Change the Degree to MDO?

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I wasn't talking about 2017. Nor did I say that the only scenario was one in which all three IM rotations were outpatient. Even one is a waste of time, especially in our curriculum since third year includes FM and OMM (which is often FM as well).
I would get sick of doing inpatient IM for three months and am glad that we don't have three months of required inpatient IM in third year.
Not all of Internal Medicine is inpatient and it's reasonable to be exposed to both as a medical student.
 
I've heard of a previous student doing all their cores in an outpatient setting (not all of 3rd year, just their cores). Apparently they set it up that way. I believe my school now has all students doing cores at regional clinical sites, so almost all, if not all, cores are inpatient (minus FM of course which you set up yourself).

I would get sick of doing inpatient IM for three months and am glad that we don't have three months of required inpatient IM in third year.
Not all of Internal Medicine is inpatient and it's reasonable to be exposed to both as a medical student.

I think the point they were making is that outpatient IM is not much different from outpatient FM, so if you already have 2 outpatient FM rotations, there's no point in doing a third outpatient IM rotation.

I'm very glad though that most regional sites for my school let you do a subspecialty rotation in your 3rd core IM rotation. That mixes things up a bit so you don't have 3 months of straight inpatient IM.
 
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How does SDN not have a filter that just bans people who start threads called "change the degree to MDO?"



For everyone who is thinking about starting yet another thread about this, try the search function. Once you have read ~50 of the other threads with the identical title, please articulate your argument for why we should change the degree, write it down on a piece of paper, fold it up, shove it up your ass, then jump off the tallest building you can find.
 
Wait...so it is too much to ask a graduate school that trains physicians to have more faculty, more research, and better facilities, while at the same time funding these goals without charging students more? Oh, the humanity!!!

Seriously, people who want to maintain the osteopathic status quo need to stop cheapening the degree. It is strange that those of us who want to see the standards of our schools and residency programs improved are always cast as the DO-haters when nothing could be further from the truth. I don't want any schools or residencies to close, but I also don't want to keep seeing osteopathic students spend all of third year in outpatient clinics. There is a lot of room for improvement. Why do some keep insisting that the bar be lowered?


I don't think you get the point though. Out of all of the private DO schools very few are going to be able to find legitimate funding outside of tuition or etc. I mean some established schools could certainly get some more grant funding from their states for services to the community for example. But other new schools exist purely as DO because they didn't need to have all of this.


And yes, DO schools deserve and should be supplemented with stronger rotations. But this issue I feel is most strongly pertinent and applicable to low tier schools.
 
I don't think you get the point though. Out of all of the private DO schools very few are going to be able to find legitimate funding outside of tuition or etc. I mean some established schools could certainly get some more grant funding from their states for services to the community for example. But other new schools exist purely as DO because they didn't need to have all of this.


And yes, DO schools deserve and should be supplemented with stronger rotations. But this issue I feel is most strongly pertinent and applicable to low tier schools.

I do get the point. What is your argument for the LCME accredited private MD schools? Somehow, they were able to make it past these "onerous" expectations.

If, in the distant future, the LCME were to accredit all medical degree granting institutions in the US, some of their requirements would need to be adjusted. If this were to happen, I'm sure most DO schools would survive while maintaining these higher standards. Is this the worst thing that could happen?

My real point is that many in the pro-DO world are hell bent on maintaining the status quo at the expense of our training and reputation.

As a minor point, I disagree that rotation quality is only a problem at lower tier schools. Without the privilege of attending all DO schools in the nation, my anecdotal experience with MD and DO friends is that the MD students generally (but not always) have had more organized didactics and more invested attendings than their DO counterparts. I had no formal didactics at my core site - this isn't the worst thing in the world, but it does illustrate the difference between the two.
 
My real point is that many in the pro-DO world are hell bent on maintaining the status quo at the expense of our training and reputation.
But.... we're special and better than MDs! We treat the WHOLE patient.

As a minor point, I disagree that rotation quality is only a problem at lower tier schools. Without the privilege of attending all DO schools in the nation, my anecdotal experience with MD and DO friends is that the MD students generally (but not always) have had more organized didactics and more invested attendings than their DO counterparts. I had no formal didactics at my core site - this isn't the worst thing in the world, but it does illustrate the difference between the two.

