5 year MD linkage or 4 year DO school? what should I do?

[iliterallyhateithere]

I got off the WL at 2/4 schools. Both are DO programs. This week I was also offered a linkage opportunity at my state MD school which is invite only for certain candidates that the med school thinks would benefit from it. I am at a cross road and wanted yalls opinion.

MD Pros/Linkage
-11/15 were accepted to the COM, 2 deferred admission and idk about the other 2.
-free of charge, have to get A/B in 3 classes for admission, dont need to retake MCAT.
-Only con is that I have to wait another year (im 25)

DO Pro
-I can start this year

CONS
-far from home in southern states, few people match back into my major midwest city (Which is DO friendly), OMM.

I want to either do IM or Anesthesia. Please advise

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[chilly_md]

Which DO schools are they? I would not recommend new ones that haven't graduated a class or Nova (which has gotten too expensive lately besides their issues with admin)

You have to evaluate yourself whether you'd do well in those courses. It does seem to be a program that is meant to get nearly everyone in it through if there is no need for an MCAT retake and you can get all B's in those 3 classes. Especially if those 3 are spread across the full year.

 

[iliterallyhateithere]

Which DO schools are they? I would not recommend new ones that haven't graduated a class or Nova (which has gotten too expensive lately besides their issues with admin)

You have to evaluate yourself whether you'd do well in those courses. It does seem to be a program that is meant to get nearly everyone in it through if there is no need for an MCAT retake and you can get all B's in those 3 classes. Especially if those 3 are spread across the full year.

William Carey, NOVA, KCU, NYITCOM

 

[iliterallyhateithere]

I know you declined your William Carey spot but for your DO cons it could just be that the students never applied to go to the midwest!

your literally everywhere on sdn.

 

[Goro]

William Carey, NOVA, KCU, NYITCOM

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Going for the MD school's "Prove what you got what it takes" program means losing a year's salary as an attending. It also means that they're not immediately confident in you. The DO schools are. IF you don't get the A/Bs that they want, then you've blown everything. How much are you willing to gamble?

Of these DO schools, I recommend the one with the cheapest tuition. If they're roughly the same, then I rate them as KCU > NYITCOM > WCU > Nova.

 

[chilly_md]

William Carey, NOVA, KCU, NYITCOM

I agree with Goro. KCU and NYIT are fine schools if one of your acceptances is there.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

MD. Keeps far more options open. Based on the most recent match rates, even gas and rads are becoming extremely competitive for DOs

 

[macrophagefanatic]

Tough decision. The linkage program sounds pretty appealing given it’s free and doesnt require an MCAT retake. To me, this comes down to whether or not you back yourself to get at least a B in those classes and contrasting that with having to wait another year to start medical school. MD probably keeps more doors open, so I would probably lean towards that route when adding to the other pros. Think you’ll be in good shape regardless of what you decide, though. Good luck!

 

[Billiam95]

Few things in life are guaranteed, take the sure thing - take your DO acceptance and don't look back.

 

[Angus Avagadro]

Everyone thinks they are going to come into the game and sink a 3 pointer as time runs out. OP has no idea what might happen in that last year. Illness, family emergency, or just a bad day taking a test. I would take the admission at the schools suggested above.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I know we have to keep the name of the MD program anonymous. I am also unsure about the OP's background and mission match to the MD school. Sure, if the OP had no other offers, this transition program would be an excellent choice. On the other hand, if the other two schools can offer the same or better level of student advising and support, I'd go with the sure thing.

 

[emergentmd]

Tough call. Only you can decide what is important and IMO this is a personal choice.

If you are ok with being questioned what a DO is or set on noncompetitive fields, then do DO.

I personally like to take a small perceived risk for a bigger reward, I would go MD without a second thought. I always bet on myself.

 

[Angus Avagadro]

Tough call. Only you can decide what is important and IMO this is a personal choice.

If you are ok with being questioned what a DO is or set on noncompetitive fields, then do DO.

I personally like to take a small perceived risk for a bigger reward, I would go MD without a second thought. I always bet on myself.

