DO disadvantages

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cliquesh said:
People, at least on SDN, don't see mayo and Cleveland clinic as top academic programs...probably, in part, because they take DOs regularly. I don't understand why they get a bad rap on SDN. I thought both of them were super nice, pleasant places, which is why I ranked them over places like washU, Upenn, and such.
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Man, just when I thought I saw it all on the internet...
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DopaDO said:
I don't see how this is true/possible. They are consistently ranked in the top 5 according to usnews. They are 3 & 4 this year behind only Mass Gen and Hopkins. It's fine if people want to dispute rankings and what-not, but you can't despite the caliber of hospitals like that. Those are worldwide elite institutions. There is no argument against it.
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Yes, but just because a hospital is 'elite' doesn't mean it's a great place to train as a resident. CCF has a notorious reputation for not allowing residents to have adequate autonomy because they give 1st priority to fellows on many services etc. I also ranked CCF very high because I thought it seemed like a nice program overall (and because of location), but I didn't match there and I'm actually pretty happy I didn't. The institution I did match at doesn't rank as high on the US News bla bla bla rankings, but it definitely has a much stronger residency program and I believe I will be trained better because of it. It matches at least as well as CCF for what I care about (heme/onc), which is no small feat either.

Mayo is a different story for IM - most people think it's a very good program. They (generally) keep the fellows out of the residents' way for training purposes. (And fyi, to my knowledge it really doesn't match many (if any) DOs for IM.)
 
skinMD said:
one thing i dont think i mentioned earlier too... we have another "clinical campus" at a community hospital and though i haven't done any rotations there i have heard experiences from classmates. at a large university hospital you tend to get people who understand that there will be med students and you will get to do a lot more. at some community hospitals there might be a ton of private patients who you're not even allowed to touch as a med student. granted there are some community hospitals that have very scarce resources and you might be able to get a lot of hands on experience but personally i'm not a fan of haphazard unstructured "experience" for med students.

anyway, i didn't mean to pick a fight or anything and i know there are thousands of community hospitals out there so experiences will vary tremendously but i felt that your argument needed a counterpoint. you only do med school once and sometimes this is the only time you'll ever see certain cases/conditions. IMO the way to maximize your experience is at a university hospital.
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A lot of truth here. My experience at community programs as a 3rd year basically went one of two ways:

1) It'll be a hospital that only recently has started taking medical students, and they'll have no idea what to do with them. You either get no authority and get ignored by everyone, or you get the sort of 'haphazard' experience described above. If it's the former, you learn nothing and even when you're given tasks to complete you get nowhere (i.e., nurses dismiss you completely because you're a med student, the lab literally laughs at you when you call about results, etc). These places usually have no didactics, morning report, noon conference, etc. If it's the latter, things can get really weird - nurses press you for orders and don't seem to grasp that you can't give them, you might be looked to as the person who should run the next code (this actually happened to a classmate!). Yes, you may often end up being first assist, but the rotation is often an unstructured, unbalanced mess (your first assisting in the OR comes at the cost of getting any floor/dz management exposure whatsoever, you never follow up on pts postop, etc). Physicians who haven't dealt with medical students since their residency days have often forgotten what you really need to know and do as a student, and as such you usually get a bizarre experience. One particularly worthless attending once said (as he was doing my evaluation, no less): 'how can I even evaluate you guys's medical knowledge? You don't know anything about this stuff, you'll learn it as an intern.' (This guy hadn't let us touch a pt the whole rotation because of 'liability concerns'.)

2) You rotate at some 'established' community program where you see the same half-dozen diagnoses repeatedly. Anything interesting gets shipped, and many specialties start to seem more boring than they actually are because you never see cool stuff. If there is a GME program at these places, the services will often be overstuffed with housestaff and students (I once rotated on an ID consult service whose entourage consisted of an intern, an IM resident, a podiatry resident, a pharmacy resident, a fellow, and three students. Some days there were fewer pts on the list than people in the entourage.) You still don't get to do much of anything because there are waaay too many people biting and shoving for a piece of the action. Didactics may be present, but they'll be weak. Residents will actually turn you down when you offer to go see a consult or write a note - I was literally told once 'oh don't worry about doing that boring paperwork, you're a student'.

