A major difference is traditional/didactic learning vs apprenticeship style. At MD you pretty much only get didactic unless you are on an elective, whereas DO is much more apprenticeship style, particularly at the community hospitals. Some DO hospitals definitely have the didactic style, and some MD hospitals have apprenticeship style, but generally that is the major difference. Is one better than the other? Not necessarily. Would the MD community tell you one is better? Probably, because it is how they were trained and they never experienced another way. As you brought up, it is what you make of it. You can dig through these forums and find many very happy DO students who were at small hospitals and learned an incredible amount and were provided with tons of opportunities to hone in on their craft. Many of these students were first assists in surgery and stuff like that, which is really cool. I can specifically remember students from VCOM-VC commenting on how their small hospital experiences were in fact better than their large hospital experiences. One a side note, I work at an MD school and I can tell you that not all the students are happy with their rotations here. I think in general that people have the same complaints at both MD and DO schools - both for the pre-clinical and the clinical years. I think the one big problem that ever comes up (MD or DO) is that a clerkship opportunity becomes more like shadowing which is NOT what you are supposed to be doing.
A bonus of MD rotations though are size of their hospitals. Most dont open up shop in a town with just one small community hospital. Most set up with huge hospitals, have pretty much every specialty, and a lot more pathology because of more diverse patient base and more critical cases. Just how it goes.... Some DO schools have amazing rotations at very large hospitals. But a lot of the newer (not all) have set up with a very different mindset than MD schools. Remember, the goal of many DO schools (especially these new ones) is to provide primary care doctors in rural or undeserved areas. So that is how they will want to train you.
All things aside though, I agree with what has been stated. DMU has their head on straight when it comes to teaching their students. Even though I dont know exactly where their rotations are, I do indeed trust that they will be strong. Otherwise you would be hearing a lot of bad stuff about their rotations on here.
Just some food for thought.
