<p>"The level of elitism and snobbishness just disgusts me. Luckily, from the nurses and doctors I've talked to, the stigma against DO's is mainly a premed thing."</p>
<p>I agree! Heck, I didn't even know there were different kinds of medical schools (allopathic, osteopathic), and still don't understand the difference between the two - can someone please enlighten me? :-)</p>
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I do understand what you were saying about Cornell students applying to unrealistic schools. Last year, 2 students with 3.9+ GPA's didn't get in anywhere and 14 students with 35+ scores didn't get in anywhere. I think that's mainly a fluke.
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<p>Or they just had horrible personalities and left their interviewers running for the hills.</p>
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I agree! Heck, I didn't even know there were different kinds of medical schools (allopathic, osteopathic), and still don't understand the difference between the two - can someone please enlighten me? :-)
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<p>At this point, the differences are historical. If you really want to split hairs:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Osteopathic schools treat the patient as "a whole person" while allopathic schools teach their students to treat the symptoms. I personally think this is hogwash.</p></li>
<li><p>Osteopathic med students learn OMM (osteopathic manipulative medicine) in addition to the standard doctor stuff. I'm not too familiar with OMM but I guess it's similar to what a chiropractor does. So, essentially, a DO is a MD + OMM. Although surveys show that DO's rarely use OMM in actual practice and thus, the way they practice medicine is the same as a MD.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The great thing about DO's is that they are eligible to participate in both the osteopathic and allopathic residency matches. For example, if you are trying to match into emergency medicine but you fail to match in the osteopathic match, you can actually participate in the allopathic match just like the MD students and do your emergency medicine residency at an allopathic residency. In fact, half of all osteopathic med students do allopathic rather than osteopathic residencies. Allopathic students are not eligible for osteopathic residencies.</p>
<p>The pay is exactly the same for a DO and a MD. The fee schedule from insurance companies is based on what procedure you do, not what med school you graduated from or what the letters after your name are. For example, if you are a MD gastroenterologist and you do a colonoscopy on a patient, his insurance company will reimburse you $350 (which I think is kinda pathetic considering this is a $1500 procedure; but that's a whole other debate). If you are a DO gastroenterologist working at the same hospital (and, yes, DO's and MD's work side by side with the same responsibilities which is why you never noticed there were two kinds of doctors) and you do a colonoscopy, you will be reimbursed $350 as well. No difference in pay.</p>
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[quote]
I do understand what you were saying about Cornell students applying to unrealistic schools. Last year, 2 students with 3.9+ GPA's didn't get in anywhere and 14 students with 35+ scores didn't get in anywhere. I think that's mainly a fluke. If you look at the data from 1999-2006, you will notice that only 2 students in all of those years COMBINED didn't get into med school with a 3.9+ GPA from Cornell.
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<p>So what's obviously happening is that students who only applied to HMS and Cornell Weill reapply in a year or two and get accepted to SUNY-Downstate or wherehaveyou.</p>
<p>I'm a huge stats geek, but I really hate a lot of the splicing and dicing of statistics that goes on around colleges because so much of it is unfounded and rests and shaky underlying assumptions.</p>
<p>Yes, the ones who didn't get into HMS will reapply and go to another med school. Keep in mind, many students don't get into med school simply because of bad luck, not necessarily because they applied to only top tier schools. The majority of applicants don't get into a single school. The ones who do get into med school usually get into just 1 med school or sometimes 2. In other words, they BARELY make it into med school. So, it's easy to see how just a little bad luck can push you into the pool of applicants who don't get into med school. With the acceptance rates of individual med schools hovering around 5-10% and the average applicant applying to 15 med schools, you can see (being the stat freak that you are) the probability of getting into 0 med schools is rather high.</p>
<p>i know the discussion has evolved a little bit, but to answer the original question- if you are serious about premed its not bad at all. youll meet tons of people who are just like "oh yea im premed" and then they just party and slack of most of the time- they don't even know what types of specialties they are interested in- thats like someone saying im gonna be an athlete but not knowing what sport, really ridiculous. </p>
<p>In the major premed classes- chem,phys,bio,orgo,etc... if you study hard for the tests and keep up with the labs and homeworks and whatnot, youll find its not hard to score like 10-15 points at least above the means, often more- there are ALWAYS slackers, even at cornell, just like there are stellar students at state schools. don't goof around, which isn't too much to ask of a premed, and youll find it's not so bad. good luck.</p>