AOA and ACGME merge!!

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Imnotfromjersey said:
long post, but sadly this is all based on a faulty assumption that top programs would consider top DO applicants the same as MD applicants. This is just not true. I've been told by an ENT resident first-hand that they just filter all DO/IMG applications out without even looking at their file.

You can also see that policy posted on NYU's IM program.
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Wow. Word for word "we do not accept DO graduates.". I wonder why? Is that just PD specific? And I wonder if that policy will get nixed following the merger completion.
 
Imnotfromjersey said:
long post, but sadly this is all based on a faulty assumption that top programs would consider top DO applicants the same as MD applicants. This is just not true. I've been told by an ENT resident first-hand that they just filter all DO/IMG applications out without even looking at their file.

You can also see that policy posted on NYU's IM program.
Click to expand...

If you actually read my post you would see that I did say competitive programs currently don't consider DO applicants, but i suggested that it's mostly because of objective reasons, ie they won't have had the research opportunities or equivalent letters even if they had the numbers -- you never have to get to the degree. I've seen this play out in real life from the residency side. So I'm not sure how that's a faulty assumption. Anyhow, after the merger, the blanket "No DO need apply" signs will have to come down. But the analysis won't change -- for the competitive residency the guy doing lots of valuable research with letters from the big wigs in the field will still have an edge, even ignoring the degree. So I'd say things won't change for the competitive field in the short term. The DO won't get filtered out for being DO. But he will get filtered out for not having the same opportunities to accomplish certain things during med school. It's less discriminatory but won't help that guy with dreams of Derm.
 
Just want to point out that the AOA ACGME merge is not always a good thing for DO students. It probably depends on the new leadership and dynamics. For instance, Cook County's neurosurgery residency (affiliated with CCOM) just underwent the merger and no longer is open to DOs.
 
JimmyB123 said:
Just want to point out that the AOA ACGME merge is not always a good thing for DO students. It probably depends on the new leadership and dynamics. For instance, Cook County's neurosurgery residency (affiliated with CCOM) just underwent the merger and no longer is open to DOs.
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What do you mean "no longer open to DO's"......If it was a affiliated with CCOM why would they do that. And second, even if it is now fully merged they have to be open to both technically right? At least on paper.
 
JimmyB123 said:
Yeah, I think it's safe to say the residency website is more accurate than a single poster on SDN. Glad it's not true, even though I don't have a remote interest in NSurg or could ever handle that lifestyle hah
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Now I'm even more confused but looks like to me they went ACGME before the merger.....and now will reopen to DO's once 2015 allows it. I mean good for them, looks like they were ahead of the game and wanted to get ACGME status for whatever reason even before all these shenanigans began
 
meliora27 said:
"Applicants to Tulane must be graduates from AAMC-accredited US medical schools"

http://www.tulanemedicine.com/contact.html

Not sure other depts, this is from Internal Med
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Ya for now until the merger is complete. But to me, this would be a school I would just simply not apply too, because they obviously have admin that prefer Allopathic residents which is still going to be up to the PCs, etc.
 
AnonymousD.O. said:
Ya for now until the merger is complete. But to me, this would be a school I would just simply not apply too, because they obviously have admin that prefer Allopathic residents which is still going to be up to the PCs, etc.
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@AnonymousD.O. , you're probably right however I think the bigger issue for AACOM to answer it it's students is what about the education offered at their schools is deemed unworthy of being considered for residency at a program.
 
meliora27 said:
@AnonymousD.O. , you're probably right however I think the bigger issue for AACOM to answer it it's students is what about the education offered at their schools is deemed unworthy of being considered for residency at a program.
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I completely agree. It's the one million dollar question isn't it
 
meliora27 said:
"Applicants to Tulane must be graduates from AAMC-accredited US medical schools"

http://www.tulanemedicine.com/contact.html

Not sure other depts, this is from Internal Med
Click to expand...

A PCOM-GA student JUST matched Tulane NSurg, last year I believe. Probably department dependent when it comes to good ole Tulane.

It does make you question though why there are such stark differences among departments under the same umbrella. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, to me
 
AnonymousD.O. said:
Now I'm even more confused but looks like to me they went ACGME before the merger.....and now will reopen to DO's once 2015 allows it. I mean good for them, looks like they were ahead of the game and wanted to get ACGME status for whatever reason even before all these shenanigans began
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..yeah that doesn't sound all that good for DOs. Oh well. It's brain surgery.
 
meliora27 said:
"Applicants to Tulane must be graduates from AAMC-accredited US medical schools"

http://www.tulanemedicine.com/contact.html

Not sure other depts, this is from Internal Med
Click to expand...

Yeahhh I mean it's expected but it's nice to know that the merger will (maybe hopefully) clear things up for us. Sad though cuz I've always wanted to go to NOLA, there's already LSU!
 
JimmyB123 said:
A PCOM-GA student JUST matched Tulane NSurg, last year I believe. Probably department dependent when it comes to good ole Tulane.