Either way, you're not really getting the experience you deserve.

(That said, I did rotate at an ACGME community program as a 4th year for some rotations and it was actually a much better experience.)
 
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dozitgetchahi said:
A lot of truth here. My experience at community programs as a 3rd year basically went one of two ways:

1) It'll be a hospital that only recently has started taking medical students, and they'll have no idea what to do with them. You either get no authority and get ignored by everyone, or you get the sort of 'haphazard' experience described above. If it's the former, you learn nothing and even when you're given tasks to complete you get nowhere (i.e., nurses dismiss you completely because you're a med student, the lab literally laughs at you when you call about results, etc). These places usually have no didactics, morning report, noon conference, etc. If it's the latter, things can get really weird - nurses press you for orders and don't seem to grasp that you can't give them, you might be looked to as the person who should run the next code (this actually happened to a classmate!). Yes, you may often end up being first assist, but the rotation is often an unstructured, unbalanced mess (your first assisting in the OR comes at the cost of getting any floor/dz management exposure whatsoever, you never follow up on pts postop, etc). Physicians who haven't dealt with medical students since their residency days have often forgotten what you really need to know and do as a student, and as such you usually get a bizarre experience. One particularly worthless attending once said (as he was doing my evaluation, no less): 'how can I even evaluate you guys's medical knowledge? You don't know anything about this stuff, you'll learn it as an intern.' (This guy hadn't let us touch a pt the whole rotation because of 'liability concerns'.)

2) You rotate at some 'established' community program where you see the same half-dozen diagnoses repeatedly. Anything interesting gets shipped, and many specialties start to seem more boring than they actually are because you never see cool stuff. If there is a GME program at these places, the services will often be overstuffed with housestaff and students (I once rotated on an ID consult service whose entourage consisted of an intern, an IM resident, a podiatry resident, a pharmacy resident, a fellow, and three students. Some days there were fewer pts on the list than people in the entourage.) You still don't get to do much of anything because there are waaay too many people biting and shoving for a piece of the action. Didactics may be present, but they'll be weak. Residents will actually turn you down when you offer to go see a consult or write a note - I was literally told once 'oh don't worry about doing that boring paperwork, you're a student'.

Either way, you're not really getting the experience you deserve.
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Then again, it probably varies program to program. Some MD students probably have similar problems. System is imperfect, and I guess you have to make the best of it to get to where you want to be.
 
Dr Dazzle said:
Then again, it probably varies program to program. Some MD students probably have similar problems. System is imperfect, and I guess you have to make the best of it to get to where you want to be.
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That's an admirable outlook, but likely not being completely honest with yourself. The above post by dozitgetchahi seems to describe the majority of clinical sites most DO students rotate through, but very much the minority for clinical sites most MD students rotate through.
 
GuyWhoDoesStuff said:
That's an admirable outlook, but likely not being completely honest with yourself. The above post by dozitgetchahi seems to describe the majority of clinical sites most DO students rotate through, but very much the minority for clinical sites most MD students rotate through.
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Then why aren't DO students really expressing more concern to their programs? At more established schools, the problems should have been long fixed. You pay more money to attend DO school, you should be able to have these things taken care of by the school.
 
GuyWhoDoesStuff said:
That's an admirable outlook, but likely not being completely honest with yourself. The above post by dozitgetchahi seems to describe the majority of clinical sites most DO students rotate through, but very much the minority for clinical sites most MD students rotate through.
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Same experience here.
 
Dr Dazzle said:
Then why aren't DO students really expressing more concern to their programs? At more established schools, the problems should have been long fixed. You pay more money to attend DO school, you should be able to have these things taken care of by the school.
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You know what the DME at my 3rd year hospital told me when me and two of my classmates complained throughout the month about a surgery rotation in which we did all the pre-op rounding, post-op rounding but none of the surgery? That the school was there to produce primary care doctors and to stop complaining because nothing would change. Not to mention all the bitching and moaning we did made its way back to the attending who threatened to fail us if we talked behind his back again. I didn't suture an actual patient until my Obgyn rotation later on in the year.
 
