By The White Coat Investor, originally published at The White Coat Investor.
By
Jim Dahle,
WCI Founder
<!–You likely make more money than almost everyone else in your life. Your friends outside of medicine thought you were rich as soon as you started residency, despite the negative net worth. Your family doesn’t understand why you’re still stressed. And when you try to bring up money with colleagues, it either feels awkward or turns into a competition about who’s more underwater. So, most doctors just stop talking about it.
Avoiding money conversations has a real cost. Per a Medscape survey from a few years ago, more than 24% of doctors in their 60s still haven’t hit a $1 million net worth, despite decades of high income. Your paychecks may be large, but that doesn’t mean you know what to do with them.
Taking control of your financial life gives you options. It’s what lets you work on your own terms, drop a night of call, cut back on shifts, and spend more time on what actually makes you happy—in your career and outside of it. When you’re not stressed about money, you show up better everywhere else.
The Fastest Way to Change Your Financial Trajectory
I’ve watched three days at The Physician Wellness & Financial Literacy Conference do more for someone’s financial future than the 10 years before it. While sitting at the conference this past year, I realized that I have really been underselling WCICON. I apologize for that and resolve not to do it anymore. It really is a FANTASTIC conference. I’m biased, of course, but it’s the best medical conference I’ve ever been to or even heard about. Every year, high-income professionals and many of their spouses dedicate three days to improving both their financial lives and their personal wellness, alongside hundreds of others working through the same questions. If a three-day event could dramatically change your financial future, shouldn’t you make time for it?
Dr. Jordan Read described the conference better than I could: “WCICON was the bridge I needed between understanding the concepts of financial literacy and actionable steps toward putting those concepts into a real life plan, with the help of experienced professionals and colleagues to support and guide you one step at a time.” Dr. Mancuso called it a combination of “reflective soul-searching and an actual working meeting,” one that leaves you with a concrete to-do list instead of good intentions.
My favorite part of the whole event, every single year, is standing around in the hallway between sessions hearing what’s actually going on in your life. I love hearing about your triumphs and your challenges. A significant portion of the content on this blog, on our podcasts, and on our social media feeds is created primarily due to those interactions.
Dr. Olcott went home last year and ran the numbers on a home renovation, and she said it completely changed her mindset about what she and her husband could freely spend every month without guilt. Don Grace, PA-C, told us his end-of-career net worth could “very literally be worth millions more based on principles he learned at the conference.”
Brian Barlow, who attended alongside his emergency physician spouse Lauren, put it simply: “You can’t put a price on financial clarity and peace of mind, and WCICON allows you to achieve that.” And Dr. Mullen called WCICON a “high-yield, no-nonsense conference where physicians learn how to build wealth, avoid the mistakes everyone else makes, and align their money with the life they actually want, surrounded by people doing the same thing.”
We hear almost endless versions of this after each conference, and it’s the reason we keep doing this even though putting on a conference is by far the most stressful and financially risky thing WCI does. It has been life-changing for thousands who have attended and could be for you, too.
Take advantage of the early bird sale through September 22!
The Sessions Worth Clearing Your Calendar For
We had over 240 applications submitted to speak at WCICON27, so narrowing it down to just 35 presentations was quite the task. But we did it, and it feels like it’s going to be our strongest year yet.
You’ll get help refining your written financial plan, including a deep dive workshop where Dr. Tyler Scott and The White Coat Planning team will walk you through effective cash flow planning. You’ll learn how to actually turn your 401(k) and other accounts into retirement income, which is a completely different skill than stuffing money into them. We’ll have a few sessions on taxes this year—from entity structure for you “1099s” out there to tax-efficient drawdown planning if you’ve already built significant wealth—aimed at getting you to stop letting the tax tail wag the investing dog. We’ve also got sessions on protecting what you’ve built: disability insurance, estate planning, trusts, and contract negotiation.
We’ll have a real focus this year on burnout and boundaries, including how to cut back your hours on your own terms instead of waiting until burnout makes that decision for you, and some genuinely practical sessions on using AI to get your charting done faster. Since your finances don’t exist separately from the rest of your life, we’ve also got sessions about talking to your kids about money, planning an inheritance, and getting your marriage aligned instead of running two separate financial plans under one roof.
And for those of you thinking about your practice itself, there are sessions on running things leaner, making telemedicine actually work, and navigating litigation risk. We’ll also present a session on longevity and healthspan, which is a reminder that your retirement savings only matters if you’re still around and well enough to spend it.
<!–
Introducing WICCON27 Keynote Speakers
We’re especially excited about our keynote lineup this year. We’re thrilled to welcome Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith to the WCICON27 keynote stage for the first time. An internist and work-life integration researcher, Dr. Dalton-Smith has spent her career helping high achievers recognize that rest isn’t a reward for finishing the work; it’s the foundation for doing it well.
