Can anyone tell me why?

[frank51]

Can anyone tell me why a disproportionally large number of D.O doctors in difficult specialties such as Dermatology, and Otolaryn & Facial Plastic Surgery are graduates of A.T. Still University of Health Sciences Kirksville and Des Moines University? Refer to this website.

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[Buckeye(OH)]

Not really sure, but I can guarantee someone is going to come in here and say it's because that is the best school.

My feeling is that, the reason stems from the fact that it is one of the oldest, if not the oldest schools.

 

[PublicEnemy]

http://www.natmatch.com/aoairp/instdirp/osteodir.htm

thats the list of osteopathic residency programs. i would guess location may have a lot to do with your observation, there are surprisingly a fair number of oto/facial plastics residencies in the AOA match, but most of them are located in the midwest, a ton are in michigan, so MSUCOM students and KCOM students because of their rotations in michigan and surrounding midwest states would probably favor those programs and have an edge at them because of audition rotations and LORs from in network attendings. also the schools that have been around longer are obviously going to have more graduates in every specialty.

 

[frank51]

So is it fair to say then that those who attend older schools as opposed to newer schools such as TUCOM-NV, have a better chance of getting into difficult residencies?

 

[Buckeye(OH)]

So is it fair to say then that those who attend older schools as opposed to newer schools such as TUCOM-NV, have a better chance of getting into difficult residencies?

I don't know if it's quite fair to say that, now that I think about it. What it is fair to say, in my opinion, is that reputation does have some role. How large or small that role is, I don't know.

 

[sophiejane]

What if it's just that more people from those schools are actually interested in specializing in those areas? We actually match a lot of people in pathology here at TCOM, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that we have a really strong path department and people develop an interest in it early on. There are also likely more DO specialists in the areas with older DO schools because there are proportionately more DOs in those areas in general. It would follow that students there would have more opportunities to rotate in those specialized areas and consequently would choose to apply for those residencies.

I woudn't assume that there are fewer DOs in "competitive" residencies because they didn't match in them. My guess is that fewer people choose to go to DO schools in the first place who have aspirations to become opthalmologists, etc., which is reflected in fewer DOs in those areas.

Historically, what DO schools have done best is train primary care docs. That is changing somewhat, but it's kind of like salads at McDonalds...a good idea, but may take a while to catch on...

 

[frank51]

What if it's just that more people from those schools are actually interested in specializing in those areas? We actually match a lot of people in pathology here at TCOM, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that we have a really strong path department and people develop an interest in it early on. There are also likely more DO specialists in the areas with older DO schools because there are proportionately more DOs in those areas in general. It would follow that students there would have more opportunities to rotate in those specialized areas and consequently would choose to apply for those residencies.

I woudn't assume that there are fewer DOs in "competitive" residencies because they didn't match in them. My guess is that fewer people choose to go to DO schools in the first place who have aspirations to become opthalmologists, etc., which is reflected in fewer DOs in those areas.

Historically, what DO schools have done best is train primary care docs. That is changing somewhat, but it's kind of like salads at McDonalds...a good idea, but may take a while to catch on...

From what I understand what you're saying is right, there are very few residency programs that are biased toward DOs. I guess it's all about making good grades, and doing your rotations in the speciality that you're interested in.

 

[Docgeorge]

Because they offer an elective course during the summer of their second year called:
OSTEO 69 How to properally preform fellatio on Program Directors.

 

[(nicedream)]

That's easy - because those schools have more graduates in general. Not only will you find more ophthalmologists and dermatologists from KCOM than LECOM, you'll find more family practitioners and internists as well. You're talking about schools that have been graduating students for over a century vs. schools that graduated their first classes less than 10 years ago (around 20,000 doctors vs. 2,000). Of course you won't find ANY graduates listed there from VCOM, TUCOM-NV, LECOM-FL, or PCOM-GA - they haven't graduated ANYBODY yet. Add to this the fact that schools such as PCSOM and WVCOM emphasize primary/rural care.

 

[(nicedream)]

You know, now that I check that search out for myself, I'm not even finding that to be true though. A quick search for both ophtho and derm finds the first 10 doctors alphabetically in each, throughout the country, to be from MSUCOM, NSUCOM, DMUCOM, KCOM, OSUCOM, COMP, UMDNJ, NYCOM, UNECOM, and LECOM - an extremely even distribution. So I'm not sure where the OP even sees what he notes.

 

[medicine1]

When I looked at the website provided, I first looked at critical care-surgery, and pediatric surgery and neither one of them was from Des Moines nor A.T. Still College of Osteopathic Medicine.