<p>So I'm just graduating from high school today, GO CLASS OF 2011!. Anyways, as I have talked to other high school students about medical schools we will usually talk about the average GPA and MCAT of students accepted at various med schools etc etc. Then even if I slightly mention a DO school everyones attitude changes as if even talking about Osteopathic medical schools is taboo.</p>
<p>(Just noting I never imply that they will be accepted to a DO school, and I usually just mention DO schools as there is one DO school in my state)</p>
<p>I understand that DO schools have lower GPA and MCAT standards, but the sanctions that some students place on them are a little harsh. I also realize that some of the students I talked to may have large egos and a sense of personal fable about GPA and MCAT scores. Nevertheless, my questions is whether DO schools are held to a sub-par level amongst the medial community members and if doctors from MD schools will have a sense of superiority towards doctors from DO schools in the workplace.</p>
<p>I think the answer to your actual question is partly geographic. </p>
<p>I grew up in the Philadelphia area which is home to one of the best known/ranked osteopathic schools in the US. The area has a long tradition of osteopathic medicine. Philadelphia used to have its own solely osteopathic hospital. (Might still have, but I haven’t lived there for 30 years now.) Plenty of DOs in practice in the area. People seemed to accept DOs just as easily as MDs and I never got the sense that MDs looked down on their osteopathic colleagues. </p>
<p>But now I live in state where there there is no DO school and very, very few DOs practice. (I think there are fewer than 10 practicing in a city of over 3/4 million.) Here there is that vague sense that somehow a DO isn’t as “good” as a MD, that they are roughly equivalent to chiropractors on the medical scale of things and aren’t well respected in the local medical community.</p>
<p>The geography analysis is a good perspective. In Oklahoma, the DO school is Oklahoma State and the MD is the University of Oklahoma. The University of Oklahoma receives a slight bias in all academic areas due to their massive recruitment of national merit scholars, but their middle fifty percent ACT scores are only one point higher than OSU’s scores so the bias is not full proof. It may also be that some students do not want to act like DO school is even an option since everyone wants to look like a genius in front of their peers.</p>
<p>Most member of the MD community prefer to judge clinicians based on their performance rather than their initials. There is still some bias, however.</p>
<p>I’ve wondered this as well. So many pre-meds seem to have the Caribbean med schools as their second choice instead of DO schools. It doesn’t make sense to me.</p>
<p>In some cases the bias against DO’s may be only prejudice. In other cases the bias may be the result of accumulated experience of profession interactions, patient referrals and direct observation.</p>
<p>DO’s who come from a strong DO school or who chose DO school over medical school due to family tradition or to inspiration of a osteopathic physician are likely to be better accepted than DO’s who attended DO school because they didn’t get into medical school.</p>
<p>I have practiced with many fine, and a few terrible, DO’s.</p>
<p>I am a DO so I can answer most of your questions.</p>
<p>You are going to have crappy MD’s and some crappy DO’s. It is that way in every profession under the sun.</p>
<p>In the old days, late 1970’s and early 1980’s DO schools took the more well rounded individuals (many as their second career) whereas the MD’s took the nerdy type. Most DO’s back then went into primary care and the government loved our philosophy because we turning out a majority primary care docs. The older and more established DO schools were on par with any allopathic school.</p>
<p>What we have seen is a proliferation of smaller DO schools in the last 15 years. At first I thought this was a bad thing, diluting out the quality perhaps. Then I realized 25% of all new practicing docs in the US every year are foreign medical grads from other countries. Nothing against these foreign docs. Last I heard being a doctor is still a fairly good gig (getting worse each year). If you want job stimulus, let all the qualified college students who want to be docs, realize their dreams. The more DO and MD seats in medical school, the less foreign medical grads. we need more doctors and each school should be forced to increase their enrollment by 20%.</p>
<p>That all said, if you want to be a super specialist, life is easier going the MD route. If you want primary care, DO used to be better.</p>
<p>The only difference is DO’s learn some manipulation skills in addition to everything an MD learns. These manipulation and palpation skills are handy for primary care docs or careers in musculoskeletal medicine.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, you are happy to be a doc.</p>
<p>DO’s always feel like they have to work harder since people perceive us as being number 2.</p>
<p>There are some differences in the basic sciences that are taught. It is my understanding the osteopathic schools spend less time on biochemistry and embryology. Osteopathic schools also teach an additional course, osteopathic manipulative treatment/medicine. However, 3rd and 4th years are essentially entirely the same, though do note that many DO schools are often not partnered with a teritiary care center (more so than MD schools). </p>
<p>Osteopathic students take a different licensure examination, the COMLEX. They take Steps 1, 2, and 3 at the same time as most MD-students: after MS2, MS3, and PGY-1 respectively (those terms refer to medical student and post graduate year=resident). The COMLEX is recognized in all 50 states as equally valid to MD students’ USMLE, which many osteopathic medical students also choose to take.</p>
<p>For residency, you have three (four?) options: a military residency if you did HPSP or ROTC, a residency accredited by the AOA, a residency accredited by the ACGME (the one that MD students do), or a residency accredited by both the AOA and the ACGME. Both will allow you to become a fully board-certified physician; however you will be certified by different boards. AOA residencies, depending on the field, are often longer in length: for example, all AOA emergency medicine residencies are four years in length while the vast majority (but not all) ACGME residencies are three years in length; this is because all number of AOA residencies that are not IM, OB/GYN, ENT, Plastic Surgery, Peds, Gen. Surg., or Urology require a transitional “rotating” internship. There are also fewer AOA residencies, a lot fewer.</p>
<p>ACGME residencies apparently often prefer that applicants have taken the USMLE, and some programs are not open to DOs. The ACGME is also the way to go if you are looking to subspecialize after residency (fellowship); there are simply far more ACGME fellowships in all fields.</p>
<p>Wow, when I was in high school, my friends and I were definitely not talking about med school acceptance stats (nor was I really thinking about them haha), but that is problem #1. These are high school students - no offense, but not exactly an authority on anything related to medical school or the profession.</p>
<p>That being said, there is a bias, but I think it is very overblown amongst undergrad (and apparently hs) pre-meds, and is based on old perceptions of DO schools having significantly lower acceptance stats than the MD schools. That gap is significantly narrowed now (especially among the older and more established schools like PCOM, which is widely regarded as an excellent school).
