AOA settles class action lawsuit

[BorntobeDO?]

Total agreement. It's hokey pokey as hell. I'll be among the first to admit it. But god almighty when explaining DO to people, that's the line that hooks people in literally every time. When I say it, I'm like half hedging myself already too. I'm like, "yadda yadda fully licensed.., with some PT stuff, and there's a philosophical sort of thing I'm not super sure about where we try to see the person as a whole," and people just latch onto it like a bulldog. Because so many people have a, "my doctor was a dingus," story. And it's always followed up by, "i'm really glad to hear you're being trained like that."

That said, it's basically the same line that the nurses use. "heart of a nurse." It's silly, but I genuinely think it works. How high is public trust in nurse?

America's Most And Least Trusted Professions [Infographic]

Per their survey (gallup data), 82% say that nurses have very high honesty and ethical standards. By contrast, 65% of the public thinks the same of medical doctors. I think a part of this **is** the media campaign. Marketing heads make millions of dollars. They wouldn't make that if they couldn't produce results.

To circle back to the rhetoric about the osteopathic philosophy though. Zdogg had that sort of a dilemma with dr. mike. he wanted to hate the dude. But he ended up just being a solid practitioner. there's hokey pokey in the sale, but it's always a very bland sort that never crosses into dr oz level hokey pokey. It's more of like a reaffirmation saying, "hey we care about you as a person." which is stupid if you really think about it, because both MD and DOs care and it shouldn't require saying. But sometimes it does. I rationalize it to myself by comparing it to how you have to robotically say, "i'm sorry to hear that," when someone admits to some sort of hardship. Sometimes just saying it, even if it's fairly artificially programmed into you, means a lot to people.

That said, I was at the AOA HoD for SOMA. And one of the things they were trying to sell us on was basically having us use the rhetoric. There's going to be a lot of us, and if we don't start with, "student doctors who couldn't get into MD schools," we could do a lot for brand imaging. I think they're just looking for a consistent brand that we can all get behind. And is there anything more bland than, "we really do care for our patients."?

This argument is decent only based on appeal to the lowest common denominator (which clearly works vis a vis politics). However, as an organization trying to produce physicians, and as someone who is considered part of this cohert, I would greatly prefer that they at least focus on the many other issues that are far more important to an average DO student (quality of rotation sites, research opportunities and the general perception that 'people only go DO when they can't MD). You are even perpetuating that last one yourself here.

As someone who didn't give two hoots about being a DO vs an MD prior to getting into med school, I really didn't understand the difference like I do now. And I think I am amoung a large cohert of DO students who very much could have been MD (not talking Caribbean) had they not believed the equivalence farce. And the real differences in, at the very least, perceived quality (and if we are honest, actual quality as well) is somewhat amazing. Convincing the general public DO's are the 'friendly docs' is one thing, but convincing our actual peers our equivalence (MD's program directors in particular) is quite a bit more important to the profession as a whole for the long term view of the DO degree.

But even if I ignore all the big picture, in my local picture at my COM I get to see how AOA leadership acts first hand. And its bass ackwards. DO schools have policy after policy that actively hurt many of their students, and certainly don't care about me 'as a whole student' much less a person. Greed and arbitrary 'policies' designed for anything but student success run rampant. I see how the good ol' boys club works, and its not in the favor of us now, why in the world would I believe it is any different at the next level up, where all the leadership at schools generally came from?

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[alprazoslam]

This argument is decent only based on appeal to the lowest common denominator (which clearly works vis a vis politics). However, as an organization trying to produce physicians, and as someone who is considered part of this cohert, I would greatly prefer that they at least focus on the many other issues that are far more important to an average DO student (quality of rotation sites, research opportunities and the general perception that 'people only go DO when they can't MD). You are even perpetuating that last one yourself here.

As someone who didn't give two hoots about being a DO vs an MD prior to getting into med school, I really didn't understand the difference like I do now. And I think I am amoung a large cohert of DO students who very much could have been MD (not talking Caribbean) had they not believed the equivalence farce. And the real differences in, at the very least, perceived quality (and if we are honest, actual quality as well) is somewhat amazing. Convincing the general public DO's are the 'friendly docs' is one thing, but convincing our actual peers our equivalence (MD's program directors in particular) is quite a bit more important to the profession as a whole for the long term view of the DO degree.

But even if I ignore all the big picture, in my local picture at my COM I get to see how AOA leadership acts first hand. And its bass ackwards. DO schools have policy after policy that actively hurt many of their students, and certainly don't care about me 'as a whole student' much less a person. Greed and arbitrary 'policies' designed for anything but student success run rampant. I see how the good ol' boys club works, and its not in the favor of us now, why in the world would I believe it is any different at the next level up, where all the leadership at schools generally came from?

The aoa marketing has sunk to that of mid levels propaganda. “We care more than MD” and “holistic patient centered” and I guess the bone wizard stuff



Even though md schools teach patient centered also so it’s not even really a plus

Lol but part of me thinks can we blame them? I mean it works on the general population. We get salty AF bc we don’t buy it but many in the general population do. Which may be a good thing or just show how lame the general populace is.

I’m going with the second since reality TV exists

 

[BlueBleck]

I would greatly prefer that they at least focus on the many other issues that are far more important to an average DO student (quality of rotation sites, research opportunities and the general perception that 'people only go DO when they can't MD). You are even perpetuating that last one yourself here.

