Any hospitals that do not acknowledge DOs?

[martin1980]

Hey guys,
I am just curious if any of you happen to know if there any hospitals (across the nation) that do not hire DOs or they don't acknowledge DOs as doctors. I'm actually very surprised when a friend of mine told me that Cedars Sinai Medical Center, which is located in Beverly Hills, CA, hire MDs only.

martin1980

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[James20062]

Don't think so. DO's obtained full practice rights in all 50 states in 1973.

 

[Runtita]

I just counted 4 DOs in the staff directory at Cedars-Sinai; then, I stopped counting...

 

[SM-UCLA tech]

Originally posted by martin1980
Hey guys,
I am just curious if any of you happen to know if there any hospitals (across the nation) that do not hire DOs or they don't acknowledge DOs as doctors. I'm actually very surprised when a friend of mine told me that Cedars Sinai Medical Center, which is located in Beverly Hills, CA, hire MDs only.

martin1980

I'm from los angeles....and several of my close friends are physicians at Cedars.....

that is a bunch of crap that they don't hire DO's.......


Also....DO's are fully licensed physicians....so it would be against the law to not recognize DO's.

 

[Doctor Peloncito]

Originally posted by martin1980
Hey guys,
I am just curious if any of you happen to know if there any hospitals (across the nation) that do not hire DOs or they don't acknowledge DOs as doctors. I'm actually very surprised when a friend of mine told me that Cedars Sinai Medical Center, which is located in Beverly Hills, CA, hire MDs only.

martin1980

That would be illegal actually.

 

[Cowboy DO]

Oh darn. and i reeeeaaally wanted to do a rotation there.

 

[sophiejane]

Originally posted by James20062
Don't think so. DO's obtained full practice rights in all 50 states in 1973.

Actually, I think we just got practice rights in Louisiana (that bastion of progressivism) with in the past year or so. But I am pretty sure that was the 50th state.

 

[Cowboy DO]

No, we've always had practice rights there. They just didnt recognize the comlex until recently.

 

[bigmuny]

LA just recognized the comlex as equivalent to the usmle in regards to licensure. Also, for the most part hospitals don't hire doctors. doctors get "priviledges" at a hospital, which in no way is the same as being an employee(you don't work for the hospital, but at the hospital). they don't care what your degree is.

 

[Doctor Peloncito]

There is a difference between clinical clerkships and employment of fully licenced physicians. If a program does not want to employ a physician because of lack of experience or because of their professional history, that is one thing, but the minute they put a freeze on DOs in general, then they are committing an act of discrimination. DOs are licensed in all 50 states and have all of the same rights MDs. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure they would be opening themselves up to a pretty big lawsuit if a hospital or practice refused to hire DOs.

Many hospitals have doctors on staff. In some places they are employed by the hospital, in other places they are contracted with the hospital. Either way, a hospital cannot discriminate between MDs and DOs, as long as the physician is fully licensed.

 

[LukeWhite]

Originally posted by WannabeDO
Either way, a hospital cannot discriminate between MDs and DOs, as long as the physician is fully licensed.

I suspect this is incorrect. Osteopathic hospitals persisted long after DO's got full practice rights, primarily because they weren't permitted to practice at many allopathic hospitals.

The DO degree isn't some sort of protected status like race or religion. It's a credential, and employers are free to discriminate based on credentials. If they weren't, a Harvard degree wouldn't be particularly useful.

 

[azcomdiddy]

Originally posted by martin1980
Hey guys,
I am just curious if any of you happen to know if there any hospitals (across the nation) that do not hire DOs or they don't acknowledge DOs as doctors. I'm actually very surprised when a friend of mine told me that Cedars Sinai Medical Center, which is located in Beverly Hills, CA, hire MDs only.

martin1980

This is one of those questions

 

[DireWolf]

Originally posted by WannabeDO
That would be illegal actually.

