Medical students 'should not overestimate' financial awareness

Many medical students could be overestimating their financial awareness, according to an educational charity. 

The Personal Finance Education Group (pfeg) claims that when young people emerge from the protected environments of their parents' home, they become exposed to new financial challenges and pressures which schools are not fully incorporating in the syllabuses they teach.

Policy director at pfeg Alistair Mathews commented that "many young people initially think that they're good at managing money, sometimes because they haven't yet got much experience of doing it."

The findings of a recent Future Leaders Survey claimed that 81 per cent of prospective university students who took part said they were 'very' or 'quite' good at managing their money, with 40 per cent saying they would use their spare cash to pay of debts.

Of those surveyed, 12 per cent said they would invest in a high-interest savings account.

Wesleyan Medical Sickness provides specialist financial planning for medical students