Dr Dazzle said:
Then why aren't DO students really expressing more concern to their programs? At more established schools, the problems should have been long fixed. You pay more money to attend DO school, you should be able to have these things taken care of by the school.
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Trust me we try and then when nothing happens we give up so that the school does not retaliate against us in the name of what is considered "professionalism." I told my school I was very disappointed that I had a nurse as a preceptor on surgery. Did they do anything? Nope. We also told them that no one had come out to our rotation site to see how we are doing. Again, nothing.

There is a point where you just stop trying because eventually the school will just try and shut you up and still nothing will be done. You just get exhausted and decide to just graduate and move on.
 
thepoopologist said:
You know what the DME at my 3rd year hospital told me when me and two of my classmates complained throughout the month about a surgery rotation in which we did all the pre-op rounding, post-op rounding but none of the surgery? That the school was there to produce primary care doctors and to stop complaining because nothing would change. Not to mention all the bitching and moaning we did made its way back to the attending who threatened to fail us if we talked behind his back again. I didn't suture an actual patient until my Obgyn rotation later on in the year.
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That's pretty unfortunate. Why not talk to the school?
 
Dr Dazzle said:
That's pretty unfortunate. Why not talk to the school?
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1. The school doesn't pay the attendings. They give a nice certificate to them for being a "clinical assistant professor." That certificate apparently costs $40,000-$50,000 per year for the 3rd and 4th year students.
2. At many DO programs we are not students or residents there to learn as much as we are free labor that can function on the level of a PA/inexpensive physician; essentially our leverage. Therefore there are politics to be played. If the DME or program director decides to play hardball, "attendings" can retaliate by freezing out the entire program (not accepting anybody on their service). If it's a particularly influential attending, i.e. a surgeon who brings in millions of dollars in services to the hospital, and they are pissed off, they can pretty much dispose of all residencies given their leverage. It doesn't mean you can't learn at these hospitals, it just means you have to be aware of the politics. The chief resident at my 3rd year hospital had to balance a lot of personalities to keep everyone happy. The students didn't really hear the subtle threats from the "attendings" about freezing people out of their service, but senior residents heard plenty, especially the chief.
3. What can a student do? Well l was brought to the edge of my temper and sanity many times last year. Short of driving a gas tanker into the hospital at peak hours, which would jail me indefinitely at best, I just did the healthy thing and let it go. The senior residents at that hospital easily found jobs with nice big fat salaries, many mid-way through their third year, and so there's an end in sight and it did me well to keep that it mind.
 
thepoopologist said:
1. The school doesn't pay the attendings. They give a nice certificate to them for being a "clinical assistant professor." That certificate apparently costs $40,000-$50,000 per year for the 3rd and 4th year students.
2. At many DO programs we are not students or residents there to learn as much as we are free labor that can function on the level of a PA/inexpensive physician; essentially our leverage. Therefore there are politics to be played. If the DME or program director decides to play hardball, "attendings" can retaliate by freezing out the entire program (not accepting anybody on their service). If it's a particularly influential attending, i.e. a surgeon who brings in millions of dollars in services to the hospital, and they are pissed off, they can pretty much dispose of all residencies given their leverage. It doesn't mean you can't learn at these hospitals, it just means you have to be aware of the politics. The chief resident at my 3rd year hospital had to balance a lot of personalities to keep everyone happy. The students didn't really hear the subtle threats from the "attendings" about freezing people out of their service, but senior residents heard plenty, especially the chief.
3. What can a student do? Well l was brought to the edge of my temper and sanity many times last year. Short of driving a gas tanker into the hospital at peak hours, which would jail me indefinitely at best, I just did the healthy thing and let it go. The senior residents at that hospital easily found jobs with nice big fat salaries, many mid-way through their third year, and so there's an end in sight and it did me well to keep that it mind.
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Anyone know how this is different in academic university hospitals? Essentially, what incentives make physicians be more caring or involved? Also, do MD physicians at academic hospitals look down on DO students rotating at their program during 4th year? It sucks that you have to do all that hard work setting up stuff for yourself and pay so much as well. However, I think MD students do that too sometimes depending on the specialty they are going for. Not as much as DO students though it seems.
 
