I graduated from medical school knowing how to manage sepsis, read an ECG, and counsel a patient on lifestyle modification. I did not know how to read a financial statement, calculate a compound annual growth rate, or understand what a price-to-earnings ratio actually meant. Nobody taught us. It was not even considered relevant.
This was a mistake — not just for my own finances, but for the way I think. Because it turns out that investing and medicine share the same fundamental problem: making good decisions under uncertainty, with incomplete information, under time pressure, and with real consequences for getting it wrong.
The core problem is the same
When a patient presents with chest pain, I do not know with certainty whether it is cardiac, musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal, or something else. I gather evidence — history, examination, ECG, blood tests — and I update my probability estimate. I make a decision that is optimal given what I know, while accepting that I could be wrong.
When I look at a Bursa-listed company, I do not know with certainty whether the business will grow, stagnate, or decline. I gather evidence — financial statements, industry dynamics, management quality — and I form a probability-weighted view. I make a decision that seems optimal given my analysis, while accepting that I could be wrong.
The underlying logic is identical. Both are Bayesian problems. Both require you to estimate probabilities, size your response appropriately, and update when new information arrives.
The doctor who cannot tolerate uncertainty orders unnecessary tests. The investor who cannot tolerate uncertainty either does not invest, or overtrades. The disease is the same; only the context differs.
Where doctors tend to go wrong with money
In my observation — talking to colleagues, seeing the patterns around me — doctors tend to make a few specific financial mistakes.
Late start. We spend our twenties in training while peers in other fields are already earning, saving, and compounding. By the time we have real income, we have lost a decade of compounding that we can never recover. This is not a moral failure; it is structural. But it means doctors need to be more financially disciplined than average, not less.
Lifestyle inflation. When a high salary finally arrives, it is easy to expand your expenses to match it. The new car, the bigger house, the private school fees. None of these are wrong, but each one reduces your savings rate — which is the single most powerful lever in early wealth accumulation.
Bad advice, well-intentioned. Doctors are seen as high-income professionals. Insurance agents, unit trust distributors, and property agents know this. We receive a lot of "advice" from people who are paid to give it. The conflict of interest is structural. Most of us were not taught how to evaluate it.
What thinking like an investor actually means
"Think like an investor" does not mean you need to trade stocks. It means internalising a few principles that apply to all financial decisions:
Expected value over outcomes. A good decision can have a bad outcome. A bad decision can have a good outcome. What matters is the quality of the process, not just the result. Doctors know this from medicine — a patient can deteriorate despite optimal management. Apply the same thinking to your finances.
Opportunity cost is real. Every ringgit spent on something is a ringgit not invested. Every year of delay is a year of compounding you will never get back. This is not an argument for miserliness; it is an argument for intentionality.
Diversification reduces ruin risk. In medicine, we do not put everything on a single diagnosis without running alternative hypotheses. In investing, you do not put everything into a single stock or asset class. Concentration can amplify returns, but it can also amplify catastrophic loss. Know which regime you are in.
Your edge is your information advantage. As doctors, we understand healthcare businesses — pharmaceutical companies, hospital operators, medical device manufacturers — better than the average investor. That is a genuine analytical edge. Use it.
A personal note
I started trading on Bursa several years ago, initially out of curiosity about how businesses worked. What I found was that the analytical habits I had developed in medicine — gathering evidence, holding uncertainty, updating views — transferred directly. The biggest adjustment was emotional: the market gives you immediate, painful feedback in a way that clinical medicine rarely does.
I am not suggesting every doctor should become an active trader. Most should not. But every doctor should understand enough about investing to avoid being taken advantage of, to make sensible decisions about their own savings, and to recognise a bad financial product when they see one.
We spend years learning to protect our patients from harm. We should spend at least some time learning to protect ourselves.