It does make you question though why there are such stark differences among departments under the same umbrella. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, to me
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Because again it depends on the program coordinators in that specific department. The program coordinators get the final say, and despite the Merger they can choose as they wish. It's very possible that the IM Program Coordinator wishes to not accept D.O. students for whatever reason, while the Program Coordinator for the Neurosurg Department admits D.Os and M.D.s equally.

Most schools are seeing a school wide transition to accepting more D.O.s (and you can see this by flipping through their acceptances in different programs over the past few years) but it isn't always the case. Some Program Coordinators will still be very biased (if that's even the right adjective)
 
JimmyB123 said:
..yeah that doesn't sound all that good for DOs. Oh well. It's brain surgery.
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Ya I mean who knows why they wanted ACGME so early. It could've been for a lot of reasons other than just not wanting DOs.

I don't think NeuroSurg is a good specialty to judge the acceptance of DOs by because lets face it, whether MD or DO all that really matters for NeuroSurge is Scoring a 3 billion on the boards
 
Law2Doc said:
If you actually read my post you would see that I did say competitive programs currently don't consider DO applicants, but i suggested that it's mostly because of objective reasons, ie they won't have had the research opportunities or equivalent letters even if they had the numbers -- you never have to get to the degree. I've seen this play out in real life from the residency side. So I'm not sure how that's a faulty assumption. Anyhow, after the merger, the blanket "No DO need apply" signs will have to come down. But the analysis won't change -- for the competitive residency the guy doing lots of valuable research with letters from the big wigs in the field will still have an edge, even ignoring the degree. So I'd say things won't change for the competitive field in the short term. The DO won't get filtered out for being DO. But he will get filtered out for not having the same opportunities to accomplish certain things during med school. It's less discriminatory but won't help that guy with dreams of Derm.
Click to expand...

There is nothing keeping from a touro-ny student from being able to walk into any of the Manhattan hospitals and fill in for the huge shortage of med students willing to do free research.

Michigan state, Ohio U, Nova south eastern, touro ny, nycom, etc are all DO schools in metropolitan cities AND have huge hospitals attached to them. Each one graduates ~200 students per year, which makes for a total of 1000. Out of that 1000 they usually have 1 derm match, and 1 rad onc match.

One single low-tier allopathic program with a gpa/mcat on the same level and less research opportunities produces more matches into derm, ophtho, plastics than all those DO schools combined. Look at SIU for example.

The filtering happens right from the get-go because of the degree.
 
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Imnotfromjersey said:
There is nothing keeping from a touro-ny student from being able to walk into any of the Manhattan hospitals and fill in for the huge shortage of med students willing to do free research...]
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Maybe there's nothing stopping them, but they aren't doing it. The PDs on here can tell you with more authority than me, but if you look at the CVs and letters for certain specialties the differences between thise coming from MD and DO applicants are like night and day. And that's going to be a totally legitimate source of discrimination even after the merger.
 
AnonymousD.O. said:
Because again it depends on the program coordinators in that specific department. The program coordinators get the final say, and despite the Merger they can choose as they wish. It's very possible that the IM Program Coordinator wishes to not accept D.O. students for whatever reason, while the Program Coordinator for the Neurosurg Department admits D.Os and M.D.s equally.

Most schools are seeing a school wide transition to accepting more D.O.s (and you can see this by flipping through their acceptances in different programs over the past few years) but it isn't always the case. Some Program Coordinators will still be very biased (if that's even the right adjective)
Click to expand...

Programs coordinators get essentially zero say as to who matches, unless one of the applicants was super rude to them or something on interview day or via emails/phone calls.
 
Law2Doc said:
Maybe there's nothing stopping them, but they aren't doing it. The PDs on here can tell you with more authority than me, but if you look at the CVs and letters for certain specialties the differences between thise coming from MD and DO applicants are like night and day. And that's going to be a totally legitimate source of discrimination even after the merger.
Click to expand...
Ya there's no question that research needs to be emphasized more on the D.O. side of things.
southernIM said:
I think they meant program directors
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Yes thanks
 
AnonymousD.O. said:
Ya there's no question that research needs to be emphasized more on the D.O. side of things.
Click to expand...

I believe most DO schools are trying to push people into family practice or other PCP roles. Getting students involved with research would be counter-productive to that angle. Same with some of the newer USMD schools that have been opening up recently. They don't have the same research opportunities the Harvards of the world do, so they can't reliably send a huge proportion of their student population to ultra-competitive specialties.
 
I have been told that DOs have a hard time applying to a competitive MD residency. Does this merger mean that both MD and DO are going to have equal shot at a competitive residency?
 
yellowbluegreen said:
I have been told that DOs have a hard time applying to a competitive MD residency. Does this merger mean that both MD and DO are going to have equal shot at a competitive residency?
Click to expand...
hahaha-no.gif
 
The degree-MD or DO- means nothing. The individual means everything. I work with both in my hospital, and I forget who is who. But I never forget who comes through for me when I'm in a jam and my patient needs help.
 
yellowbluegreen said:
I have been told that DOs have a hard time applying to a competitive MD residency. Does this merger mean that both MD and DO are going to have equal shot at a competitive residency?
Click to expand...

