If you are fully committed to living like a resident for 2-5 years until your student loans are paid off (i.e. throwing a high four to five figure amount at them each month), then I recommend you use a 5 year variable interest rate loan in order to get the lowest possible interest rate. In that scenario, you can afford to “self-insure” against interest rate risk. If you are not committed to this course, then you may wish to pay the bank to run that interest rate risk for you by using a fixed loan for a longer term. Be aware that almost every doctor I've ever run into has been glad she paid off her loans ASAP, and the very few who were glad they stretched them out had fixed rates under 2%.