I also took the liberty of comparing the DO and DPM schedules - with the added advantage that I have taken the majority of these courses. It is an impressive list that Popoy put together, but I think I would do it differently. I would rather start with the similarities, and then look to the differences. To save some typing I'll be doing some cutting and pasting and add my comments rather than quote the whole long list first. That should also make it easier to follow.
First year both take:
1) Anatomy
2) Biochemistry
3) Histology
4) Immunology
5) Psych/Behavioral Med
6) Physiology
7) Microbiology
8) Pathology
9) Physical Diagnosis (The SPAL Lab you were wondering about is part of PD.)
10) Neuroanatomy
(Had this part right. And these are taken together.)
They also both take:
1) BLS (One afternoon – many students are also instructors)
2) Medline (1 ? hour introduction)
Podiatric students take that Osteopathic students DO NOT take:
1) Pod Medicine I
2) Biomechanics I
Osteopathic students take that Podiatry students DO NOT take:
1) OPP ? (I did not see this on the schedule. But I do see that you did not list Intro to Osteopathic Medicine. It might be Osteopathic Principles and Practice. If so contrast this one week course with the 8 weeks for Pod Med I.)
2) Med Humanities and Ethics I (This is the first year that the DPM students are not taking this one. The course curriculum for this has changed twice in the past two years. I think the stuff we should have gotten here is going to be incorporated into Pod Med I. Rumors only.)
3) OMM I (Obviously.)
4) Radiology (This is a weeklong course. The DPMs take a more extensive radiology course in their second year. Podiatry actually uses radiology quite a bit.)
5) Pharmacology (Rather than at the end of the first year, we are taking this at the beginning of the second year. Our class was the first to do it this way. Other than timing, the courses are essentially the same. We take the same end of course SHELF exam as the DOs. We scored higher.)
6) ICCM ? (Also not sure what this one is. From where it is listed I think it might be one of the intro to the library and computer systems type courses. If that is the case, the DPMs take it as well. Probably noticed they didn't list the BLS and Medline course on our schedule either.)
Somehow that doesn't look very different now. The really significant differences are OMM vs. Pod Med/Biomechanics. There are other minor differences, i.e. when we are taking the pharm course etc., but I would just about bet that there are bigger differences between any two DO schools. My point is that we are both taught essentially the same thing. For that matter two students may pick up different amounts from the same courses. Well, lets go take a look at the rest of it.
Second Year Both take:
Hematology
Endocrinology
Renal
GI
Neurology
(As rightly pointed out these courses are given separately for the DOs and DPMs. At first glance on the schedule it appears that the DOs get longer (Therefore must be better and more complete.) courses. You might not have noticed that the DPMs do almost all of their systems courses in the first semester. Lower Limb Anatomy, etc take up the major part of the second. Not sure how it will work with Pod Med II at the same time. During our lower limb course, that is all we did, all day long, all week long for 6+ weeks.) Our systems courses are more compressed opn the calender, but we take only one at a time.
Osteopathic Students take and Podiatric students DO NOT take:
1) Cardio (Pods take a combo Cardio/Resp) (You might also notice that when we are taking our systems courses we are not taking anything else. During our "shorter" courses we are doing that one sytem all day every day. The DOs have a longer time for each system, but they are also taking PD II, OMM II and Medical humanities at the same time.)(Not to say that one way is better than the other - just pointing out a reason for some of the apparent differerence.)
2) Resp
3) Nutrition (Not sure where this went on the schedule. DPMs did take this last year.)
4) Ophthalmology
5) ENT
6) Human Reproduction
7) BRDS BR (I'm not sure what that means) (I do. It is an additional break for Boards. Hmmm, seems I had clinical rotations the same time as my boards.)
8) Neonatology
9) Psychiatry
10) Dermatology (another one of those one week classes. The DPMs have a longer Derm course in their third year.)
11) R.O. (I'm not sure what that stands for either) (Neither am I, maybe Rheum/Ortho – which is included as part of our Pod Med II.)
12) Physical Diagnosis II
13) OMM II
14) Med Humanities and Bioethics
15) Neonat Lab (These labs are brief introductions)
16) Ophth Lab
17) ENT Lab
18) Basic Surgical Skills (Intro to Sterile technique. Quite a few DPM students are helping teach this one.)
19) Intro Clinical Prob Solving I and II
(I took out the ACLS and BLS recert. DPMs have this during the third year. These are going to be things that all of us have to redo every two years from now on. They really are not a big deal.)
Podiatric Students take and osteopathic students DO NOT take:
1) Pharmacology (Pods take this second year instead of first like osteo students) (Right, and we scored higher on the same SHELF exam. There was some talk of moving the Pharm course to the second year for the DOs as well. Since the schedule is out it looks like they decided against it.)
2) Cardio/Resp (Osteo take separately and longer) (Taken over a longer time period, at the same time they are taking other courses. I'm not sure how the actual course hours work out.)
3) Lower Limb Anatomy (Obviously a big one for us. Ask your anatomy profs what they think of this course.)
4) Pod Medicine II (Last year they combined our Rheumatology and Orthopedics course with Pod Med II. Guess that might make our lists look a little shorter.)
5) Pod Surgery (Another big one for us.)
6) Pod Clinical Rotation (Second year includes a summer clinical rotation. For somone else on the list who was asking, this is where we have our first patient contact – other than in the SPAL lab in PD.)
7) Biomechanics II (Yet another important course for us.)
8) Med Research and Writing (This one continues halfway through our third year.)
Looks like the second years really do begin to differ significantly. The third and fourth years for both are made up of a variety of clinical rotations. Most of the DOs are out of town starting at this point. The rest of their education may vary greatly depending on what types of rotations they get. (I'm not sure how much choice they have in setting up their rotations.) For the DPMs most of our third year rotations are local (at least within Iowa). (Hope to have more info on this in the next 2 weeks when we start.) In any case, we are still here for classes. Because of clinics they are not every day after this point. So in addition to what we already had for differences.
Third Year DPMs
OR Protocols
Dermatology
Trauma/Emergency Medicine
Managed Care
Gerontology
Principles and Practices of Pod Medicine
It really is the first year or year and a half, which are pretty much the same. The rest differs, as you might expect. We will have different focuses, but the basic medical education is not all that different.
I hope this better shows what our curriculum is. I think it is interesting to see how similar they are, as well as noting the differences. The differences are important, which is part of what makes each a unique profession. (Also glad to see others trying to understand and appreciate ours.)
For further thought. I suppose when they each finished that first 4 years, the DO might go on for a surgical residency, then orthopedics residency then to a foot and ankle fellowship. What do you think might would be the differences in how that person and a DPM would approach a problem foot? Which spent more time learning learning about foot and ankle problems?