Her bestselling book, Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity, turns her 7 Types of Rest Framework™ into practical insight for overcoming burnout and reclaiming your best life. As a physician, author, and mother, Dr. Dalton-Smith knows firsthand what it’s like to feel overwhelmed and exhausted, and she brings real, actionable strategies for getting back to a life that feels sustainable.
Rick Ferri, CFA, is back with us, too. A pioneer of low-cost, index-based investing, Rick has spent over 40 years as a financial advisor—first as one of the earliest Wall Street brokers to champion index funds over high-fee sales culture. Later, he founded his own advisory firm focused solely on low-cost investment principles, which grew to manage over $1.5 billion in client assets before he stepped away in 2017.
Rick is the author of seven books on investing and the creator of Core-4 Portfolios, where he offers free, simple portfolio models to help everyday investors build wealth without unnecessary complexity. If you’ve ever wondered how to simplify your portfolio and stop second-guessing your investment strategy, this is a session you won’t want to miss.
I’ll be doing my closing keynote alongside Dr. Tyler Scott, digging into what actually moves the needle in your financial lives. Tyler is a public-health-dentist-turned-certified-financial-planner living in Salt Lake City. After reading The White Coat Investor in the months following dental school, he discovered a passion for personal finance. He spent a decade practicing as a public health dentist in underserved communities before pursuing this passion full-time and transitioning to a career in financial planning.
Today, Tyler serves as President of Financial Planning at White Coat Planning, a new financial advisory firm rooted in the principles of The White Coat Investor, where he’s dedicated to bringing the vision of the ideal financial planning firm to life.
Check out the WCICON27 speaker team!
Invest in Yourself Today
Early bird registration is open until September 22, and before the deadline, you can save $300 off your in-person registration. If your spouse wants to come, they get an additional 20% off their own registration. It’s fun seeing more and more couples come together each year, because we know financial plans are most successful when made together.
Most of you can pay for this out of your CME funds. If you’re self-employed, you can write off the whole trip. I say this every year we do this conference, and I mean it every time: this might be the one CME conference where what you learn is worth more to your net worth than it is to your actual medical career.
We’re at the Rosen Shingle Creek in Orlando, February 24-27, 2027. It’s less than 15 minutes from SeaWorld, Universal Studios, and Disney World, so if the timing works for a family trip, bring them along and let them enjoy the pools and the sun while you learn. It’s a great place to take action to improve your financial life and unwind, whether you’re flying solo or bringing the whole family. Everything gets recorded, too, so if you skip a session to relax, you’ll still have lifetime access to watch it later.
We end days early on purpose, so you’ve got plenty of time left to actually have fun, relax, and get some much-needed rest. It is a wellness conference after all. You’re supposed to go home less burned out than you came! Whether you love pickleball, golf, and morning runs, or if you’re more of a happy hour, dinner, and yoga person, there’s something built in for you. Nobody’s forcing you to choose between learning and relaxing while you’re here.
We know your time and your CME dollars are limited, and deciding where to spend them isn’t easy. But almost everyone who has actually been to this conference tells their colleagues to go year after year, and the ones who haven’t yet attended are also usually the same ones still trying to figure out their financial questions alone.
Register for WCICON27 today!
The Bottom Line
We didn’t go into medicine to get rich. For most of us, the calling to help others has been part of who we are for as long as we can remember, but physicians earn a high income for a reason. You don’t need to apologize for that. The high income alone doesn’t guarantee financial success, and you’ve worked too hard and sacrificed too much to let financial stress define your life. People come to the Physician Wellness & Financial Literacy Conference feeling overwhelmed, burned out, and uncertain about their future. They leave with clarity, new friends, and clear next steps.
I can’t wait to talk with you in Orlando.
Register now and lock in early bird pricing before September 22 at whitecoatinvestor.com/wcicon.
Any questions about the conference? Post them below!
The post This Might Be the Best Financial Decision You Make This Year appeared first on The White Coat Investor – Investing & Personal Finance for Doctors.
Dr. Jim Dahle
WCI Founder
James M. Dahle, MD, FACEP, FAAEM is a practicing emergency physician and the founder of The White Coat Investor. After multiple run-ins with unscrupulous financial professionals early in his career, he embarked on his own self-study process to become financially literate. After seeing the benefits of financial literacy in his own life, he was inspired to start The White Coat Investor to assist his colleagues. At the time, there was nobody providing unbiased financial education to doctors at any point in their training. Now, more than a decade later, financial wellness is widely recognized as a critical life skill for all physicians and similar professionals. Dr. Dahle remains committed to the original mission of The White Coat Investor to “help those who wear the white coat get a fair shake on Wall Street.”
He currently serves as the CEO, a columnist, and the host of the podcast. Dr. Dahle is a proud father of 4 children and spends his free time adventuring around the world. If you can’t find him, he is probably hiding in the mountains or desert of his home state of Utah.
See more about Jim Dahle
<!–
The White Coat Investor writes at The White Coat Investor. Read this article on their site.