I'm also disappointed in the fact that many of our students will be required to complete 3rd year rotations through core sites that are purely preceptor based. The variability of preceptor quality/investment and lack of exposure to a teaching hospital environment seems to me to be a major detriment for clinical education.
 
I do get the point. What is your argument for the LCME accredited private MD schools? Somehow, they were able to make it past these "onerous" expectations.

If, in the distant future, the LCME were to accredit all medical degree granting institutions in the US, some of their requirements would need to be adjusted. If this were to happen, I'm sure most DO schools would survive while maintaining these higher standards. Is this the worst thing that could happen?

My real point is that many in the pro-DO world are hell bent on maintaining the status quo at the expense of our training and reputation.

As a minor point, I disagree that rotation quality is only a problem at lower tier schools. Without the privilege of attending all DO schools in the nation, my anecdotal experience with MD and DO friends is that the MD students generally (but not always) have had more organized didactics and more invested attendings than their DO counterparts. I had no formal didactics at my core site - this isn't the worst thing in the world, but it does illustrate the difference between the two.


There are very few LCME private schools that aren't attached to multi-million or billion dollar research undergraduates that afford themselves entirely on nice grants, tax credits, etc. Their hospitals and medical schools also likewise generate or act as boons to their research divisions and allow for significantly more interesting dimensions of research to be done.

In terms of connections to mother schools, very few schools have strong connections to channel money. Nova surely can do this, but not even CCOM can. In terms of research most DO schools don't have that. Some schools do, some schools are slowly but surely beginning to built it up from the ground, and others generally are entirely uninterested in it. You're going to find it hard to press CUSOM in rural NC to start building a large research center to be shared between its small liberal arts mother institute and its medical school. Though they can at the same time be considered capable of working within the LCME because they can get tons of tax grants for providing physicians for the area.

So, idk what to tell you.
 
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There are very few LCME private schools that aren't attached to multi-million or billion dollar research undergraduates that afford themselves entirely on nice grants, tax credits, etc. Their hospitals and medical schools also likewise generate or act as boons to their research divisions and allow for significantly more interesting dimensions of research to be done.

In terms of connections to mother schools, very few schools have strong connections to channel money. Nova surely can do this, but not even CCOM can. In terms of research most DO schools don't have that. Some schools do, some schools are slowly but surely beginning to built it up from the ground, and others generally are entirely uninterested in it. You're going to find it hard to press CUSOM in rural NC to start building a large research center to be shared between its small liberal arts mother institute and its medical school. Though they can at the same time be considered capable of working within the LCME because they can get tons of tax grants for providing physicians for the area.

So, idk what to tell you.

@serenade you always provide insightful explanations!

Research tangent: I do agree that many of these DO schools have it tough...even when they are a part of a larger university that university is usually not a research powerhouse. TCOM, OUHCOM, and MSUCOM are the only ones I can thing of that are a part of a larger research university...but even then it's hard to say that they are on par with the MD programs...even newer (UCF) or "lower-tiered" ones (RFU) pull in hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in research grants still.(http://med.ucf.edu/research/research-update/) (http://www.rosalindfranklin.edu/cms/Home/Research/FacultyResearch.aspx)

KCU has essentially pulled out all the stops when it comes to trying to become a serious research institute by recruiting some PI's from other MD schools with active projects while collaborating with the two MD schools (UKMC and UMKC) and private research institutions nearby to begin working on multi-institutional projects.

IMO, what brings researchers into the area and/or school is having lab space available w/ the right amenities (certain research cores with machines needed to do their research) with promise for growth in their career, it just seems ALOT easier to do that a large-scale university with a strong research reputation already. It's all about the risk and post-docs/senior scientists don't have a lot to play around with.
 
@serenade
IMO, what brings researchers into the area and/or school is having lab space available w/ the right amenities (certain research cores with machines needed to do their research) with promise for growth in their career, it just seems ALOT easier to do that a large-scale university with a strong research reputation already. It's all about the risk and post-docs/senior scientists don't have a lot to play around with.
Yup...

You cant do science with flow. You cant do flow without a flow cytometer. You cant get a flow cytometer unless you have a room for it. No one will pay for that room unless you have moneys. No one will give you moneys unless you do research. No one will do research for you unless you have flow. Its a vicious cycle haha. This all is of course hyperbole, but essentially that is the reality for a lot of DO schools.
 