I've been asked countless times what a DO is. It never bothered me as I considered it a chance to educate. When I meet a patient at 0630 who has been up sice 0300 and traveled an hour for their open heart surgery, and I'm asked that, I've got about 30 sec to provide a cogent response. I used a baseball analogy. I would say physicians come in 2 flavors. MDs and DOs. Both are complete physicians and represent all specialties. We spend the same time in school, and take the same national boards. MDs are the more traditional physicians and the DOs believe there is a strong relation between your musculoskeletal system and health. Just like the National League and American League in baseball. There are some differences, but in the end it's all baseball. That usually does it. Occasionally, I'm asked to expand. I never had a patient ask for one of my partners to care for them.

 

[emergentmd]

I understand the difference but as you know but competitive residencies still differentiate so it does matter a lot.

 

[Angus Avagadro]

It does matter for competitive residencies. MDs are finding it more difficult to match also. An MD from the U of Toledo probably won't match Harvard IM with a 240 Step 2 score. Why? Well it requires a competitive app for that program and his would not be competitive. Many people don't match competitive residencies because, well, their app isn't competitive and applied to programs where they would be a reach. People who match competetive places are rock stars. Many IMGs in those programs are rock stars in their home country and in ours. If you want to compete, then play better. Otherwise apply to programs where your stats are competitive with their match list. Just because you did your residency or fellowship at a Uni Affiliate or a Community program doesn't mean you won't receive good training. As long as you pass boards in your specialty or sub specialty, you are employable and insurance pays you the same as the guy in the Ivory Tower.

 

[Fluidity of Movement]

It seems like everyone who has the shiny badges under their name are telling you take the DO, while everyone else is saying take the MD.

Not making any assertions here, just pointing this out for clarity.

 

[eigen]

I understand the difference but as you know but competitive residencies still differentiate so it does matter a lot.

I'd be interested if you could provide some data to back this assertion? I hear it stated a lot but not with much data to back it up. Especially something that points to causal rather than correlational relationships.

 

[LloydChristmasMD]

Why did you apply to DO schools? My guess is because you wanted to become a physician, and had a decent amount of self-reflection that led you to believe that those schools might be your only shot.

You now have that shot.

 

[Med Ed]

I got off the WL at 2/4 schools. Both are DO programs. This week I was also offered a linkage opportunity at my state MD school which is invite only for certain candidates that the med school thinks would benefit from it. I am at a cross road and wanted yalls opinion.

MD Pros/Linkage
-11/15 were accepted to the COM, 2 deferred admission and idk about the other 2.
-free of charge, have to get A/B in 3 classes for admission, dont need to retake MCAT.
-Only con is that I have to wait another year (im 25)

DO Pro
-I can start this year

CONS
-far from home in southern states, few people match back into my major midwest city (Which is DO friendly), OMM.

I want to either do IM or Anesthesia. Please advise

Can you contrast the clinical education opportunities at the MD school versus the DO schools?

 

[iliterallyhateithere]

It does matter for competitive residencies. MDs are finding it more difficult to match also. An MD from the U of Toledo probably won't match Harvard IM with a 240 Step 2 score. Why? Well it requires a competitive app for that program and his would not be competitive. Many people don't match competitive residencies because, well, their app isn't competitive and applied to programs where they would be a reach. People who match competetive places are rock stars. Many IMGs in those programs are rock stars in their home country and in ours. If you want to compete, then play better. Otherwise apply to programs where your stats are competitive with their match list. Just because you did your residency or fellowship at a Uni Affiliate or a Community program doesn't mean you won't receive good training. As long as you pass boards in your specialty or sub specialty, you are employable and insurance pays you the same as the guy in the Ivory Tower.

I agree with your statement! I am NOT trying to match into Harvard of Yale or Northwestern. I have no intentions of going into academic medicine either. I am aiming for IM, EM or Anesthesia. I will prepare ahead of time to make sure I am a good applicant for programs. My state is DO friendly and there are multiple programs accept DO students in all three categories (Except the T10 schools)

 

[iliterallyhateithere]

Can you contrast the clinical education opportunities at the MD school versus the DO schools?

there is none except the DO school teaches you OMM (osteopathic manipulation) which is one lab a week. other than that everything else is similar to the MD curriculum.

