Medical student indebtedness and choice of specialization.

This study's purpose was to examine the impact of indebtedness on medical student choice of specialty. Nonprimary care was disaggregated into distinct specialties. The study found that indebtedness induced medical students to choose the remunerative field of anesthesiology but had the opposite effect on the decision to choose the comparably remunerative field of radiology. The results imply that if specialties are aggregated into broad categories, such as primary and nonprimary care, the estimated impact of indebtedness on specialty choice may be misleading. Such estimates may also be biased if the type of medical school attended (public or private) is not included as a control variable.