Dr Dazzle said:
Anyone know how this is different in academic university hospitals? Essentially, what incentives make physicians be more caring or involved? Also, do MD physicians at academic hospitals look down on DO students rotating at their program during 4th year? It sucks that you have to do all that hard work setting up stuff for yourself and pay so much as well. However, I think MD students do that too sometimes depending on the specialty they are going for. Not as much as DO students though it seems.
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I've rotated at community programs where I'm the only student, at community programs with residencies/fellows, and university programs. From my experience, the teaching is variable every where you go. Some attendings like to teach, some don't. Some like having students, some don't. Some look down on DOs, some don't. Some let students do everything, some don't let students anything. The big difference that I noticed is that the University programs and the decent community programs have more organized lecture series.

I really don't think it matters THAT much. You see the same stuff over and over again no matter where you go (ACS, COPD, asthma, hepatitis, acute kidney injury, strokes, pneumonia, PE/DVT, sepsis, DKA). You can learn all of that stuff well at any community program.

For anesthesia, I was able to do a lot more at community programs. I did the pre-op, I ran the entire case, and I did the post-op care. The anesthesiologist just stood next to me and let me do everything. I pretty much only intubated patient's at the university programs I rotated at. The university program had good lectures, though.
 
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There's more chance of skinMD being MedPR (pre-med/podiatry) than a 4th year student as many have called him out for on another thread. If so, why disgrace the dancing banana in such a way?

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=993188

This is what another pre-med sent me in a PM:
"For all I know, you are a 15 year old in his parents basement with an SDN account that reads resident. You surely haven't shown your maturity through your demeanor."

skinMD/MedPR, I didn't think too much of it since I truly believe that I've shown the maturity and knowledge-base that a Resident would have in the forums here up through to the Resident ones. You have shown neither maturity nor true knowledge-base and that's why that thread ended up the way it did and why I don't believe you or your buddy purporting you being a medical student.

If you're an OMS disappointed in the training you received, you've got to stop rehashing it on an open forum and work on making the most of the rest of the time you have in school to get the proper experience you feel you need to round out your education. If your an MS1-4 that is speculating on what the DO system is like with regard to clerkships or placement in GME, that's all there is to it and you should acknowledge that you have little to no experience in the majority of the hospitals that we do the most of our training in. You got called out for being many things, posting this garbage in an Osteopathic forum reeks of being a troll, please stop.

Back to the subject, I think it far more useful to list where the top 10-20 percent of a class got placed rather than the one or two that beat the odds, whatever way you imagine those odds to be. Just my n=1.
 
JGimpel said:
There's more chance of skinMD being MedPR (pre-med/podiatry) than a 4th year student as many have called him out for on another thread. If so, why disgrace the dancing banana in such a way?

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=993188

This is what another pre-med sent me in a PM:
"For all I know, you are a 15 year old in his parents basement with an SDN account that reads resident. You surely haven't shown your maturity through your demeanor."

skinMD/MedPR, I didn't think too much of it since I truly believe that I've shown the maturity and knowledge-base that a Resident would have in the forums here up through to the Resident ones. You have shown neither maturity nor true knowledge-base and that's why that thread ended up the way it did and why I don't believe you or your buddy purporting you being a medical student.

If you're an OMS disappointed in the training you received, you've got to stop rehashing it on an open forum and work on making the most of the rest of the time you have in school to get the proper experience you feel you need to round out your education. If your an MS1-4 that is speculating on what the DO system is like with regard to clerkships or placement in GME, that's all there is to it and you should acknowledge that you have little to no experience in the majority of the hospitals that we do the most of our training in. You got called out for being many things, posting this garbage in an Osteopathic forum reeks of being a troll, please stop.

