MR. FISCAL medical residency financial skills curriculum to advance literacy

Financial education is not routinely offered during medical training. Unsurprisingly, physicians have low financial literacy, high debt, and deficits in their financial preparedness which contributes to the ever-growing problems of physician stress, job dissatisfaction, burnout, and depression. This study aims to determine the effects of a standardized personal finance education curriculum on family medicine residents’ and fellows’ financial well-being and literacy. Residents/fellows from 16 family medicine residency programs were selected for participation and divided using Solomon four-group design. A standardized, web-based financial education curriculum entitled “Medical Residency Financial Skills Curriculum to Advance Literacy” (MR. FISCAL) was created by the authors and provided to participants. An anonymous, web-based, survey ( N = 222) was collected, consisting of the InCharge Financial Distress/Financial Well-Being (IFDFW) Scale plus demographic and self-reported financial data. There was a significant improvement in the IFDFW score from pre- to post-survey results regardless of the intervention (95% CI 0.105–0.106, P = 0.017). There is currently a paucity of data on financial well-being and literacy among family medicine residents/fellows, as well as a lack of a standardized curricular intervention. The authors believe that this study is an early step in evaluating the effect of a standardized curriculum on personal finance literacy and well-being.