This is how myths get started - everything everyone has said is true. Kind of. Sort of. Almost. I'll try to straighten some of this out.
Sol was accurate about asking about douchewaffle premeds (college grads) with $100K in debt. Most are smart enough to avoid this, but not all - $40k is pretty common, as it's hard to study enough to get into med school and work full time. Also, the application fees/interviewing trips cost $5k, without breaking a sweat, so there's that.
Once you get in, working outside of school borders on impossible. I only know of two people who tried (out of hundreds). One pulled it off, mostly, and the other failed (literally) miserably. A full load in college is 12 to 18 credit hours. A light load in med school is 23 hours. Also, there are no scholarships to speak of one, maybe two per class (of 200) - since everyone will be well off, clearly there is no need for charity, you know. Tuition, fees, books, living expenses, etc are $50k/year as an in state student most places. Can reach $100k for out of state/private schools.
Medical school in a foreign land is an option, and a lot of people do it, with varying degrees of success. Many schools are willing to take your money, and not provide an adequate education - leaving you worse off than if you'd never gone. If you don't pass the tests mentioned in the reference article, you don't practice. Ever. Then, assuming you do pass the tests, your choice of fields is severely limited. Admission to residency is competitive - and now you're only competing with highly competitive people (the marginal never made it this far). As a foreign medical grad, unless you walk on water, only primary care (pediatrics, family medicine, internal medicine) are open to you.
Forcus is right. Financially, it is a very poor choice. People smart enough, disciplined enough and motivated enough to make it through residency, are smart, disciplined and motivated enough to make a much bigger pile of money in any other field. One of the problems that society is beginning to acknowledge, but not address is that if the becoming a physician/practicing as a doctor becomes much more onerous, or less well reimbursed, there won't be enough of the "best and brightest" willing to follow that path. When coupled with the massive cost of completion, it will only be a viable option for the wealthy - leaving American medicine in a sorry state.
Kriegsspiel is also partly right, in that there is student loan assistance available. But it is far less common than it used to be, almost always involves unsavory locations (either remote from civilization like in "Northern Exposure", dangerous, or both), primary care only, a long time commitment (multiple years) and sub-market reimbursement (yeah, they pay your loans, but you could make 20% more elsewhere).
So to sum it up, everyone is kinda right. But not completely.
