Chiro Influence?

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yes2es

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Just wondering, how absolutely terrible would it be to say that I have an interest in D.O. because of an original interest in chiropractic? It didn't take long to realize that chiropractic was a load, but I didn't know there were such things as osteopathic physicians. So, would it be wrong to mention chiropractic as an interest in D.O. since I learned about osteopathic medicine through an interest in chiropractic?

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I think it'd be OK to say you learned about osteopathic medicine from an initial interest in chiropractic. Although if you thought chiropractic was a "load" why were you interested in it?

As long as you can say why osteopathy will fulfill you in ways chiropractic wont, you'll be fine.
 
I think you should probably just mention you were interested in manual medicine/therapy.
 
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Two of my interviews actually dealt specifically with this question. I realized what a DO was after an initial interest in chiropractic. I told the people at CCOM and LECOM-B this and ended up with acceptances at both.
 
I think it'd be OK to say you learned about osteopathic medicine from an initial interest in chiropractic. Although if you thought chiropractic was a "load" why were you interested in it?

As long as you can say why osteopathy will fulfill you in ways chiropractic wont, you'll be fine.

I'm not really sure how to answer your question. I guess I kind of thought chiropractic was something that it wasn't. I really liked the idea of preventative medicine but I was oblivious to how unrealistic some of the assumptions of chiropractic were. I feel that with osteopathy, there is still that emphasis on preventative care but I would feel much more comfortable working with science proven care.
 
I am actually in chiropractic school now (less than a year left) and absolutely hate it. The people are nuts, they think that they can heal some crazy things with an adjustment. I was attracted to the wellness/preventative health aspect of the profession and have found so many flaws within the profession and its philosophy. With that being said, I am in the process of applying to D.O. schools currently but I will finish out my chiropractic degree. I know that I am going to have to talk a lot about the career change but also the similarities between the two professions. Like others said though, for you I would talk more about being interested in manual therapies and not chiropractic per se.
 
I'm glad that this point is coming up.

I also considered chiropractic school for a while. I changed my mind when I shadowed one. He told me how he (and a lot of the practitioners that he learned from) believed that children don't need to be vaccinated if they are routinely adjusted from birth. That was a belief that I could never agree with, and after some further investigating found that chiropractic wasn't for me.

I was sharing this with a friend who was a MS-I at VCOM at the time and he went on to tell me about osteopathic medicine. Until then I had been oblivious to the fact that their were both D.O and M.D doctors, and as it turned out I had been seeing a D.O as my family practitioner for most of my life.

My personal statement includes this information to some extent and I recently had an advisor tell me that I should be careful of mentioning it D.O. schools. In no way do I ever compare the manipulation that chiropractors to OMM in my PS. But I do feel that it is a tidbit essential to how I've come upon the realization that osteopathic medicine is right for me, so as of now it's staying in my PS.
 
he believed that children don't need to be vaccinated if they are routinely adjusted from birth.

Ohhh boy. Just to clarify though ... there are good and bad chiros, just like there are good and bad physicians. I'm sure not all of them believe things like this.
 
and as it turned out I had been seeing a D.O as my family practitioner for most of my life.

I've had the same situation as you. I went my entire life going to my family practitioner not realizing that he was a D.O. Once I discovered D.O. I realized that it fits perfectly with how I feel about medicine. And I agree with your statement regarding chiropractors and their views on vaccinations. I actually went to a chiropractic school to finish up pre-reqs and all the school preached was avoiding medicine and if you have been adjusted your whole life, you will be immune to all diseases.:rolleyes:
 
I am actually in chiropractic school now (less than a year left) and absolutely hate it. The people are nuts, they think that they can heal some crazy things with an adjustment. I was attracted to the wellness/preventative health aspect of the profession and have found so many flaws within the profession and its philosophy. With that being said, I am in the process of applying to D.O. schools currently but I will finish out my chiropractic degree. I know that I am going to have to talk a lot about the career change but also the similarities between the two professions. Like others said though, for you I would talk more about being interested in manual therapies and not chiropractic per se.

Britt - I'm in the same boat. Where are you in chiro school, when do you graduate, and where are you applying? I'm at Logan, grad in August, and applying to LECOM-Erie for August because they're the only one that seemed would work with my schedule. If I don't get in I'm going to cast my net wider for next year.
 
I've had the same situation as you. I went my entire life going to my family practitioner not realizing that he was a D.O. Once I discovered D.O. I realized that it fits perfectly with how I feel about medicine. And I agree with your statement regarding chiropractors and their views on vaccinations. I actually went to a chiropractic school to finish up pre-reqs and all the school preached was avoiding medicine and if you have been adjusted your whole life, you will be immune to all diseases.:rolleyes:

Yeah, that's a belief that I could never stand behind. Very cool that you'd been seeing a D.O. your whole life, and finally realized it!

Jagger- I completely agree. I've been treated by an awesome chiro, and the one that I shadowed seemed to be good at what he did and his clients seemed satisfied with his work. It was the underlying beliefs that I could never stand behind.
 
I'm just curious ... to the people in the thread that were in DC school and didn't end up using the DC, what is the job market like out there? I feel like I see a chiro office on almost every street corner and that saturation would be a problem??
 