Back to the subject, I think it far more useful to list where the top 10-20 percent of a class got placed rather than the one or two that beat the odds, whatever way you imagine those odds to be. Just my n=1.
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this post makes absolutely no sense. why are you quoting a PM that someone sent you (if not against the TOS, certainly poor form) and implying that it was from me?

others have embarrassed themselves sufficiently trying to slander me and saying i'm MedPR ....seems like that's now the default way to try and derail a thread when you're losing an argument. also thinking i'm a DO and accusing me of being MedPR? are you sure you're not one of those guys in the thread you linked to? :naughty:

there are multiple posts on this thread agreeing with my point of view. why don't you slander the rest of them? you have no clue what a troll is so stop throwing around the term. i've been posting for 5 years and stumbled on a thread in the DO forum where people like you were peddling lies and fantasy so i decided to inject some reality and straight talk. i'm sorry if your ego is too fragile to handle it. i have talked to many DOs, read SDN and have looked at the match lists carefully...it sounds like you're the one who's either misinformed or prefer to be ignorant.

finally, i see you post often in both the DO and MD forums...maybe you should stop trolling the allopathic forums :smuggrin:
 
this is an incredibly stupid discussion.
 
MedPR, we appreciate the fact that you're taking a well-deserved vacation, but things don't seem to be working out for the guy(s) you have standing in for you in the interim. It would probably have been wise to ressurect an old account a little later than within a few weeks of being banned, but I'm sure you've got some important reason for doing so.

I'll give you one disadvantage to being a DO that is true: Most DO residencies pay less than most MD ones. FREIDA and AOA Opportunities' respective sites can help you with this. If someone had actually been through the process, he would see this and report it back. As nobody that would have had to go through this process recently has commented on this, I would find it difficult to believe that people posting about being a 4th year are indeed in that position.

I hope that my injection of reality has helped at least open some eyes when I post on subjects that I feel qualified to speak on. I actually spend more time on the Resident and Fellow section and put in my comments where I feel I could add to the discussion, but I usually get the information I need and go do something else. It should be noted that I never go on MD or DO forums putting down MDs or DOs.
 
SurgeDO said:
this is an incredibly stupid discussion.
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Agreed.

IN
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sylvanthus said:
Trust me we try and then when nothing happens we give up so that the school does not retaliate against us in the name of what is considered "professionalism." I told my school I was very disappointed that I had a nurse as a preceptor on surgery. Did they do anything? Nope. We also told them that no one had come out to our rotation site to see how we are doing. Again, nothing.

There is a point where you just stop trying because eventually the school will just try and shut you up and still nothing will be done. You just get exhausted and decide to just graduate and move on.
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Bingo. Towards the end of third year, it starts to sink in that you've set up 4th year aways at quality institutions, you'll be applying and interviewing to residency at those types of places soon, and the day is coming where you'll finally learn what you should and have an appropriate level of responsibility. At that point, you just start to tune out the nonsense happening on your rotations. (Unless you're the type of person who actually stays on at the affiliates for residency; god bless those people, I don't have that kind of patience.)

I will also say that I did have some good rotations third year; it was just extremely variable.
 
skinMD said:
there are multiple posts on this thread agreeing with my point of view. why don't you slander the rest of them? you have no clue what a troll is so stop throwing around the term. i've been posting for 5 years and stumbled on a thread in the DO forum where people like you were peddling lies and fantasy so i decided to inject some reality and straight talk. i'm sorry if your ego is too fragile to handle it. i have talked to many DOs, read SDN and have looked at the match lists carefully...it sounds like you're the one who's either misinformed or prefer to be ignorant.
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There are enough people in the DO forum who are DO students for that, me included. As for the reactions you are getting on this forum, have you ever seen the Chris Rock stand-up, where he talks about the difference between n----rs and black people? When Chris Rock says it, its a dose of reality because he's the same race. If someone other than a black man says it, its not a dose of reality, its offensive. Same with my brother. I can beat up my brother if he's out of line. If someone else beats up my brother for the same behavior, its a whole different story.
 
