Whenever you look at physician compensation for a specialty you are interested in, reduce it by 30%-40%, because that is what you will make by the time you hit practice. I don't know if anyone follows politics, but it's pretty clear what will happen once Bush leaves office. The Government has to reduce what it spends, no question, and the #1 place to cut is medicare, specifically physician reimbursements. In 10 years, when (thanks to inflation) a 30 year old Government GS-11 makes 100k for 40 hours a week, a family practice physician will also make 100k, and a specialist will make around 180k. My buddy works in the office of a well known congressman who is part of a group trying to tackle this issue. He says a popular idea is to subsidize medical student loan debt (at 1%-2%) to attract more students as salaries fall. They are worried thta if they do this, medical schools will increase their tuitions even more. Another popular idea is to combine the decreases in medicare reimbursement with tax incentives to employ more midlevel providers like NPs and PAs, so that the physician sees fewer patients but supervises a team of NPs who can service a patient panel 2x or 3x what a physician could do by him/her self.