You can do both. As I asked another person, have you looked at how many resources they devote to the media campaign i'm talking about? Versus how much they spend on the things you're talking about? Where's the evidence that there's a mismanagement of resources?

convincing our actual peers our equivalence (MD's program directors in particular) is quite a bit more important to the profession as a whole for the long term view of the DO degree.

I don't necessarily disagree, but neither do I fully agree. On the one hand, yes, it's important to be seen as competent by MDs as well as the public. But on the other hand, the best way to do that is to simply make good physicians and have them be in places to impress big people (e.g. fed advisory committees). There's really only so much that the AOA can do in this regard. But the question of designing a good brand we can all stand behind, that's literally bread and butter profession organization type stuff. The issue I have with a lot of the rhetoric against the AOA in this thread is that it is unfocused and seemingly thoughtless. Or at least my interpretation of them is so. And so that's why i'm digging deeper. Are there aspects of the AOA I was unaware of? Like what did you really think the AOA could do to directly lessen the discrimination among PDs? The reason why I don't buy your argument about moving away from chapman and cranial is as I mentioned before, it is well known that many, if not most, DO students aren't OMM hawks. The line about how we'd be respected if we just stopped teaching chapman or cranial is silly. It's already known that most of us don't respect it.

At its core, i truly believe it's simply a lower tier school sort of a thing. Like how the california states universities (cal states) will never garner the same level of respect as the universities of california (UCs). Now imagine if I said, "if only the cal states didn't have as many english classes or wonky hippie english professors who teach insane things, they would be better respected as cutting edge research institutions." It's almost besides the point. The reason the cal states are less respected for most is because their admissions standards are lower than the UCs. Though I come from a UC, having audited a class before, I can attest that it's actually a pretty high tier educational environment. And for students in the cal state system, they should still be proud of their educational background and not hide behind the bachelor's title. Because even if there's less prestige behind the title, they still are going to achieve a great degree from an actually pretty great institution.

In any case, so for as long as we mint good DOs, the discrimination will lessen. Interestingly enough, one of the strongest forces I've seen towards making headway into the discrimination thing is when an MD has a close relationship with a DO. Consider one of my friends. His bro is going orthopod from a top MD school. If you insult DOs in front of this rising orthopod, who do you think he's going to think of first? This is something that's bound to happen when we open new schools and swell our ranks to capture students that would have otherwise been admitted in a less competitive time.

But even if I ignore all the big picture, in my local picture at my COM I get to see how AOA leadership acts first hand. And its bass ackwards. DO schools have policy after policy that actively hurt many of their students, and certainly don't care about me 'as a whole student' much less a person. Greed and arbitrary 'policies' designed for anything but student success run rampant. I see how the good ol' boys club works, and its not in the favor of us now, why in the world would I believe it is any different at the next level up, where all the leadership at schools generally came from?

I'd love to hear about these specific policies if you're willing to chat about them. I absolutely do not wish to shy from legit critiques of the AOA.

 

[BorntobeDO?]

You can do both. As I asked another person, have you looked at how many resources they devote to the media campaign i'm talking about? Versus how much they spend on the things you're talking about? Where's the evidence that there's a mismanagement of resources?



I don't necessarily disagree, but neither do I fully agree. On the one hand, yes, it's important to be seen as competent by MDs as well as the public. But on the other hand, the best way to do that is to simply make good physicians and have them be in places to impress big people (e.g. fed advisory committees). There's really only so much that the AOA can do in this regard. But the question of designing a good brand we can all stand behind, that's literally bread and butter profession organization type stuff. The issue I have with a lot of the rhetoric against the AOA in this thread is that it is unfocused and seemingly thoughtless. Or at least my interpretation of them is so. And so that's why i'm digging deeper. Are there aspects of the AOA I was unaware of? Like what did you really think the AOA could do to directly lessen the discrimination among PDs? The reason why I don't buy your argument about moving away from chapman and cranial is as I mentioned before, it is well known that many, if not most, DO students aren't OMM hawks. The line about how we'd be respected if we just stopped teaching chapman or cranial is silly. It's already known that most of us don't respect it.

At its core, i truly believe it's simply a lower tier school sort of a thing. Like how the california states universities (cal states) will never garner the same level of respect as the universities of california (UCs). Now imagine if I said, "if only the cal states didn't have as many english classes or wonky hippie english professors who teach insane things, they would be better respected as cutting edge research institutions." It's almost besides the point. The reason the cal states are less respected for most is because their admissions standards are lower than the UCs. Though I come from a UC, having audited a class before, I can attest that it's actually a pretty high tier educational environment. And for students in the cal state system, they should still be proud of their educational background and not hide behind the bachelor's title. Because even if there's less prestige behind the title, they still are going to achieve a great degree from an actually pretty great institution.

In any case, so for as long as we mint good DOs, the discrimination will lessen. Interestingly enough, one of the strongest forces I've seen towards making headway into the discrimination thing is when an MD has a close relationship with a DO. Consider one of my friends. His bro is going orthopod from a top MD school. If you insult DOs in front of this rising orthopod, who do you think he's going to think of first? This is something that's bound to happen when we open new schools and swell our ranks to capture students that would have otherwise been admitted in a less competitive time.



I'd love to hear about these specific policies if you're willing to chat about them. I absolutely do not wish to shy from legit critiques of the AOA.

Just a quick note, I was not the poster advocating for cranial and chatmans points to go away, even tho I don't believe in either.
I would like to go into more detail, and I feel many things at my school have already been brought up in the pros and cons thread (actually it seems like many DO schools have the same issues.) But at this point I am just leaving it be, at some point my novel will be released. So you have that to look forward too