Are We Mortgaging the Medical Profession?

AMONG young physicians with outstanding debts for their medical education at the time of graduation, the average debt was $46,224 in 1990, an increase of 77 percent since 1980, after adjustment for inflation.1 The increase in debt burden is of concern to medical educators, health policy makers, and of course medical students and physicians themselves.2 , 3 Medical school tuition is the single most important reason for the precipitous increase in the indebtedness of young physicians. The median tuition for state residents at public medical schools was $5,810 for the 1989—1990 academic year; the corresponding figure for private medical schools was $17,794. . . .