edical school graduates in West Virginia are graduating with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans, which could eventually lead to a shortage of physicians in the Mountain State. West Virginia's newly minted doctors graduated with an average of $186,000 in medical school debt last year, according to a report released earlier this month by the state Higher Education Policy Commission. Dr. Norman Ferrari, vice dean for education and academic affairs at WVU's medical school, said that crushing debt is beginning to affect which specialties new doctors choose.