Are We Mortgaging the Medical Profession?

To the Editor: In their article on indebtedness among medical students (Aug. 8 issue), 1 Hughes et al. shed little new light on the complex causes of and potential remedies for this elusive problem, which caught the attention of authors as long as 10 years ago. 2 , 3 High tuition, waning governmental subsidies for education, the overproduction of physicians, open-ended opportunities for lucrative superspecialization, and an entrepreneurial medical culture all stem from a weakening of the social contract between society and physicians and of the social mission of medical schools. 4 5 6 In a competitive sellers' market, high medical school tuition represents a strategy of . . .