summary ofThe White Coat InvestorBook by James M. Dahle, MD

first KEY POINT

Medicine is no longer the guaranteed pathway to financial abundance

It's a common truism in every society around the world that studying medicine or law will make you wealthy. This single reason is why so many traditional parents insist their kids must study those professional courses. They don't mind paying tuition for years because they are assured that it will all pay off once their ward graduates. There is also the fact that trained medical doctors and lawyers hardly struggle to get jobs, unlike people in other career paths.However, when you consider it closely, this truism was only valid some 3 or 4 decades ago. There are medical doctors today who live from hand to mouth. It's even worse in the law field because the past few years have seen a steady decrease in the demand for lawyers. The demand for doctors is still very hot and there are no indications that doctors will be out of work anytime soon, but their financial situation isn't as it used to be in the 20th and early 21st centuries.Here's the picture: in 1999, the average in-state tuition fee for med school in the United States was around $10,000, but now that figure has tripled (even quadrupled) in many states. And it's not like physician salaries increased by the same measure. Nowadays doctors get out of residency with so much debt to pay in student loans. In addition to that, by the time most physicians start earning high income from their practice, they are already above 30 with a family and most likely a teenager that's about getting into college.Expenditure increases, making it difficult to amass wealth.

It's not completely impossible to build wealth. There are medical doctors out there who managed to do it despite all odds and in this summary, you'd gain wisdom on how you too can achieve financial independence while still practicing the profession you love.