your usage of the word "real doctors" referring to the m.d's shows your ignorance toward the osteopathic medical profession. sorry for my being blunt.... but i think you need to do more research on this.
i certainly dont want this thread to turn into a do.vs md forum (it's like beating a dead horse) but d.o's arent necessarily "second-class" physicians. here are some facts:
1. only 6% of the total population of physicians in the U.S are D.O's; hence, d.o's are not as populous and less attention has been given.
2. there are only 23 d.o schools in the country vs. about 130 m.d schools, hence the "minority" status.
3. what the hell is an md anyway? i've known ga-zillions of fmgs with md's and we sure dont know how or where these folks got their medical education from; all we know is that they passed their ecmfg and did allopathic residency here; fact- d.o schools have to maintain the same standards of medical education as m.d schools in accordance to the flexner report and a lot of d.o's crossover to allopathic residency; a lot of m.d's i know got m.b.b.s or something like that and when they completed their allopathic residency, changed to use the m.d title; d.o's cant/dont do it due to political reasons.
4. d.o's arent necessarily m.d rejects; m.d schools like to play the numbers game and it weights heavily on admissions whereas d.o schools look more on the candidate's overall qualities (i guess they are holistic all the way, baby!); this explains the higher mcat and gpa numbers on m.d schools; a know a lot of d.o's go on to become chief residents in allopathic residencies because of their good overall qualities; the trend is changing though- numbers for d.o schools are climbing rapidly because more and more people are aware of their existence. so, ok- how about this....an m.d school here in the u.s has averages mcat of 7.5 and gpa of 3.1 as compared to the school i'm going (avgs. mcat is 9 and gpa is 3.4).... m.d still superior?
5. i'm from the south, not just the south- deep south (alabama) and there are not a whole lot of d.o's here but i was surprise that all the m.d's that i've shadowed and known has nothing but good things to say about the d.o's; one m.d's daughter actually is an M1 now in a d.o school; another m.d told me it's like dmd vs. dds- that it's all in the name; another md told me that the strongest critics of d.o's come from....the d.o's themselves! my preceptor (an m.d) has 4 d.o's in his group of 21 er physicians and he said "....we have d.o's in our group and they are excellent physicians, if not better than some m.d's i know....".
my own experience: i'm still considered a foreign student because of the long daggone wait for my permanent residency here in alabama; on my mcat, i made (ps = 11, vr = 6, bs = 10) and overall gpa of 3.32 (science gpa is 3.67). i've a b.s and m.s in electrical engineering and registered more than 1000 voluntering in the community (both health related and non-health related). the admissions director told me that had i been a resident of alabama, i would be a shoo-in (provided i do well in my interviews) but he couldnt grant me an interview due to my out-of-state status; i know a lot of people with lower scores than what i got and got in because they are in-state residents.
my point is, i'm going to a d.o school- not because i've low scores, but because there's an open opportunity for me there (most d.o schools are private schools, hence they dont care about residency). i know a girl who made (mcat: ps = 8, vr = 9, bs = 9) and is now a first year in the m.d program. sure her vr is higher than my stoopid looking 6 but as the director of admissions said "....what does a low vr mean to our committee on admissions, what, you cant read? if you cant read, how did you score an 11 and a 10 on ps and bs? vr then means absolutely nothing."
osteopathic = allopathic + OMM👍
