MDM, yes this is definitely the start of a larger income trend as I am just starting my physician career after years of residency and training. But for DH, does it make more sense to reduce our taxable income this year(trad IRA) or to take the post tax savings (roth) instead?
Assuming you are and will file as MFJ, DH's money is yours and vice versa. Better to pay the 15% now and not pay the 25%, 28%, etc. later.
Sure, it's better to pay some now than more later. But will you actually be in a position where you would have to pay more during retirement? That's the question.
As a physician, your income is likely going to be high enough that you won't have the option of saving in a pre-tax IRA for much longer. You'll likely find Roth IRA contributions (or possibly backdoor Roth contributions) to be a good option at that time, when your only alternative is a taxable account. The consequence of this is that you'll likely have a decent percentage of your net worth in Roth accounts when you retire regardless of what you decide this year.
This leads to an interesting problem: the more of your money that you have in Roth accounts in retirement, the smaller your taxable income will be during retirement (since Roth withdrawals don't count as income). This will then make your tax bracket lower than it would be if you were entirely invested in pre-tax retirement accounts. As we all know, the lower your expected tax bracket in retirement, the more the math tends to favor pre-tax retirement contributions.
Under current tax law, a married retired couple doesn't start paying 25% on the marginal dollar until they've already taken out $95.5k from their pre-tax retirement accounts, in addition to whatever they might take out of their Roth accounts. As a physician you shouldn't have much trouble saving enough to get into that bracket while still retiring at a relatively early age, if that's what you want to do. Do you want to do that, or do you intend to retire even earlier on a more modest amount of savings? I can't answer that question for you, but whatever you decide should inform your decision here.