Yup...

You cant do science with flow. You cant do flow without a flow cytometer. You cant get a flow cytometer unless you have a room for it. No one will pay for that room unless you have moneys. No one will give you moneys unless you do research. No one will do research for you unless you have flow. Its a vicious cycle haha. This all is of course hyperbole, but essentially that is the reality for a lot of DO schools.

Ugh flow....6 color was a PITA. But one time I had to do 10 color and I almost cried...was in the lab till midnight.
 
There are very few LCME private schools that aren't attached to multi-million or billion dollar research undergraduates that afford themselves entirely on nice grants, tax credits, etc. Their hospitals and medical schools also likewise generate or act as boons to their research divisions and allow for significantly more interesting dimensions of research to be done.

In terms of connections to mother schools, very few schools have strong connections to channel money. Nova surely can do this, but not even CCOM can. In terms of research most DO schools don't have that. Some schools do, some schools are slowly but surely beginning to built it up from the ground, and others generally are entirely uninterested in it. You're going to find it hard to press CUSOM in rural NC to start building a large research center to be shared between its small liberal arts mother institute and its medical school. Though they can at the same time be considered capable of working within the LCME because they can get tons of tax grants for providing physicians for the area.

So, idk what to tell you.

I think you're telling me most osteopathic schools couldn't keep pace with their allopathic counterparts. I agree.
 
I think you're telling me most osteopathic schools couldn't keep pace with their allopathic counterparts. I agree.
Which has some basis in the historical precedent of the MD/DO difference.
 
Which has some basis in the historical precedent of the MD/DO difference.

Yup. Therefore, the only way to address the bias everyone is constantly moaning about is to address the disparity in the quality of our undergraduate medical training. This includes raising standards and acknowledging that the current state of osteopathic education may have room for improvement. Just changing the degree is only going to whitewash things with laypeople. Improving the standards of our degree is what is going to address any biases that our professional colleagues may have. At this point, almost all of the inroads and positive PR our degree has had with the allopathic establishment is because of the hard work of individual osteopathic graduates. It would be nice if the the leaders of our profession would get on board.
 
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Yup. Therefore, the only way to address the bias everyone is constantly moaning about is to address the disparity in the quality of our undergraduate medical training. This includes raising standards and acknowledging that the current state of osteopathic education may have room for improvement. Just changing the degree is only going to whitewash things with laypeople. Improving the standards of our degree is what is going to address any biases that our professional colleagues may have. At this point, almost all of the inroads and positive PR our degree has had with the allopathic establishment is because of the hard work of individual osteopathic graduates. It would be nice if the the leaders of our profession would get on board.
Is there a lot of room for improvement? Certainly. Is the bias against DOs entirely based on objective standards and quality of education? Probably not.
 
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Is there a lot of room for improvement? Certainly. Is the bias against DOs entirely based on objective standards and quality of education? Probably not.

Fair points. My objection is that just because we (osteopathic students and physicians) believe that there is a lack of legitimacy to some of the allopathic bias, this isn't an excuse for us to continue doing things the way we have done.
 
Fair points. My objection is that just because we (osteopathic students and physicians) believe that there is a lack of legitimacy to some of the allopathic bias, this isn't an excuse for us to continue doing things the way we have done.
i.e. cranial and chapman's points being taught and tested on national board exams. I'm all for some of the treatments addressing muscle stiffness and range of motion restrictions, but creating a holier-than-thou attitude about OMM and its universal benefits is just absurd. I can guarantee over 80% of my class will never use OMM at any point past the last COMLEX exam that requires it. In modern medicine, OMM just doesn't have a universal applicability as our faculty would like us to believe. I feel that OMM should have less of an emphasis on it in school. I would suggest to have all students obtain a base competency of various techniques and allow those who want to learn more about it take it as an elective and/or save the more advanced stuff for residency. It's not the most difficult thing to learn, its just time consuming and it seems futile to spend so much time and effort on a skill-set that the majority of students would just as soon forego learning.
 
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Be proud of your degree and stop trying to change it into something else. If you want an MD go to an MD school.

/thread
 
DDS>>>>>>DMD, though.
My Husband is a DDS and there is absolutely no different between DMD and DDS. At the end of the day, when you're out there working, who is the better practitioner with better hand skills is what's important. Classifying one name better than the other is petty. Same for DO, MD.
 
