DO Family Medicine Practical Boards in Philly!

[MedicineMan99]

So who else is taking the DO Family Medicine practical exam in Philly the week of March 10th?

What is the practical like? I hear it's easy. Anyone have any experience with it?

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[cabinbuilder]

I took it 5 years ago. It was really easy. You basically talk your way through the OMM practical portion. Set it up like you would in real life but they don't want you to actually do any HVLA. There is a patient scenario case at the beginning where you give your differential diagnosis = always include somatic dysfunction as one. I would not stress about it.

 

[MedicineMan99]

I took it 5 years ago. It was really easy. You basically talk your way through the OMM practical portion. Set it up like you would in real life but they don't want you to actually do any HVLA. There is a patient scenario case at the beginning where you give your differential diagnosis = always include somatic dysfunction as one. I would not stress about it.

I hear it's really easy from everyone. But, even though I do OMT often in residency, I'm still pretty nervous about the practical. I always got nervous about practicals in med school.

It sounds to me like they let you do what you want, i.e. if you are treating someone for lumbar pain you can just do MFR/ST, psoas ME, lumbar ME (so long as it takes up 4 minutes). You don't have to do HVLA if you don't want to (or at least set it up). Or if you have someone with cervical pain and you don't do cervical counterstrain, they aren't going to say, "You have to do counterstrain" so long as you do other applicable techniques.

Any other advice?

 

[cabinbuilder]

I hear it's really easy from everyone. But, even though I do OMT often in residency, I'm still pretty nervous about the practical. I always got nervous about practicals in med school.

It sounds to me like they let you do what you want, i.e. if you are treating someone for lumbar pain you can just do MFR/ST, psoas ME, lumbar ME (so long as it takes up 4 minutes). You don't have to do HVLA if you don't want to (or at least set it up). Or if you have someone with cervical pain and you don't do cervical counterstrain, they aren't going to say, "You have to do counterstrain" so long as you do other applicable techniques.

Any other advice?

The practical part starts with a group sitting at a table. There are scenarios on a piece of paper (I think I did 3). You have to write out a treatment plan for each scenario that includes OMM. Don't forget to put somatic dysfunction of (body part) as one of the diagnoses. When you are done writing your case then you go into the practical. Much more laid back than in school. You just talk your way through it. The HVLA you set up but don't thrust. They are NOT going to tell you what techniques to do, that is on you.