Oh poop... now you can't go and take away skinMD's right that he's earned to come on here and talk about things he does not know just because he claims to be at an MD school! That's not right... making sense and all I mean. Next you're going to tell me and skin that he's not even entitled to come on here and DO bash? Jeez... :rolleyes:
thepoopologist said:
There are enough people in the DO forum who are DO students for that, me included. As for the reactions you are getting on this forum, have you ever seen the Chris Rock stand-up, where he talks about the difference between n----rs and black people? When Chris Rock says it, its a dose of reality because he's the same race. If someone other than a black man says it, its not a dose of reality, its offensive. Same with my brother. I can beat up my brother if he's out of line. If someone else beats up my brother for the same behavior, its a whole different story.
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Regardless of the underlying validity of my posts if I got mauled every time I came into a forum, I would probably stop coming into it.
 
I'm applying almost exclusively DO as I strongly believe in the holistic approach. DO's can work for organizations such as Doctors without borders. MD's often face just as much scrutiny when attempting to practice Medicine oversea's as DO's. Salary's are the same for both DO's and MD's. The title at the end of your name should not be a deciding factor of where you go to school. I wish this DO/MD debate would end.

When a patient goes in to see a Physician, they don't care what abbreviation is at the end of your name. In modern health care where PA's are picking up a great deal of the work load, anyone that has the time to worry about the abbreviation at the end of their names before they have even applied to med school or even taken the MCAT for that matter should really reevaluate why they want to become a Physician. There are many other jobs in this world that can give you a fancy title without half as much effort. Now will that job or career path make you happy is the real question. DO/MD they are equal; and even with this said, the debate will continue.
 
beBrave said:
Just following the DO Motto!
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Its typically important not to be smug towards residents. They tend to know exponentially more about medicine in all forms than a pre-med will. If one gives you crap about a pre-conceived notion, just assume you messed up somewhere. :thumbup:
 
Pons Asinorum said:
How can you say both the first thing and the second thing, pulled from the same quote?
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This question is clearly a setup but I'm still going to answer it. For all intensive purposes, when someone ask what the disadvantages of going DO are, they really are concerned about the notion of being accepted as a 'real Doctor'; also there are questions about salary, residency's and educational differences. The point is DO and MD educations will cover the same topics with the exception of OMT that is DO exclusive.

MD's will approach the symptom; DO's will take a holistic approach. Neither is incorrect however both can result in different treatment options. The DO still considers the original symptom but only see's it as one part of the puzzle. The MD see's the symptom as the puzzle itself (this isn't a perfect analogy). The point is Allopathic vs Osteopathic are both approaches to Medicine that are recognized equally in medicine.

From my viewpoint, the DO approach allows the Doctor to provide more detailed care to the patient however that is solely my view. I believe that experience ultimately dictates the type of Doctor a person becomes irregardless of what is at the end of their names.

SpecterGT260 said:
Its typically important not to be smug towards residents. They tend to know exponentially more about medicine in all forms than a pre-med will. If one gives you crap about a pre-conceived notion, just assume you messed up somewhere. :thumbup:
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Agreed
 
ITT:

-MD students discussing the disadvantages of DO school.
-DO students discussing the advantages of MD school.
-pre-meds doing what they do.
 
beBrave said:
This question is clearly a setup but I'm still going to answer it. For all intensive purposes, when someone ask what the disadvantages of going DO are, they really are concerned about the notion of being accepted as a 'real Doctor'; also there are questions about salary, residency's and educational differences. The point is DO and MD educations will cover the same topics with the exception of OMT that is DO exclusive.

MD's will approach the symptom; DO's will take a holistic approach. Neither is incorrect however both can result in different treatment options. The DO still considers the original symptom but only see's it as one part of the puzzle. The MD see's the symptom as the puzzle itself (this isn't a perfect analogy). The point is Allopathic vs Osteopathic are both approaches to Medicine that are recognized equally in medicine.