 

[Angus Avagadro]

I agree with your statement! I am NOT trying to match into Harvard of Yale or Northwestern. I have no intentions of going into academic medicine either. I am aiming for IM, EM or Anesthesia. I will prepare ahead of time to make sure I am a good applicant for programs. My state is DO friendly and there are multiple programs accept DO students in all three categories (Except the T10 schools)

The Match Game is rapidly evolving and getting more competetive. Keep an eye on SDN, follow Charting Outcomes for match data, and check on residencies match data to see if you're competitive. Don't be afraid to target a program you believe might be a good fit and audition there. Show up early, stay late, make them chase you out of the OR. The OR is a small community where hard work and the ability to get along matters. PD surveys are published and note what PDs believe is important for a candidate. Good luck and best wishes!

 

[Med Ed]

there is none except the DO school teaches you OMM (osteopathic manipulation) which is one lab a week. other than that everything else is similar to the MD curriculum.

Let me rephrase the question.

What is the clinical education curriculum like at the MD school versus the DO schools? Do the schools have their own hospital systems? Do they sponsor GME programs? How much inpatient versus outpatient experience is there in the third year? How many clinical departments and faculty do each school have?

 

[theoceanman]

Take the DO acceptance as it guarantees your acceptance (obviously) and just work hard to match into the specialty that you desire. Your current specialty interests are very much achievable as a DO if you put in the effort, albeit EM should be questioned for your own sake (refer to the whole EM debacle thread on SDN for reasons why).

 

[Kardio]

I'd be interested if you could provide some data to back this assertion? I hear it stated a lot but not with much data to back it up. Especially something that points to causal rather than correlational relationships.

Causality is very hard to demonstrate short of directly asking PDs "Do you regularly interview and rank lesser-qualified USMD Seniors over USDO Seniors?" To my knowledge, that question has never been asked in a way that would be universally satisfying. It also borders on politically incorrect - DO orgs will occasionally set their sites on institutions that explicitly state "DOs need not apply."

Much of the 9% of PDs who "Never" interview USDO Seniors is secondary to explainable factors (the tail end of the USMD/USDO bell curves, lack of USMLE, research and connections differences between the schools, etc.). But - it's hard to argue that some of it isn't direct bias.

https://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/2021-PD-Survey-Report-for-WWW.pdf

This isn't to say OP shouldn't go to DO school. I'm a 4th year DO student and generally happy with my experience (and I expect some of the schools on OPs list would offer a decent clinical rotation experience). Just to say that it's much better to make this decision with eyes wide open - to enter DO school with the expectation that some (small number of) doors are closing.

I was well aware of the landscape when I applied to DO schools. The outcome was acceptable to me then and it remains acceptable to me now. But if I entered school thinking that my pedigree would be wholly inconsequential, I would be a much less satisfied residency applicant.

 

[Angus Avagadro]

You don't have to argue there is some direct bias because there is. Some PDs won't interview DOs as they one, believe it diminishes the reputation of the program. And two, I have had personal communications with colleagues over the years and their attitude is it's not their job to train DOs. This was all pre ACGME merger and I'm sure there is less bias now, but some still exists. I believe the next PD survey will show the interviewing of DO candidates will increase.

 

[EthylMethylMan]

If you’re really confident you don’t want to do derm or a surgical sub, you should just go DO. That one-year difference costs you one year of attending salary, not worth it if the only difference is going to be the letters after your name. If however you haven’t ruled out shooting for a competitive specialty, the extra year might be worth it to keep those doors open. These are hard questions to answer of course since people change their mind a lot once they get to clinical rotations; making this decision as a premed is no easy task.

 

[GoSpursGo]

I got off the WL at 2/4 schools. Both are DO programs. This week I was also offered a linkage opportunity at my state MD school which is invite only for certain candidates that the med school thinks would benefit from it. I am at a cross road and wanted yalls opinion.

MD Pros/Linkage
-11/15 were accepted to the COM, 2 deferred admission and idk about the other 2.
-free of charge, have to get A/B in 3 classes for admission, dont need to retake MCAT.
-Only con is that I have to wait another year (im 25)

DO Pro
-I can start this year

CONS
-far from home in southern states, few people match back into my major midwest city (Which is DO friendly), OMM.

I want to either do IM or Anesthesia. Please advise

Can you define deferred admission? Ie they are also accepted but are just going to start a year later, or they have some additional requirement that they need to satisfy over the next year to get in?

