MD vs. DO

[Xenoblade]

If that's just a fact, would you please care to prove it?

"touro middleton is taking over an abandon hospital (I think), so they are starting over from scratch"

Most do schools are not tied to academic hospitals or any hospital at all, while all md schools are (I cannot even think of a single md school that is not tied to at least a community hospital)

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[GUH]

"touro middleton is taking over an abandon hospital (I think), so they are starting over from scratch"

Most do schools are not tied to academic hospitals or any hospital at all, while all md schools are (I cannot even think of a single md school that is not tied to at least a community hospital)

Touro Middleton is 1/30-something schools. Yes; there are some schools which seem to be lacking in good clinical rotation opportunities. 9/10 sounds like a stretch.

 

[DocVapor]

50+ replies, guys? Really?

 

[Mad Jack]

"touro middleton is taking over an abandon hospital (I think), so they are starting over from scratch"

Most do schools are not tied to academic hospitals or any hospital at all, while all md schools are (I cannot even think of a single md school that is not tied to at least a community hospital)

Eh, we've got a lot of sites at my school, from community hospitals and hospital networks (ECHN, Kent Hospital in RI, EMMC) to midsize academic teaching hospitals (MMC in Portland). It really depends on the school. Some schools certainly have worse rotations than others, and some rotations at a given school will be subpar.

 

[DrEnderW]

Touro Middletown is actually the exact opposite of what's being described. It's directly tied to orange regional medical center, a 350 bed hospital (not huge but still a close relationship). The opening of the school is also tied to the opening of numerous residencies in coming years at that site alone.

I'm not a student there, but I've heard that in person from their DME.

 

[MLT2MT2DO]

"touro middleton is taking over an abandon hospital (I think), so they are starting over from scratch"

Most do schools are not tied to academic hospitals or any hospital at all, while all md schools are (I cannot even think of a single md school that is not tied to at least a community hospital)

Many newer MD schools are going the route of not being tied to a hospital.

 

[costales]

50+ replies, guys? Really?

Hey, trolls and Caribbean reps live for this stuff. It's like their mating call around this time every year, when an applicant suddenly discovers their enthusiasm for osteopathy - like they have a choice - and asks everyone to come forward with all the proper evidence and cross-examination in order to persuade them to give it serious thought.

 

[hallowmann]

"touro middleton is taking over an abandon hospital (I think), so they are starting over from scratch"

Most do schools are not tied to academic hospitals or any hospital at all, while all md schools are (I cannot even think of a single md school that is not tied to at least a community hospital)

OK bro, you need to start actually looking into things before you run your mouth and then make sweeping statements based on things that you yourself admit to not being sure of.

To start, there are a good chunk (not a majority mind you, but not 1/10) DO schools (at least 1/6) that are actually tied (i.e. they own) an "academic" hospital. To be clear, an academic hospital is one tied (let's use your original terminology) to a medical school and/or university system that has with it graduate medical education programs and trains medical students through clinical rotations. Many of the public DO schools have such an affiliation and some of the private schools do as well (mine included). These tend to be osteopathic hospitals, because surprise, they train osteopathic medical students.

To the next subject: All DO schools are required to be affiliated with osteopathic teaching hospitals. It is part of the requirement for COCA accreditation. This is accomplished via OPTIs. An OPTI is a consortium of osteopathic training institutions/programs, and these include hospitals that host OGME as well as clinical rotations for the affiliated COM's students. So while most schools don't own a teaching hospital, all have affiliations with teaching hospitals, most of which are actually not new, and have been around for a decently long time.

So while, yes it would be nice for every DO school to own its own teaching hospital, if they want, students can and do primarily rotate in established hospitals with GMEs (now some might not want to, and from a historical standpoint there is actual a reason that DOs tend to prefer preceptors in rural areas, but that's a different issue).

Also, don't get me wrong, there are definitely flaws in many aspects of OGME and COM clinical rotations, but after talking to a decent number of new/low-tier MD students, many of them had the same complaints we have about rotations.

 

[meliora27]

This whole debate really makes me wonder if at some point in the future, those COMs that have the infrastructure/resources in place, will try to seek dual accreditation from the LCME.

~5 years ago, KCUMB's president, tried to explore this option. For the sake of conversation, if this were to ever happen, then I think you could actually distinguish between "Top DO schools (those will dual accreditation) and The Others"

I guess only time will tell though.

 

[AlteredScale]

This whole debate really makes me wonder if at some point in the future, those COMs that have the infrastructure/resources in place, will try to seek dual accreditation from the LCME.

