Hey guys! I am a premed student who was planning on going into a DO program in 2017. I know this topic has been talked about a lot on here, but I had a couple questions of mine own about the future for DO grads. Given all the new DO schools opening up, will DOs have a hard time finding a job at all (primary care or tougher specialties)? I'd hate to go hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt at a DO school and not be able to find a job. I want to go into IM or FM (this obviously has a good chance of changing). It seems like this merger and the expansion of DO schools is going to be very bad for the DO title. How many of the AOA residences do you guys think will end up being ACGME approved? I know the info on the merger is scarce, but I know a lot of you guys are more informed on it than I am! Thanks for the help!
2020 Merger info
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If you want to do FM or IM, even if you're an average DO student (hell, even sub-par), you'll match fine.
Ok thanks for the reply! It's just hard to get a feel for just how bad this merger is going to be... With these new school openings will there be more residencies or will it just be more applicants for the same amount of residencies?
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Residencies open and close every year. If you matriculate in the next 1-2 years, it should be fine. After that, people will have to think hard about matriculating to a DO school. But, there will of course be enough applicants, so medicine will eventually end up like pharm and podiatry.
As for the merger, it looks like none of the AOA residencies care about the osteopathic recognition option, so expect competitive residencies to be lost to MD students, but that will be ultimately up to the PD and how they decide to run things.
Ok I see what you mean. Do you guys think the expansion of med schools will continue the next couple years? It also seems to be bad for medical students from outside of the US wanting a US residency. It seems like there will be less spots for them.
It's sad that the AOA isn't fighting for the students. At what point will md applicants have access to the AOA residencies? Is it after 2020? Thanks again!
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It's sad that the AOA isn't fighting for the students. At what point will md applicants have access to the AOA residencies? Is it after 2020? Thanks again!
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As soon as programs start getting initial ACGME accreditation, they will start taking application from MD schools. Quite a few of the 5 year residency programs have converted and some of the 3-4 year residency programs have converted also. So these programs will be taking application for the next cycle, 2016-2017. This conversion will keep happening until all former AOA programs use the NRMP in 2020.
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You are really being dramatic about this whole merger. There is a TON of information on these forums all over the place that address and answer your question from a hundred different angles. The merger isn't going to "hurt" anywhere nearly as bad as you have chalked it up to be. The merger will benefit both MD and DO students and as long as you are a good DO student and actually study and do well on your boards you will be perfectly fine. The merger isn't going to automatically take all of the AOA turned ACGME residencies and start filling them with just MD students. I don't understand why people thing just because someone is an MD student they will always be taken over a DO student..not the case. If the residency location was DO friendly before, they will still be friendly towards DO even after the merger. This will benefit the DOs in a way that allows them to obtain high caliber residency training which in turn will build trust in the realm of hospitals where it DOs trained in AOA residencies were unpredictable and sometimes lacked common skills taught in ACGME.
All in all, no one knows what the impact will be on MDs or DOs after the merger. As for the new medical schools opening up...don't overly dramatize this topic - there haven't been a ton of schools opening. As of right now we couldn't open enough schools fast enough to fulfill the need for physicians in the United States today and in the near future. The real problem with medical schools opening up is the low amount of residency training sites. Although we are not yet at a critically low level it could one day reach that point.
The more DO schools the better. People need medical care. If physicians do not provide the service, NP will.
Or we'll go the way of lawyers and pharmacists. Which seems more likely
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Do you really think Pod will become as saturated as pharm and opto?
Not trying to pick a fight. Just curious. I'm in the prepod forums and even though I know pod itself has always had an image issue, I've never considered it to get as bad as pharm or opto. Especially if you do well on boards and can clinch a residency.
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No pod isn't nearly that bad. I know it gets a bad rap on these forums sometimes but it is overblown. Over on the pod forums they are talking about how in the next couple years there will be an increase in pod residencies and there will be enough for all the graduates.
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I see. That's also the general consensus I've been getting.
I've talked to an admissions director from CSPM and he said the residency shortage was pretty bad but they started prepping for the current one to have enough slots if not surplus
Thanks for getting back to me on that.
I've talked to an admissions director from CSPM and he said the residency shortage was pretty bad but they started prepping for the current one to have enough slots if not surplus
Thanks for getting back to me on that.
It is not the same. Physicians provide a unique service that is needed. Physicians retire, many specialize (limiting the amount of GPs) and the populations increases. The need for physicians continues. The future is bright.
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Whenever I have stated that pod is not saturated, I keep on get people who say otherwise on this forum. I definitely agree it is overblown.
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There's the positive attitude this forum needs
Don't worry about it. You control whether you get a job. Work hard and do really well in medical school and you'll have a job. Simple as that.
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It's going to continue until there are enough students not matching every year for it to be a national headline that people pay attention to. Some mumblings I'd heard were to the effect of using the merger with DOs as a wedge to break down the rules pertaining to residency expansion, because no headline looks worse than "American-Trained Physicians Unable to Find Training Because of Congressional Inaction." There will be a few hundred, possibly thousand, medical students whose careers and financial lives are sacrificed to that end. If we still had two residency systems, Congress could just say, "oh, well, it's just because that one group of doctors kept expanding without growing their residencies," but now, post-merger, it's all one system so there's no plausible deniability or deflection of blame.
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