You said the only con is that you have to wait another year... but keep in mind, another con is that either 2/15 (13.3%, or possibly 4/15=26.7%) did NOT get in. The latter is not an inconsequential number! Even 13.3% is nothing to sneeze at... for comparison, the Spurs had roughly the same odds to win the NBA draft lottery this year, and, well, that happened While in that case I was super happy, I would NOT want the odds to hit and cause you a world of pain. That's the thing about statistics--long odds hit from time to time, but in this case if the long odds hit and not in your favor it's incredibly damaging.

I am naturally a pretty risk-averse person, so unless you have a really good reason for pursuing MD over DO I would take the sure thing which also benefits you with an additional year of attending salary down the line. The odds are still in your favor if you choose to do the linkage, so I can't fault you if you go that route... just do so with the knowledge that you are taking a legitimate risk.

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

I got off the WL at 2/4 schools. Both are DO programs. This week I was also offered a linkage opportunity at my state MD school which is invite only for certain candidates that the med school thinks would benefit from it. I am at a cross road and wanted yalls opinion.

MD Pros/Linkage
-11/15 were accepted to the COM, 2 deferred admission and idk about the other 2.
-free of charge, have to get A/B in 3 classes for admission, dont need to retake MCAT.
-Only con is that I have to wait another year (im 25)

DO Pro
-I can start this year

CONS
-far from home in southern states, few people match back into my major midwest city (Which is DO friendly), OMM.

I want to either do IM or Anesthesia. Please advise

Take the KCU and run. People put too much emphasis on falling in love with something you won't match and regretting DO. The truth is that both MD and DO it's rare to match derm. You also can't fall in love with something you don't rotate in, so don't do ortho or ophtho rotations. Anesthesia and IM are attainable as a DO

 

[Just D.O. it]

I'd be interested if you could provide some data to back this assertion? I hear it stated a lot but not with much data to back it up. Especially something that points to causal rather than correlational relationships.

As medical school faculty, you know there are far too many confounding variables with matching to strictly establish causation. But generally, DOs have much lower match rates in competitive specialties and the average matched DO in those specialties usually has a higher STEP than the average matched MD.

There is almost a consensus on here among the DO faculty that there is a glass ceiling on DO matching. Again this doesn't mean there aren't different opinions on how high it goes, but certainly none of the DO academics posting here have every seriously asserted DO=MD for the match.

There are numerous anecdotal posts from DO surgical subspecialty applicants on how they were limited in their options and invitations compared to their MD counterparts with similar apps.

There are posts from residents in competitive specialties saying that their program director is known to filter out all DO apps.

One of the AMCAS surveys actually asked something along the lines of frequency in ranking and interviewing DO candidates and surprise surprise it wasn't 100% acceptance across the board.

Just to say that it's much better to make this decision with eyes wide open - to enter DO school with the expectation that some (small number of) doors are closing.

I was well aware of the landscape when I applied to DO schools. The outcome was acceptable to me then and it remains acceptable to me now. But if I entered school thinking that my pedigree would be wholly inconsequential, I would be a much less satisfied residency applicant.

As a fellow DO student this is the most sensible advice here. I would personally recommend the DO because to me starting this year is a huge advantage over doing a 1 year program with no real guarantees at the end.

But anesthesiology has gotten quite competitive in recent match cycles with the DO match rate has dropped a significant bit.

If you're interested in IM for one of the more competitive fellowships such as Cardio/Gastro/Onc, just know that the prestige of your residency program plays a big part in your ability to get those. And being a DO will limit your options in getting into well regarded university programs. Not to say it can't be done, just that it would be easier to do as an MD.

 

[DarkHorizon]

What is the contingency for the MD spot? Is it some masters degree with certain GPA that guarantees the admission? Is there any separate interview process, despite completing all the requirements? These are important questions to answer.

 

[elephantmed]

If you decline your DO acceptance and don’t get a spot in the MD school, your chances of becoming a doctor decrease drastically. DO schools will not touch your application again if you deny an A this cycle.

 

[ToKingdomCome]

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Going for the MD school's "Prove what you got what it takes" program means losing a year's salary as an attending. It also means that they're not immediately confident in you. The DO schools are. IF you don't get the A/Bs that they want, then you've blown everything. How much are you willing to gamble?

Of these DO schools, I recommend the one with the cheapest tuition. If they're roughly the same, then I rate them as KCU > NYITCOM > WCU > Nova.

Why is Nova bad

 

[Goro]

Why is Nova bad

They use the "professionalism" bludgeon for any student complaints or suggestions, no matter how valid