~5 years ago, KCUMB's president, tried to explore this option. For the sake of conversation, if this were to ever happen, then I think you could actually distinguish between "Top DO schools (those will dual accreditation) and The Others"

I guess only time will tell though.

Are you talking about the public DO schools that have an affiliated academic hospital?

That would be a good step. Still wondering if they would meet LCME requirements regarding scholarly work though since we take such a small inkling of the total NIH funding for biomedical research compared to allopathic institutions. I'll try and find the article that has the data.

 

[hallowmann]

Are you talking about the public DO schools that have an affiliated academic hospital?

That would be a good step. Still wondering if they would meet LCME requirements regarding scholarly work though since we take such a small inkling of the total NIH funding for biomedical research compared to allopathic institutions. I'll try and find the article that has the data.

The real issue would be getting the LCME to accredit a DO degree granting institution. Currently they ONLY accredit MD schools. Short of DO schools opening an attached MD school, changing their charter to grant MD degrees, or the LCME creating a whole new set of regulations for accrediting DO schools, I don't see this happening.

Now, if COCA could continue on its trajectory to keep adding requirements that make DO schools look more and more like MD schools when it comes to clinical curriculum, that would be a step in the right direction, but who knows if there is really interest for this to happen from their or school admins' side.

 

[AlteredScale]

The real issue would be getting the LCME to accredit a DO degree granting institution. Currently they ONLY accredit MD schools. Short of DO schools opening an attached MD school, changing their charter to grant MD degrees, or the LCME creating a whole new set of regulations for accrediting DO schools, I don't see this happening.

Now, if COCA could continue on its trajectory to keep adding requirements that make DO schools look more and more like MD schools when it comes to clinical curriculum, that would be a step in the right direction, but who knows if there is really interest for this to happen from their or school admins' side.

After seeing some of the commentary within articles in Academic Medicine between those in COCA and those in LCME, I don't see the bolded happening too soon because there seems to be a lot of tension there haha.

It will definitely need to be on the COCA side to change things as well as a strong student voice to require standardized 3rd and 4th year clinical exposure. In terms of student voice: how difficult do you think that would be to create something for SOMA to have on the table?

 

[meliora27]

changing their charter to grant MD degrees

Disclaimer: I've never read a COM's charter...

From what I've learned, apparently the wording in KCUMB's charter was such that it allowed granting of the MD degree(or did not prohibit it) which was what allowed to former president to explore this possibility. Again, not sure the language of other COM's charter's...

 

[JimmyB123]

We have a thread, literally titled "MD vs DO", and it hasn't been shut down yet? Smh..

 

[AlteredScale]

Disclaimer: I've never read a COM's charter...

From what I've learned, apparently the wording in KCUMB's charter was such that it allowed granting of the MD degree(or did not prohibit it) which was what allowed to former president to explore this possibility. Again, not sure the language of other COM's charter's...

Don't medical schools have to federally apply to grant the MD degree?

 

[Goro]

Worst DO school decidedly =/= Best DO school

OP can get into LUCOM with a 23. These days you can score below 50 percentile and easily get into a medical school. Albeit it won't be an MD, but who cares right? The talk around here is Worst DO school = Best DO school = Any MD school not in the top 50.

 

[JGimpel]

Oh no.

COCA (for DO schools) and AOA (for DO residencies) will accredit anything with a pulse and a check that clears. In my history of a DO med student and life in a DO residency, I've found so much credit given for crap training that they don't pay any attention to, much less actually will attempt to fix. As usual, I'm proud to be a DO, embarassed by our leadership and how easy it is for the MD trainers to find out about this that I don't recommend the DO route any more. If you are interested, go to a DO school with under 150 per class so you at least get the proper ratio of staff to class to make good training at least possible. How many of the 90+ DO schools started in the last 2 years have such class sizes??? : )

 

[user3]

Oh no.

COCA (for DO schools) and AOA (for DO residencies) will accredit anything with a pulse and a check that clears. In my history of a DO med student and life in a DO residency, I've found so much credit given for crap training that they don't pay any attention to, much less actually will attempt to fix. As usual, I'm proud to be a DO, embarassed by our leadership and how easy it is for the MD trainers to find out about this that I don't recommend the DO route any more. If you are interested, go to a DO school with under 150 per class so you at least get the proper ratio of staff to class to make good training at least possible. How many of the 90+ DO schools started in the last 2 years have such class sizes??? : )

The new for-profit BCOM (in NM) announced it will be starting with 150, and plans to expand to 300/class.

