Intervention in Personal Finance for Medical Residents Essay

Intervention in Personal Finance for Medical Residents - Essay Example The seminar on financial planning gave an overview on personal finance (income and spending), debt management, taxes, insurance, and retirement savings. A key information given during the seminar was on retirement plans available during residency, that residents have a choice either on going with the retirement account provided by the university (automatic enrollment) or county hospital (not automatic) or opt to invest in mutual funds, university-managed or from a mutual fund service company. For the study, 52 or 84% out of 62 internal medicine interns of the University of California-San Francisco attended the 90-minute seminar. Immediately before the seminar, they were given a test assessing their financial literacy as well as a pre-intervention survey. After the seminar, the interns filled up the post-intervention survey, asking their opinion on whether such seminar was valuable or not. In May 2004, two to ten months later, the residents were asked to complete the change allocation survey. Only 25 residents out of the 46 who responded attended the seminar. Findings and implications: On financial literacy, the average score was 40% of a 20-question