Nasrudin politely explained and insinuated certain aspects of DO vs MD. I will be a bit more blunt. The number one reason for going MD rather than DO is residency. You will hear people saying MD=DO, no one cares, etc, etc. Sure, that is true. However, there is a logical error in those arguments - they all assume that you are a practicing doctor. Instead, the approach should be rather different: you should be more concerned about your road to becoming a doctor rather than once you start practicing. As such, no matter who says what, getting certain residencies as a DO can be very challenging. Can it still be done? Sure. But so can your average Joe become an Olympian. The question you need to ask yourself is "what are my goals?" If you want to be an internist or go into another less competitive field, if you're not that interested in academic medicine, if you actually believe in OMM, if you are not that competitive for MD, if you will not be insulted when you are questioned about your title, then a DO is a wise choice. That is a lot of ifs, but there are cases where a DO can be a better choice than MD. It also finally comes down to price: if you're paying $200K for something, you want to make sure you get everything you want, even if there is no consensus on certain things. It's like buying synthetic oil: if both cans cost $5, but one of them has some disputed impurities, you might as well pay for the "better" can, regardless whether it is or is not any better. You certainly don't know whether it is or it is not better.
Since it is still so difficult to have a normal conversation about MD vs DO on a medical board without someone commencing an altercation or saying "not another MD vs DO," you should get another clue about the state of the affairs. Furthermore, if you post this thread in the DO forum, you will get your ass kicked. Been there, done that. That was the only thread I had to close, put one of the DO members on my ignore list because he/she was so rude, and contemplate deleting the thread, but I didn't because it was the embodiment of some of the tacit issues present in that field. That was the last time I truly considered DO. Maybe in the future I might change my mind, depending on my goals, but even if DOs had the same opportunities as MDs, I would still not want to be part of a community where there is so much acrimony. I mean who cares if some guy asks some questions about your degree? Maybe he's ignoramus. Is it really worth getting all bent out of shape because of it? There is a psychological reason for this and I will not go there, not even in this subforum.
One last consideration: the number of graduating MD students is increasing every year. The number of MD residency spots remains stagnant. The result? DOs, FMGs, and IMGs are finding themselves competing more and more with MDs for those MD residency spots. What ends up happening is that they get shoved into the primary care fields more and more and I think that with time MD residency spots will be limited only to MDs because there simply might not be enough spots even for AMG (American Medical Graduate) MDs. I can already sense the discontent because I read the other day how MDs want AOA to open up DO residency spots to MD students since while DOs are able to apply to MD spots, MD graduates cannot apply to DO residency spots. Anyway, it's one big mess and we'll see what the future brings.
On the positive side, I do agree that once you are a doctor, DO pretty much equals MD, barring some geographical locations where you might not be able to get a job easily. I will admit myself that the first time I ever heard of DOs was when I joined SDN. The public just doesn't know. This why when that article was published about a famous DO doc, on the cover they had called him "MD," I guess to avoid any misunderstanding from the public that this is actually a doctor. Many DOs were unhappy about that, of course.