 

[Mad Jack]

This whole debate really makes me wonder if at some point in the future, those COMs that have the infrastructure/resources in place, will try to seek dual accreditation from the LCME.

~5 years ago, KCUMB's president, tried to explore this option. For the sake of conversation, if this were to ever happen, then I think you could actually distinguish between "Top DO schools (those will dual accreditation) and The Others"

I guess only time will tell though.

Anyone with dual accreditation would just drop the COCA and go MD simply because staying dual has so much extra required so far as paperwork and site visits. Overlapping standards are annoying as ****.

 

[JGimpel]

The new for-profit BCOM (in NM) announced it will be starting with 150, and plans to expand to 300/class.

I'm not sure what your point is, but DO schools herding people into auditoria the size of an indoor flea market is becoming the norm and quality of interaction with staff and the shoehorning of students into clerkships of fast food medicine type is what I'm making a point about. I guess trolling is par for the course on an MD vs. DO thread.

 

[user3]

I'm not sure what your point is, but DO schools herding people into auditoria the size of and indoor flea market is becoming the norm and quality of interaction with staff and the shoehorning of students into clerkships of fast food medicine type is what I'm making a point about. I guess trolling is par for the course on an MD vs. DO thread.

I probably should have prefaced my post with "case in point: ".

 

[GUH]

Oh no.

COCA (for DO schools) and AOA (for DO residencies) will accredit anything with a pulse and a check that clears. In my history of a DO med student and life in a DO residency, I've found so much credit given for crap training that they don't pay any attention to, much less actually will attempt to fix. As usual, I'm proud to be a DO, embarassed by our leadership and how easy it is for the MD trainers to find out about this that I don't recommend the DO route any more. If you are interested, go to a DO school with under 150 per class so you at least get the proper ratio of staff to class to make good training at least possible. How many of the 90+ DO schools started in the last 2 years have such class sizes??? : )

Obvious hyperbole is not a great way to convince others of your position.

 

[rhino120]

Friends, at the end of the day you all will be a physician (DO or the other one) and making a nice living while helping people. Thats better than the overwhelming majority of people in the world. Once you guys are practicing you will probably forget these discussions because you will be far too busy with the job. I hope this helps.

 

[NurWollen]

.

 

[NurWollen]

Friends, at the end of the day you all will be a physician (DO or the other one) and making a nice living while helping people. Thats better than the overwhelming majority of people in the world. Once you guys are practicing you will probably forget these discussions because you will be far too busy with the job. I hope this helps.

Careful now, too many reasonable statements like this and you're liable to get yourself beaten up right next to that dead horse over there.

 

[ChrisGriffen]

I wish SDN had a filter that would just automatically delete threads titled "MD vs DO"

 

[shibby1111]

Friends, at the end of the day you all will be a physician (DO or the other one) and making a nice living while helping people. Thats better than the overwhelming majority of people in the world. Once you guys are practicing you will probably forget these discussions because you will be far too busy with the job. I hope this helps.

Thanks, guy who's never been through med school or residency.

 

[SLC]

Anyone with dual accreditation would just drop the COCA and go MD simply because staying dual has so much extra required so far as paperwork and site visits. Overlapping standards are annoying as ****.

A residency program I'm hoping to match at this year was dual-accredited; but like you said they have dropped the AOA accreditation because the PD (a DO) told me he realized it's easier and cheaper to help his residents get AOA approval of their intern year than it is to maintain AOA accreditation. They're ACGME only starting this year.

Edit: and I should add that of course I realize that all programs will be ACGME in the near future anyway. But that doesn't change the fact that this program dropped their dual-accreditation early because of the hassle of maintaining it.

 

[BrooklynBulls]

I'm not sure what your point is, but DO schools herding people into auditoria the size of an indoor flea market is becoming the norm and quality of interaction with staff and the shoehorning of students into clerkships of fast food medicine type is what I'm making a point about. I guess trolling is par for the course on an MD vs. DO thread.

Thankfully, that hasn't been my experience with my school. For which I suppose I should feel lucky. Class size was reasonable, never hard to get to speak with faculty, and rotation sites vary in quality, but the places I did mine, I'd give a thumbs up for all but one. And the one I wouldn't give a thumbs up to, I purposefully went to because I wanted the easiest OBGYN rotation I could find, since you couldn't force me into that specialty with a gun.

 

[shibby1111]

I smell a MD vs DO vs Janitor thread coming.