Not to mention since the average admitted MCAT to DO is north of 60th percentile and MD is right at 508-510, I think the statement about being better than 90% of MD and DO applicants might be just a 'bit off.' Thats okay, OP will have 4 years to figure that mistake out. Maybe she can take over the family's chiropractoring office after her OMM residency?
Last time I checked my 507 was 76th percentile and a 509 is 82nd percentile.
yes, thank you!
While you are certainly allowed to believe what you want, you have plenty of actual current DO 4ths years even in this thread telling you reality tho. Going DO over MD when you want to do something other than peds, community IM or FM is basically just making your life harder for no reason if its realistic for you to get into MD (although that ship has sailed for you this year, and I understand not wanting to delay).
Some DO schools have policies which do not enable their students to succeed, for example having artificial early deadlines on board exams and minimal actual board dedicated time. In the interview they will claim 6 weeks of dedicated when there are really only 2 weeks that don't have classes running in them.
https://www.aamc.org/download/457506/data/percentileranksineffectmay12016toapril302017.pdf
This is very program dependent. The program directors affiliated with my school are all DOs and stated that they have no intentions of taking MDs over qualified DOs. Ortho PD state they have an OMM requirement as a way of saying "thanks, but no thanks" to MD applicants (his words). Also a lot of AOA programs that had ACGME cred participated in BOTH matches and took their DOs in the AOA match and MDs in the ACGME match. So the match rates are not reflective of that aspect even though the DO matched into an ACGME accred program just in the AOA match.
Well, NP/PA are saving lives 🙄
Many have sound the alarm when news about the merger was floating around... But some weird reason(s), the above average DO students thought it would be a good thing. I think people tend to be selfish. Therefore, they forgot the other 75% of their classmen who won't be able to compete with MD students.
It is a good thing... tell me why for a competitive specialty, applicants should have to choose between entering the earlier but safer DO match, or really gunning for their number one spot in the MD match. The answer for everyone in this situation is that if there was one match, people could apply to their reach program AND their backup community program without having to play the odds of an outdated match system. There’s plenty of family med spots to go around. So much of the whole med school problem is complaining about what you’ve been given instead of embracing it. Without a unified match, former DO residency graduates would have been unable to match into ACGME fellowships in the future. This is a huge deal. It sucks to be those of us in this transition period, but it is highly necessary and, quite frankly, with the crying everyone does on here about the need for one unified board exam and less omm, should be a relief seeing as how this is the first step in that union as well.
Have you been through the match? I had 6-8 interviews in each match this year and it was hell trying to decide which match to enter. In the end, I played it safe like most DOs do. But I would have been much better off being able to apply to 12-16 contiguous programs rather than 8 in each, since the programs in the MD match are usually much better quality for the specialty I am going into. I got good vibes from the AOA program I matched into, and I think they stand up to ACGME programs pretty well, but I still would have appreciated the ability to apply to all those programs in one match.
But it would have probably been harder for you if those AOA programs were ACGME already because you would be competing with MDs and FMG/IMGs.
What part/ steps do they require? See this matters quite a bit because many DO students take Step 1 but fewer take step 2 and almost none take the CS or step 3. So if they are requiring both step 1 and 2 CK and the CS they are basically making it an MD only club.
Thank you for posting this information.
Eventually it will be a positive, but right now its a negative. DO school currently does not prepare its students for USMLE for the majority of schools. Nor do they give them the resources/time to succeed in many cases. I agree it is better for you as an applicant to have a USMLE, but its bad for current DO students to have it become a requirement. Not everyone can meet that, and quite frankly, they shouldn't have to.
So much for the merger 'forcing everyone to accept COMLEX' looks like that is flying back in AOA's faces. TY for the update.
Great question. Not sure. I would assume Step 1 and Step 2, since Step 3 is taken mostly in residency and thus similarly, COMLEX 3 is just a state licensure requirement.
You think by and large eliminating the possibility of DOs subspecializing would be worth DOs not having to take the USMLE? Am I missing some nuance to the trade-off here?