From my viewpoint, the DO approach allows the Doctor to provide more detailed care to the patient however that is solely my view. I believe that experience ultimately dictates the type of Doctor a person becomes irregardless of what is at the end of their names.

Agreed
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I mean, says who really? It's so weird to hear people spout this like it's gospel but as a DO you'd better treat the symptoms and as an MD you'd better treat the whole patient, too. It's ridiculous to think there's really such an appreciable difference.

Btw, it's "for all intents and purposes," not "for all intensive purposes."
 
beBrave said:
This question is clearly a setup but I'm still going to answer it. For all intensive purposes, when someone ask what the disadvantages of going DO are, they really are concerned about the notion of being accepted as a 'real Doctor'; also there are questions about salary, residency's and educational differences. The point is DO and MD educations will cover the same topics with the exception of OMT that is DO exclusive.
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No, they are concerned about things like their ability to match into certain specialties or to specialize through fellowships (which the AOA doesn't really have, btw). The "real doctor" thing is largely a myth among pre-med students. That doesn't mean there arent tangible differences and potential obstacles to one choice vs another.
MD's will approach the symptom; DO's will take a holistic approach. Neither is incorrect however both can result in different treatment options. The DO still considers the original symptom but only see's it as one part of the puzzle. The MD see's the symptom as the puzzle itself (this isn't a perfect analogy). The point is Allopathic vs Osteopathic are both approaches to Medicine that are recognized equally in medicine.
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This, in general is not true. About half of DOs are actually trained (residency) at ACGME programs making the bulk of their clinical training MD in nature.

In many cases, the symptom and the illness are linked in a primary fashion. In others they aren't. MDs are not simply making the symptom better and sending the patient on his or her way. You almost seem to be treating something like chronic pain (about the only ailment that fits this statement) as the bulk of pathology that occurs in humans. It isn't.. There are countless examples out there and when (if) you get a better understanding of medicine and pathophysiology you will see very quickly how little sense this statement makes. This is why you don't see DO students, DO residents, or DOs in general making this claim (except commercially.... but that is a different matter).

From my viewpoint, the DO approach allows the Doctor to provide more detailed care to the patient however that is solely my view. I believe that experience ultimately dictates the type of Doctor a person becomes irregardless of what is at the end of their names.
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These are, again, two conflicting statements. Does practicing OMM make someone more attentive? That is basically the sole difference in training aside from variable differences in clinical clerkship quality. Other than simply re-stating the mantra that you have heard either online or whatever, do you have any real experience that speaks to this difference? and do you even know what the DO approach is?

These questions are rhetorical, btw. You don't seem to have any of these things, but you should spend some time thinking critically about why I would ask.
 
beBrave said:
MD's will approach the symptom; DO's will take a holistic approach.
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Let's replace "holistic" with "thorough within their scope of practice"

This is not necessarily a difference in approach between degrees but a difference in approach between a good doc and a bad one. A good one will have a decent foundation of knowledge (i.e. concepts and factoids memorized from the first two years) and take the time to think through a problem ( i.e. apply those concepts and factoids to a new situation) and will consider many possibilities on the basis of presentation, history, labs, and imaging and rule each possibility out one by one. The bad one will not think. They will look at something and will punt it to someone "smarter" (i.e. a hospitalist who consults ID to manage a UTI) or they'll do something that sort of makes sense without really thinking it through (i.e. Vitamin K to an end stage liver patient bleeding everywhere) or dismiss something as not important without r/o a serious possibility (i.e. New inpatient tells doc they have a hx of psychogenic "seizures." Doc sends them on their way without ordering an EEG).

