A question for the medical community

[Jbuprepharm]

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I am a pharmacy student with a question about medical degrees. In pharmacy, we all get a PharmD(or however one wishes to abbr. it), but in medicine, there are (as you all know) two degrees, the MD and DO. Now my question is, and it's purely superficial: why are they not a DA and a DO, or both an MD? This might be a stupid question, but it popped into my head earlier and I figured this might be a good place to ask.

Doctor of Medicine = went to allopathic school
Doctor of Osteopathy = went to osteopathic school

Is it just become MDs were around first and they made DO's distinguish themselves? I'm genuinely just curious

 

[njbmd]

Degrees for whatever are more suited for Topics in Healthcare rather than an Allopathic medical school forum. People who are attending allopathic medical schools are getting the MD and theoretical questions about other degrees are better suited for Topics in Healthcase.

 

[cpants]

M.D. = Medicinae Doctor or Medical Doctor
D.O. = Doctor of Osteopathy

It's basically just tradition. MD's came first, and those are the letters they chose. DO's chose to go with their letters. It doesn't really matter.

 

[Miami_med]

Back before the Flexner report and the standardization of medical education in the early 1900s, there were many different "philosophies" of medicine, which was only a marginally scientific discipline at that time. These included the allopathic tradition, the osteopathic tradition, the naturopathic tradition, etc...

As of the 1910s, and the advent of the Flexner report, licensing requirements were standardized according to the allopathic tradition, and the MD degree was the degree awarded to those in the allopathic tradition. Most of the philosophies lost most of their legal power to practice in the US. The DOs managed to maintain most the privelege however. If you think about how limited the practice of NDs (naturopathic tradition) is in the US, you'll realize what happened to everyone else.

As medicine became more scientific, the curricula of both philosophies become progressively more similar. This is of course because science has mostly trumped philosophy as the core of what we do. Today, the only real difference between the training is that DOs learn manipulation (OMM) and MDs do not. The majority of DOs don't use OMM in practice however, making practice comparisons even more similar. The existance of both as seperate degrees largely continues to exist because both traditions have their own societies, often their own boards, their own schools, their own residencies, and even some of their own licensing exams. Allopathic residencies will take many DO grads now, as their training is essentially the same. Osteopathic residencies have not opened the door in the opposite direction. I hope that this helps. If you're looking for a doctor, it's probably mostly irrelevant. If you were just curious, the answer is pure tradition.

 

[Jbuprepharm]

I appreciate the informative posts

and I apologize for the "making" comment, it probably just came across wrong.

My question has been sufficiently answered