For the nearly foreseeable future, likely not much change. As many of the previous posters in this thread have mentioned, these residencies may have to accept DO applicants on paper, but that doesn't change the mind of the PDs who ultimately make the decision. As time goes on and the old guard moves out however, I could see applicants being considered more on equal grounds considering their credentials are comparable(research, publication, board scores, etc). I'm a DO student, but I also try to be realistic in accepting that certain prejudices will still exist for a while, regardless of merger changes. On the flip side, becoming acquainted with some of the residency directors at my school, there will likely be prejudice on the DO side as well in primary care residencies until our old guard moves on. Too bad those are the less competitive/desirable residencies 😵.
To look on the bright side though, just work your butt off, rock your boards, make realistic goals for residency programs and you'll be just fine. There are plenty of good quality residencies(ACGME especially), that aren't in nowhere Oklahoma, that you can reasonably shoot for(granted ENT/Derm/Plastics would likely have to apply big city DO)
 
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AlteredScale said:
Wow. Word for word "we do not accept DO graduates.". I wonder why? Is that just PD specific? And I wonder if that policy will get nixed following the merger completion.
Click to expand...
I am not sure this is true but I was told by an attending that he had a student rotating once, only a couple years ago, as a fourth year who wasn't doing as well, and upon questioning, he found out that the student had never done an inpatient rotation before. He was shocked because he didn't think it was possible - and it wouldn't be possible to be applying to residency from an LCME school without having done a single inpatient rotation. He said if he were a PD (he isn't), he wouldn't really look at DO students for residency because he couldn't be sure for something like that.

My guess is that this statement isn't true and there was some misunderstanding. But I think some people still believe stuff like that. I think as the schools move forward, myths like this will be dispelled.

I am not applying to particularly competitive specialty but four out of my top six choices have never taken a DO student, though they don't advertise any 'official' policy like the NYU IM program does. I think people ought to be judged on thee.ir merits, and hopefully this will change.
 
PhotinoBird said:
I am not sure this is true but I was told by an attending that he had a student rotating once, only a couple years ago, as a fourth year who wasn't doing as well, and upon questioning, he found out that the student had never done an inpatient rotation before. He was shocked because he didn't think it was possible - and it wouldn't be possible to be applying to residency from an LCME school without having done a single inpatient rotation. He said if he were a PD (he isn't), he wouldn't really look at DO students for residency because he couldn't be sure for something like that.

My guess is that this statement isn't true and there was some misunderstanding. But I think some people still believe stuff like that. I think as the schools move forward, myths like this will be dispelled.

I am not applying to particularly competitive specialty but four out of my top six choices have never taken a DO student, though they don't advertise any 'official' policy like the NYU IM program does. I think people ought to be judged on thee.ir merits, and hopefully this will change.
Click to expand...

When filtering out thousands of applications to figure out who to interview, an easy way to decrease the chance of matching someone with notably weak core clinical rotations is to select "MD only."

That's not to say some MD applicants won't have had weak clinicals. But, anecdotally (and absolutely from what I observed as an intern with DO students working under me), the quality of some DO rotations is frightening.
 
PhotinoBird said:
I am not sure this is true but I was told by an attending that he had a student rotating once, only a couple years ago, as a fourth year who wasn't doing as well, and upon questioning, he found out that the student had never done an inpatient rotation before. He was shocked because he didn't think it was possible - and it wouldn't be possible to be applying to residency from an LCME school without having done a single inpatient rotation. He said if he were a PD (he isn't), he wouldn't really look at DO students for residency because he couldn't be sure for something like that.

My guess is that this statement isn't true and there was some misunderstanding. But I think some people still believe stuff like that. I think as the schools move forward, myths like this will be dispelled.

I am not applying to particularly competitive specialty but four out of my top six choices have never taken a DO student, though they don't advertise any 'official' policy like the NYU IM program does. I think people ought to be judged on thee.ir merits, and hopefully this will change.
Click to expand...
My bet is that they had done inpatient rotations previously, but at a hospital that didn't have residencies, so they had no clue how to function in a facility that had residents. It's impossible for a DO student to have zero inpatient rotations that far into their residency.
 
PhotinoBird said:
I am not sure this is true but I was told by an attending that he had a student rotating once, only a couple years ago, as a fourth year who wasn't doing as well, and upon questioning, he found out that the student had never done an inpatient rotation before. He was shocked because he didn't think it was possible - and it wouldn't be possible to be applying to residency from an LCME school without having done a single inpatient rotation. He said if he were a PD (he isn't), he wouldn't really look at DO students for residency because he couldn't be sure for something like that.

My guess is that this statement isn't true and there was some misunderstanding. But I think some people still believe stuff like that. I think as the schools move forward, myths like this will be dispelled.

I am not applying to particularly competitive specialty but four out of my top six choices have never taken a DO student, though they don't advertise any 'official' policy like the NYU IM program does. I think people ought to be judged on thee.ir merits, and hopefully this will change.
Click to expand...

In a sense they are being judged on their merits. The person that gets into an MD school but chooses to go the DO route is extremely rare - so much so as to essentially not be worth considering. Yes, it's judging on the merits of past performance - and you can disagree as to whether that's valuable or not - but there are certainly some within academic that place value on that history.
 
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