LMU will be on prob for falling under a 90% 6 year graduation rate.



[citation needed]

Some students from LMU for example. Idk about every rotation, but I know that they on occasion end up doing IM rotations within small clinics and that the school doesn't do its job in getting them hospitals.

Would you mind forwarding some of the conversation text to me if you get time? The school doesn't do core IM rotations at small outpatient clinics (actually, no core hospitals are clinic sites), so I'll believe it when I see it. If the student did an elective rotation at a small clinic then that's on them and it was their choice to rotate there. We do have a few rural medicine rotations, part of why I'm here, but they're not the main FM or IM rotations. Rural primary care rotation is an elective during 4th year.

In regards to the school not helping students find hospitals, I assume you are meaning for electives. Which is how it is most places. My friend at Tulane had to schedule all of his own electives - yes it was a pain in the ass and no the school didn't help whatsoever. This isn't new.
 
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My Husband is a DDS and there is absolutely no different between DMD and DDS. At the end of the day, when you're out there working, who is the better practitioner with better hand skills is what's important. Classifying one name better than the other is petty. Same for DO, MD.
once again, (s)he was joking.
 
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Didn't realize there were so many previous suggestions for the same name change lol, my bad.

And for the record I have no issues/ with the DO degree, I am happy and content with it. My issue is the fact that I will have to explain to patients that my degree essentially is the same as an MD
 
In 2015, with the exception of additional OMM training, the DO degree seems more like a historical difference than a practical one. With the exception of the additional OMM training in the pre-clinical years, there is nothing else separating the overwhelming majority of MD's and DO's. DO says, "yes, I received some additional training in msk structure/function".

The AOA/ACOFP/Establishment would like to believe otherwise, but it's simply not true.
 
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Interestingly to perhaps only myself, it turns out that every single school that has both a DO program and a dental program offers a DMD rather than a DDS.
 
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Interestingly to perhaps only myself, it turns out that every single school that has both a DO program and a dental program offers a DMD rather than a DDS.
My first question when I read this was "well are DMD programs ONLY in those types of programs" (ie making an attachment between DMD and DO inferiority compared to their respective counterparts). However, upon some quick investigating, it seems like there are some prominent names in the DMD sphere which would make me think that the DMD stigma couldnt be strong (at the very least in the public eye). Along with Harvard, "some other prominent dental schools which award the DMD degree are the University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of Puerto Rico, Rutgers University, Tufts, University of Pennsylvania, University of Illinois at Chicago, Boston University, Temple University and University of Pittsburgh." (wikipedia).

If we had even a couple names like that in the DO world, I think that would go a long way for the name recognition. Wasnt Drexel started as a DO school way back?
 
DDS vs DMD degreeAmerican Dental Association specifies:

The DDS (Doctor of Dental Surgery) and DMD (Doctor of Dental Medicine) are the same degrees. They are awarded upon graduation from dental school to become a General Dentist. The majority of dental schools award the DDS degree; however, some award a DMD degree. The education and degrees are, in substance, the same.[12]

Harvard University was the first dental school to award the DMD degree.[13] Harvard only grants degrees in Latin, and school administrators thought the Latin translation of Doctor of Dental Surgery ("Chirurgae Dentium Doctoris," or CDD) was too cumbersome. A Latin scholar was consulted and suggested "Medicinae Doctor" be prefixed with "Dentariae." This is how the DMD, or "Dentariae Medicinae Doctor" degree, was started. Other dental schools made the switch to this notation, and in 1989, 23 of the 66 North American dental schools awarded the DMD. There is no meaningful difference between the DMD and DDS degrees, and all dentists must meet the same national and regional certification standards in order to practice.[14]
 
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DDS vs DMD degreeAmerican Dental Association specifies:

The DDS (Doctor of Dental Surgery) and DMD (Doctor of Dental Medicine) are the same degrees. They are awarded upon graduation from dental school to become a General Dentist. The majority of dental schools award the DDS degree; however, some award a DMD degree. The education and degrees are, in substance, the same.[12]

Harvard University was the first dental school to award the DMD degree.[13] Harvard only grants degrees in Latin, and school administrators thought the Latin translation of Doctor of Dental Surgery ("Chirurgae Dentium Doctoris," or CDD) was too cumbersome. A Latin scholar was consulted and suggested "Medicinae Doctor" be prefixed with "Dentariae." This is how the DMD, or "Dentariae Medicinae Doctor" degree, was started. Other dental schools made the switch to this notation, and in 1989, 23 of the 66 North American dental schools awarded the DMD. There is no meaningful difference between the DMD and DDS degrees, and all dentists must meet the same national and regional certification standards in order to practice.[14]
So based on the dentist model here is what we need: enough DO schools to be approximately 1/3 of the US medical schools, and to take the same certification exams. Not exams similar to each other - we need to all be taking the same test. But then a couple administrative types at the top level of COMLEX would lose some cash.
 