It is not illegal. Some medical schools do not allow osteopathic medical students to do clinical rotations at their hospitals under any circumstances. Also, some private practice physician groups will not hire osteopathic physicians. I have seen physician job ads that specifically say they will not consider DO's. Employers cannot legally discriminate based on "race, sex, color, religion, national or ethnic origin, and sexual orientation." No where does it mention that you cannot discriminate based on degree.

 

[Doctor Peloncito]

Originally posted by DireWolf
It is not illegal. Some medical schools do not allow osteopathic medical students to do clinical rotations at their hospitals under any circumstances. Also, some private practice physician groups will not hire osteopathic physicians. I have seen physician job ads that specifically say they will not consider DO's. Employers cannot legally discriminate based on "race, sex, color, religion, national or ethnic origin, and sexual orientation." No where does it mention that you cannot discriminate based on degree.

Maybe not, as I said, I'm not a lawyer and cannot comment on the law. I do know however that they would be setting themselves up for a pretty big lawsuit if a fully qualified physician with excellent credentials applied for a position in a group and he was turned away simply because he was a DO. I have a family friend who was very anti-DO he runs a very large specialty group in CA. A few years ago, he tried to dissuade me from osteopathic schools because the were "less desirable" and would be less likely to hired into their group. He now has a DO with Ivy League residency training. He's offered me the opportunity to a clerkship with this physician this summer. I will ask my friend, when I see him if it is "legal" to discriminate against DOs in hiring.

 

[DocWagner]

I have just emailed the Hospital of Special Surgery to ask them the above questionn regarding osteopathic students.


I would like to point out that there is open discrimination against MD's that typically wish privileges to be granted at DO hospitals.
As I am a resident in an allopathic hospital in a city where there is a "DO Hospital" it is felt and stated by virtually all MD residents that "they don't allow MD's or allopathic medical students at their hospital".

As for hospital privileges, any and all Physicians who wish to work in a particular hospital must have their privileges granted by the hospital board. The Hospital does not typically hire physicians, but they are fully part of the granting of privileges.

Of course you may not discriminate based upon degree (this is a legal term), but you may be selective based upon training.

 

[bobo]

This issue has been addressed in a previous thread. Unfortunately, discrimination in many forms still exists in certain segments of society. I rotated at a hospital that would not grant privileges to surgeons unless they trained at an ACGME approved program. this is fact. I heard it from a DO fellow as well as from a fellow DO student who was told this directly by the dept. chair. The dept. or hosp. did not discriminate against DO's at all. In fact one of the surgery residents was a DO as was one of the attendings.

bobo

 

[Plinko]

I think cases of discrimination are multfactorial, depending on residency, specialty, completion of USMLE and COMLEX versus COMLEX alone, etc.

I'm no lawyer, so I can't hope to understand this issue from that point of view. But whatever legal recourse that is undertaken undoubtedly would be specific to the state where the suit is brought. Even if such discrimination is illegal, that by no means should suggest that it has a univeral de facto presence throughout the country. With that said, I have heard of several cases of DOs sueing hospitals because they were not getting priveledges despite superior credentials, and subsequently winning their cases. One case worthy of mention occured in Fort Worth at TCOM. TCOM sued the local public hospital in Fort Worth, John Peter Smith Hospital, about a decade ago claiming discrimination by the MDs with regards to residency selection, hospital priveledges, and general hiring practices. TCOM won. Now, a decade later, many of my classmates, including myself, have psych, internal med, and surgery rotations there starting in July. Additionally, many of my profs are on staff there. Particularly amusing is that this very hospital now has a huge sign reading UNT Health Science Center (the parent campus to our school, TCOM) eclipsing the main hospital sign.

 

[Robz]

One case worthy of mention occured in Fort Worth at TCOM. TCOM sued the local public hospital in Fort Worth, John Peter Smith Hospital, about a decade ago claiming discrimination by the MDs with regards to residency selection, hospital priveledges, and general hiring practices.

Mostly what I have heard was suits over 10-15 years ago. I was shadowing a physician that his dad was the first DO in Knoxville in the 70's I believe and he had to sue the hospitals to get admitting rights. Now, no one really bats an eye over it but its interesting to see how legality changes things. I am wondering if there are any recent suits like this.