<p>Are they?
Do overachieving premeds who get accepted to MD schools ever purposefully decide to go do a DO school?</p>
<p>I've seen one this cycle on the mdapplicants site. With multiple acceptances he chose D.O.. His dad was a D.O. and the student believed in the D.O. philosophy. I'm sure that "loyalty" played some role. </p>
<p>In Texas we have an excellent D.O. choice.
I would have no trouble being treated by a D.O.. Heck, I'm treated 90% of the time by a N.P..</p>
<p>Other than believing in the DO philosophy, are there any reasons of choosing DO rather than MD even if one qualifies for MD school?</p>
<p>Some DO schools are better than some MD schools.</p>
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Some DO schools are better than some MD schools.
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<p>(if you want to know...) Examples include PCOM, NYCOM, and KCOM. Of the 3, PCOM would be the Harvard of osteopathic schools.</p>
<p>which MD schools?</p>
<p>But generally speaking, DO students are inferior to MD students, right?</p>
<p>... inferior? The average DO student has a lower MCAT score than the average MD student, yes. I don't think that makes him an inferior human being, but whatever floats your boat...</p>
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But generally speaking, DO students are inferior to MD students, right?
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<p>Are you looking for someone to reinforce your stereotype? Anyways, in generally, allopathic students have higher stats (GPA/MCAT) than osteopathic students.</p>
<p>If by "inferior" you mean that, in the end, DOs are called "doctor" just like MDs, and treat patients, work in hospitals, clinics and private practice just like MDs performing the same procedures and giving the same diagnoses and treatments, then yes, they are "inferior".</p>
<p>Osteopathic students are different. Generally, a greater percentage of them are non-traditional. They tend to be older, more mature, calmer, and well-rounded. Allopathic students tend to be younger, stat-mongers, more Type A personalities, etc. While they start differently, both types of students eventually become well-educated and competent physicians.</p>
<p>Common reasons why someone might give up an allopathic acceptance to attend an osteopathic school: closer to home, a better fit with the student body and curriculum, to be closer with the significant other/fiance/wife, etc. Like I said, DO students are older and often already have established families which makes moving for med school difficult and thus their choices for med school are more limited.</p>
<p>which md schools are generally considered to be "worse" than do schools? (i am just curious)</p>
<p>I don't think that's quite the right way to phrase it, Joe. There are a couple of DO schools which are better than 90% of MD schools - using USNWR metrics. </p>
<p>The thing is, you can look at the USMLE and NRMP stats and it's clear that going to an allopathic school is superior to going to a DO school in general terms. Pass rates and rates of successful matching into allopathic residencies are much higher for MD candidates than DO ones. </p>
<p>In that light, you could make the argument that 'most' DO schools aren't as good as many MD schools, there just happen to be some stellar DO schools which are great and better than a lot of MD schools. But you have to consider that DO's have their own licensing exam and residencies. I'm sure that many DO schools, through thought and action, whether overtly or subtly, consciously or unconsciously, push their students away from allopathic entities. So it's not even fair to penalize DO schools for their lower rates.</p>
<p>Likely the most accurate picture would be if you could devise a methodology which could accurately rank schools of both types, you'd find DO schools mixed in with MD schools without any particular pattern. Whether the bottom ranked school was an MD or a DO school, who knows...</p>