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So based on the dentist model here is what we need: enough DO schools to be approximately 1/3 of the US medical schools, and to take the same certification exams. Not exams similar to each other - we need to all be taking the same test. But then a couple administrative types at the top level of COMLEX would lose some cash.
Yup. Make everyone take the USMLE and make all DO schools take the OPP COMAT.
 
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This is pro-DDS propaganda.

Harvard gives a DMD. Louisiana State gives a DDS. 'Nuf said.
I am legit having a tough time figuring out what your stance on this Dent stuff is? That there is real difference between the two? That DDS is better than DMD? That DMD is better than DDS?

That does not particularly read pro-DDS to me? Appears to present it pretty much as it is without any real bias? In several regions of that wiki thread it says that the education and the degrees are the same. Is there something in between the lines that I am not seeing?
 
I am legit having a tough time figuring out what your stance on this Dent stuff is? That there is real difference between the two? That DDS is better than DMD? That DMD is better than DDS?

That does not particularly read pro-DDS to me? Appears to present it pretty much as it is without any real bias? In several regions of that wiki thread it says that the education and the degrees are the same. Is there something in between the lines that I am not seeing?
Pretty sure he was being sarcastic.
 
I have no clue man, between the both of his posts here I am just not picking up on the tone over the internet lol.
I believe he is ex-military, which would be an odd background to have to be anti-DO.

However, I do not know the man so I definitley could be wrong.
 
Someone needs to move this to the dental forums
 
ChiTown is right. I'm just teasing. I figured it would be obvious on a DO forum, but you're right, sarcasm doesn't always come through well on the internet. Sorry.
Ok whew, I was wondering. I dont have any skin in the dent game but all the same internally I was like, WTF is this guy talking about haha. But that makes more sense now.
 
I liked the irony of promoting degree prejudice in a forum filled with people fighting it. Maybe a little trolling for DOs who agreed that one kind of dentist is better than another...

:D
Heh, I could see that. I have for sure heard people arguing about the DDS>DMD thing which just seems ridiculous to me (because of the fact that we are DOs lol). So I naturally went straight into defense mode and was ready to give the knowledge smack down on that stuff. Glad to hear that you were just messing, thanks for setting me straight @ChiTownBHawks
 
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I did always think it was interesting how my pre-dental friends in undergrad would interview at the most diverse dental schools. The perceived advantages of an MD program over a DO program don't seem to transfer to the corresponding dental programs. They would have an acceptance at, say, (hypothetical case here) USC and one at Western, and legitimately be having a hard time deciding.
 
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[citation needed]



Would you mind forwarding some of the conversation text to me if you get time? The school doesn't do core IM rotations at small outpatient clinics (actually, no core hospitals are clinic sites), so I'll believe it when I see it. If the student did an elective rotation at a small clinic then that's on them and it was their choice to rotate there. We do have a few rural medicine rotations, part of why I'm here, but they're not the main FM or IM rotations. Rural primary care rotation is an elective during 4th year.

In regards to the school not helping students find hospitals, I assume you are meaning for electives. Which is how it is most places. My friend at Tulane had to schedule all of his own electives - yes it was a pain in the ass and no the school didn't help whatsoever. This isn't new.

I went to LMU and my entire 2 months of required IM during 3rd year was done in an outpatient office.
 
I went to LMU and my entire 2 months of required IM during 3rd year was done in an outpatient office.
What year did you graduate? And if you don't want to share that information, what core rotation site were you assigned?
 
No! That is a terrible idea. I am proud to be a matriculating DO student. I want a DO degree. That is why I applied DO, not MD. I toured the DO and MD schools in my area and how I was treated as a human being was much better at the DO schools.
Whatever helps you sleep at night.
 
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