You have absolutely no concept of how the world works. Doctors have an INCREDIBLY high earning potential, post-residency. Residency is considered part of the "slumming it" that you have to do as a med student before you start making bank. No one considers residents to be reflective of actual doctors & their earning potential. To compare yourself to a resident and then assume you're better off than a doctor is absolutely positively just...lol I just don't have words. An engineer has nowhere near the potential for future salary increase that a doctor has. It's not even on the same level.

Also, there is literally no worse financial planning strategy than to base current decisions on the hope of future changes to your situation. Especially when the best case scenario is STILL a "relatively ok life." Just...damn dude, you need to talk to a financial planner ASAP. You should not be so blasé about the amount of debt you are facing down. I have friends making $180,000 with less than half the amount of debt you're looking at, and they are living the same QOL that they lived as students and putting $3,000/month into their loans to pay them off ASAP.