Funny that so many DO premeds and students define themselves as "true believers"- basically ignoring the scientific method alltogether and treating osteopathy as their new religion or "skeptics" in that they discount everything in the history and tradition of osteopathy with an added flair of bitterness (throwing the baby out with the bathwater). I would ask readers to forgive the latter group because their exposure to OMM specialists has been largely to "true believer" types that drank the cool aid, rather than people who can explain, demonstrate and easily teach what they do and are humble about what they dont know. I try very hard to help physicians I train to see past this stuff- the concept is that you see the body as a whole, understand its processes, healthy patterns and unhealthy patterns, and restore health to the system. There is nothing controversial about any of these points. I tell residents and students to question everything I tell them, and only believe it when they can replicate the results for themselves consistently (and maybe not even then). Most MD's are very excited when they see what OMM can do for their patients, and I get many new referrals from MDs every week. I have maybe a dozen MDs ask me if I can train them to do what I do (I havent started doing CME but I may one day).
There is a lot to be proud of in Osteopathy. When you can change patient's lives every day that would otherwise suffer for years, or help patients into permanent remission that were told they absolutely need surgery- it is an amazing feeling.
AT Still was a scientist. He hated untested theories, and taught massive, immediate, permanent and reproduceable success was the only adequate measure of the truth of a theory. His thinking is very much in harmony with EBM, though I think he would argue that outcomes studies targeting remission are the main studies worth looking at. I doubt he would have stood for teaching chapmans points or cranial in their current form, for the reasons stated above. He made some bold claims in his work, but I have replicated some of his amazing claimed successes using his approaches- and his approaches are based on functional anatomy- not empty theory. As for his claimed results that I can't yet replicate- it may be due a poor understanding of his methodology on my part, or might reflect that he was mistaken- either way I am sure he would have encouraged the investigation. We need large well controlled studies going forward (and better research training at DO schools). When we have these, it will further pull the effective components of OMM away from the true believers and into the mainstream.