I agree with whoever said that most physicians will judge their peers by their clinical skills than their degree. If your ego can’t deal with the bias (real or otherwise), then don’t become a DO - simple.</p>
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<p>Nor me - a US DO school is a way better option than even the best of the big three island schools. Period.</p>
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<p>DO curriculum = MD curriculum + OMM
OMM = Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine, which is a system of various ways of manipulating the musculoskeletal system to treat medical conditions. Its also an extension of the osteopathic philosophy of treating the whole patient. It is not treated with equal important by all DO schools (or all DO physicians).</p>
<p>DOs have their own state licensing boards, licensing exams (the COMLEX) and med school accreditation committees, etc. They also have their own residency programs (but are allowed to take the USMLE and apply for MD residencies as well)</p>
<p>Legally, there are no differences. Both are considered to have an unrestricted license to practice medicine.</p>
<p>I understand that they are high school students, but early bias can rollover into the later parts of people’s lives. I also have seen some bias on pre-med forums such as this forum. Some posters seem to think of having to go to a DO as a poison rather than an opportunity to become a doctor.</p>
<p>And those posters probably shouldn’t become physicians.</p>
<p>All things being equal, I think going the MD route is preferable to going the DO route simply because you have more options (proportionally, there are more allopathic specialist residency spots than osteopathic specialist residency spots). However, going DO should be preferable to not becoming a doctor at all. If you are a low-tier applicant who can’t get into a US allopathic med school and you are unwilling to go to an osteopathic med school, you really should reexamine your motivations for becoming a physician.</p>
<p>There may be some rare examples of students competitive for allopathic (MD) medical schools choosing an osteopathic (DO) medical school to follow a parent or mentor but this is very much the exception. The more competitive college students should and do apply to allopathic medical school and shun the osteopathic schools. That being the case, there are many very excellent osteopathic physicians and poor allopathic physicians so the degree does not determine who I would choose to care for one of my patients. You will have more residency options and specialist opportunities as an MD than as a DO but this matters less if you are committed to primary care. </p>
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<p>Agree. Also, a U.S. osteopathic degree should be preferred to a carribean allopathic degree for lower-tier applicants.</p>
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Exactly what DW who’s trained both says. She would have preferred DD1 who got into a “guaranteed” 7 year DO program that she had been accepted into after HS, but DD felt such a stigma (I’m guessing from her classmates) that she went to a 4 year degree program, and is now struggling because she feels her MCATs and GPA aren’t high enough to be reasonably assured of getting into an MD program. </p>
<p>DW and I said things like “My OB is a DO, my PCP is a DO, and when you broke your arm, the physician who took care of you was a DO, and the head of anes who put you under during the surgery is a DO”, but D knows best. I don’t know how much success she’ll have in the forthcoming med school admission process, and if things don’t pan out, I still don’t know if she’ll look first at the Caribbean or LECOM/PCOM and the others.</p>
<p>That attitude is going to serve you real well in medical school and beyond. Real well.</p>
<p>Please get yourself educated about the history of osteopathic medicine in the United States. The DOs: Osteopathic Medicine in America by Norman Gevitz (published by JHU Press, not the AOA or some random publisher) is an excellent introduction to it.</p>
<p>There have been a few posts that describe some lingering bias. But the OP’s very good point was not that DO’s are totally equal to MD’s. His point was that many students want to be physicians but absolutely refuse to consider DO school, which is ridiculous. And many students prefer Caribbean medical schools to DO schools, which is also ridiculous.</p>
<p>“Also the US is the only country that has this system. No other medical system in the world has anything like a DO. You either become an MD (or equivalent degree) or your not a doctor. This is America, hence we feel the need to provide the opportunity to everyone who wants to be a doctor, even if they aren’t good enough. Thus arises Osteopathy - a perfect system for those get rejected from MD schools but feel just as important and special. Thats DO in a nutshell”</p>
<p>I am not sure if comparing the United States’s MD schools to the MD schools of other countries is a valid slash at DO schools. </p>
<p>I’m sure some countries are equivalent to the US, and some countries may be even greater idk. However, I doubt all countries are equivalent to the US in medical school quality.</p>
<p>what do you mean really? Is it (presumably the doctor’s income) getting worse every year in your perception only or do you really experience a deteriorating work condition and annual income every year? Like how much? For example a decrease in income level by 10-20% per year? Sorry, I just want to grasp the situation a little quantitatively.</p>