Medical student indebtedness and the propensity to enter academic medicine

Abstract

This paper considers the potential impact of medical school indebtedness and other variables on the propensity of US doctors to enter academic medicine. Probit models provide some evidence that indebtedness reduces the likelihood that physicians will choose academic medicine as their primary activity. Nevertheless, the magnitude of this effect is not large. As indebtedness may be endogenous, the probits are rerun using an instrumental variables approach. These estimates imply that over time indebtedness may have an important impact on the propensity of physicians to enter academic medicine.