varied from about $20,000 to a whopping $50,000 in some of the surgical specialties.

A casual observer might argue that much of what a physician does is, in effect, sales. We are often trying to talk someone into something, a medical work up or treatment, or out of something, like self-destructive habits.

Spoiler: You have to spend money to make money.

We all know 1) people don’t like to laugh about their money and 2) people will laugh if it can break the tension in our anxieties about money.

“There are lies, damned lies and then there are statistics.” In recent election years, instead of analog tea leaves, financial analysts have turned to deep-diving and number-crunching to not just predict who would win, but also what effect the presidential election might have on our money.

Stepping, even hesitantly, into this presidential election is like putting yourself inside of a pair of scissors. Or kissing the 3rd rail, pick your metaphor. Anyway, here are some interesting facts and studies relevant to this season, if anybody cares about such things anymore.

Gambling addiction is another one of those afflictions that people are uncomfortable to acknowledge and talk about – but it is much more widespread than most of us are aware.

When people are exposed to a stack of money before eating a piece of chocolate, they savor the chocolate less. Our seemingly endless fascination with the subject continues to generate new information that may shine a light on our pursuit of lucre and hopefully thereby illumine our lives.

We live in a predominantly service economy, yet one of the drivers of our daily unease is the too-frequent breakdown of what should be routinely good service. So how can we best handle these small kerfuffles that bedevil us?

Now that over 50% of doctors are salaried, knowing how to ask for a raise assumes an unexpectedly large place in our financial planning.

Not surprisingly, financial literacy roughly matches the amount of education that a person has. And the less financial savvy you have, the harder it hits you in the pocketbook.

There isn’t an overwhelming amount of columns featuring humor involving money and/or docs. But sometimes you come across a knee slap worthy jokes, like these ones from The New Yorker.

For one, if you order the same food that the person you are trying to strike an agreement with, your odds of success improve by up to 29%.

We all know by now that Americans pay the most overall for healthcare, and the most per capita, by large margins, than any other people in the world. And we do not have the best results by many measures for all of that massive expense.

For those who think that “good government is no government,” Steve Butler in the “San Jose Mercury News” makes some telling points.

Just as in medicine, psychology remains dominant over science or math, fantasy over reality.

Income inequality has become a major issue in America. Is it time for us to follow Europe's lead and institute a wealth tax?

In this week's post, columnist Jeff Brown, MD, shares 14 wise quotes about money, investing, and life.

Election year factoids can be fun to weave into cocktail party conversation—or can stop the conversation. Pick your group!

Physicians' kids typically grow up with most of their financial needs met. So how do you teach them the value of money?

The disparity in incomes for women doing the same work as men has gotten a lot of attention in recent years. Less attention has been paid to the often inexplicable price gap between male and female versions of similar products, such as clothing and shampoo.

The pols, the pundits, and the public are scratching their heads to explain the conduct of this year’s election cycle. A book published several years ago may have some answers.

If you think you make decisions -- whether about which candidate to vote for or which house to buy -- based on objective facts, you're kidding yourself.

Asking for money in any setting is awkward for many folk. But it doesn’t have to be, if you have a plan.

Anyone who watches a few minutes of business news every now and then is aware that the Federal Reserve's interest rate decisions are watched very closely. However, most don't fully understand how the implications of the Fed's decisions.

Yard sales are ubiquitous, particularly in springtime. Follow these tips to succeed with your own sale, or to score great deals as a shopper.