Certainly no one should go into medicine for the money. Students should do their research, know as much as possible what the job is about, and go into medicine because they can’t see themselves doing anything else, because though the compensation is good, there will be sacrifices and negatives to the job.
But lets put the debt in perspective. I live in a Southern state with no teachers union, so first year teachers with a bachelors degree start at about $35,000, give or take a few thousand depending on the district. Tuition, room, board, books and fees at our state universities runs about $20,000 per year, so if a future teacher doesn’t get scholarships or parental help, they will incur $80,000 in debt and earn less than half that a year. On such a salary they won’t have a lot extra to pay down the debt quickly, unlike a physician can on their salary if they live frugally. I taught for 16 years as a second career (and got a whopping $2,000 extra for having a masters degree!) and while I did love it, my children would have never considered it. They never saw me go anywhere without a stack of papers to grade, and even on such a low salary I, like most teachers, spent a lot of my own money on supplies for my classroom. Just my opinion, but debt and dissatisfaction can occur in any profession. There are other professions where it is harder to get out of debt, and when someone is dissatisfied there aren’t many alternatives or ways to improve the situation.