These aren't differences relegated to the degree a person has. The two being equally intelligent, one will do the lazy thing while the other is thorough and attentive detail. The two being unequally intelligent, one thinks through the pathophysiology while the other looks at the symptoms, comes up with a tidy diagnosis and gives the medications that are supposed to go with the diagnosis. DO's learn OMM which has no ****ing place in the hospital and definitely has nothing to do with the thinking process involved. Otherwise, the educations are relatively the same, give or take some rotations. So what separates the chicken **** from the chicken sandwich? It's a very individual effort, highly dependent on the approach you take to learning. Will you memorize and regurgitate? Or will you memorize and apply? Or can you do both?

I'm still trying to get there because I get lazy sometimes or will have no interest at all in some cases, but that's what I think.
 
thepoopologist said:
This is not necessarily a difference in approach between degrees but a difference in approach between a good doc and a bad one.
Click to expand...

Exactly.
And I should point out that "D.O." and "bad" both have a "d" in them, indicating that DO is the inferior choice.

Alternatively, "M.D." and "good" both end in "d", indicating MD as the superior choice.

Seriously... this is how the "DOs are more holistic" argument sounds to anyone who has stepped foot within a medical school of either flavor as a medical student. Its just so.... ignorant about what it takes to diagnose and treat someone for even routine things.
 
beBrave said:
This question is clearly a setup but I'm still going to answer it. For all intensive purposes, when someone ask what the disadvantages of going DO are, they really are concerned about the notion of being accepted as a 'real Doctor'; also there are questions about salary, residency's and educational differences. The point is DO and MD educations will cover the same topics with the exception of OMT that is DO exclusive.

MD's will approach the symptom; DO's will take a holistic approach. Neither is incorrect however both can result in different treatment options. The DO still considers the original symptom but only see's it as one part of the puzzle. The MD see's the symptom as the puzzle itself (this isn't a perfect analogy). The point is Allopathic vs Osteopathic are both approaches to Medicine that are recognized equally in medicine.

From my viewpoint, the DO approach allows the Doctor to provide more detailed care to the patient however that is solely my view. I believe that experience ultimately dictates the type of Doctor a person becomes irregardless of what is at the end of their names.
Click to expand...

Internally inconsistent argument is internally inconsistent. Either DO and MD are different, or they aren't. I don't think they are in any way that you can't apply to the differences between different MD programs or different DO programs. OMT - yeah, the week or so that that is taught at most DO programs isn't really a difference. Good programs have good match lists, weaker programs have worse match lists, MD or DO. That is the difference that all the arguing is really about.
 
Dr Dazzle said:
I have created a monster
Click to expand...

What, exactly, did you think was going to happen when you followed the clicking of the new thread button with typing the words "do disadvantages"? These threads always turn into ****fits, even though most (like this one) have some great insight buried deep inside.
 
Pons Asinorum said:
What, exactly, did you think was going to happen when you followed the clicking of the new thread button with typing the words "do disadvantages"? These threads always turn into ****fits, even though most (like this one) have some great insight buried deep inside.
Click to expand...

Exactly. That deep insight was worth it IMO. Learned quite a bit.
 
beBrave said:
This question is clearly a setup but I'm still going to answer it. For all intensive purposes, when someone ask what the disadvantages of going DO are, they really are concerned about the notion of being accepted as a 'real Doctor'; also there are questions about salary, residency's and educational differences. The point is DO and MD educations will cover the same topics with the exception of OMT that is DO exclusive.

MD's will approach the symptom; DO's will take a holistic approach. Neither is incorrect however both can result in different treatment options. The DO still considers the original symptom but only see's it as one part of the puzzle. The MD see's the symptom as the puzzle itself (this isn't a perfect analogy). The point is Allopathic vs Osteopathic are both approaches to Medicine that are recognized equally in medicine.

From my viewpoint, the DO approach allows the Doctor to provide more detailed care to the patient however that is solely my view. I believe that experience ultimately dictates the type of Doctor a person becomes irregardless of what is at the end of their names.



Agreed
Click to expand...


Where and how does this damn misconception keep spreading? Seriously, I want to find the origin of this and slap the **** out of the person.

You are a premed and absolutely incorrect about the above and this is coming from a soon to be DO.
 
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