I'm just curious ... to the people in the thread that were in DC school and didn't end up using the DC, what is the job market like out there? I feel like I see a chiro office on almost every street corner and that saturation would be a problem??

My school had statistics that they were trying to hide from the students at the school that only 51% of all people with chiropractic degrees are currently practicing. Also, they tried to hide that chiropractors had the highest rate of graduates defaulting on their student loans. (This is all coming from the Dean of their undergrad program too.) They claimed that the average salary of a chiropractor was $200k but after checking BLS.gov and finishing this particular conversation with the dean, the real average is somewhere around $30k to start and $70 after 10 years. IMO, not worth the $200k worth of tuition dollars that you would have to invest. Saturation in the market is a big problem. Too many people wanting to be doctors and help people in their own unique way but there is only a limited number of people who would prefer to go to someone who cracks their back instead of someone who practices science based medicine.
 
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I'm just curious ... to the people in the thread that were in DC school and didn't end up using the DC, what is the job market like out there? I feel like I see a chiro office on almost every street corner and that saturation would be a problem??

Saturation depends on where you live. As a profession, chiropractic only reaches about 11% of the population. In some areas, like those near a chiropractic school, it is much more saturated for sure.
 
My school had statistics that they were trying to hide from the students at the school that only 51% of all people with chiropractic degrees are currently practicing. Also, they tried to hide that chiropractors had the highest rate of graduates defaulting on their student loans. (This is all coming from the Dean of their undergrad program too.) They claimed that the average salary of a chiropractor was $200k but after checking BLS.gov and finishing this particular conversation with the dean, the real average is somewhere around $30k to start and $70 after 10 years. IMO, not worth the $200k worth of tuition dollars that you would have to invest. Saturation in the market is a big problem. Too many people wanting to be doctors and help people in their own unique way but there is only a limited number of people who would prefer to go to someone who cracks their back instead of someone who practices science based medicine.

Yeah, my best friend's brother-in-law (haha, sounds weird, but I knew his sister well too and this story is about the guy she married), graduated from DC school a few years back and was just like lost. He ended up adding things like acupuncture, etc, and was finally able to comfortably open a practice.
 
Yes I can verify that D.C.'s have very high rates of loan default. My school is very sketchy about the $ issues. The average starting salary as an associate in Chicago is $36,000 before taxes. I graduate in less than a year and the school didn't tell us this until this trimester. I know I should have done more research prior to starting the program, but there is nothing I can do about it now. Most people in my class are in denial I think. Many of them plan on opening their own practices- which unless you know a lot about business, I do not forsee many of them succeeding. In my experiences, success in the chiro field is more about business skills and personality than it is your chiropractic skills. My school is extremely corrupt and really might go under in the upcoming years. They accept nearly anyone and do not require any interview process or any standardized testing to get in. In my class, we started with a class size of nearly 100 and now have 45ish..... I'd say 95% of those that we lost were due to failing various courses. And then they let you fail stuff so many times before finally kicking you out (I believe you can fail a class 5 times) that it is ridiculous- it is all about the money for them. So enough bad mouthing the profession and my school..... haha
 
I think you should probably just mention you were interested in manual medicine/therapy.

This.

Ohhh boy. Just to clarify though ... there are good and bad chiros, just like there are good and bad physicians. I'm sure not all of them believe things like this.

Quackery knows no bounds or initials.


By the way, some day I'm going to beat you to a thread JP and totally post all of your answers before you do. :p
 
I think you should probably just mention you were interested in manual medicine/therapy.

This is your answer. It's fine to say that your earliest experiences were with chiropractic, just limit those influences to the manual medicine portion. DO adcoms of course know that there is commonality between DCs and DOs in terms of manual therapies (even though DCs are better at it...ha, couldn't resist!).

Best of luck to you.
 
This is your answer. It's fine to say that your earliest experiences were with chiropractic, just limit those influences to the manual medicine portion. DO adcoms of course know that there is commonality between DCs and DOs in terms of manual therapies (even though DCs are better at it...ha, couldn't resist!).

Best of luck to you.

So, when/if this comes up during interviews, I should say that I had an interest in the manual manipulation of chiropractic and not the philosophy? That statement would be true, but I should definitely explain that I found out about osteopathy from an initial interest in chiropractic's manual manipulation? I honestly had no idea about osteopathy until after I was interested in chiropractic.
 
So, when/if this comes up during interviews, I should say that I had an interest in the manual manipulation of chiropractic and not the philosophy? That statement would be true, but I should definitely explain that I found out about osteopathy from an initial interest in chiropractic's manual manipulation? I honestly had no idea about osteopathy until after I was interested in chiropractic.

I think it's completely acceptable to say that you took an initial interest in manual therapy by way of chiro but then discovered that DOs (every once in a blue moon) perform manual therapy in addition to medicine, which appealed to you much more deeply. Overall though, I can't see adcoms dwelling on this.
 
As a practicing chiropractor of 10 years who just got accepted into DO school I can certainly elaborate on the topics mentioned in this thread.

I would first like to say when I was interviewed the chiropractic curriculum was more of an interest to my interviewers than the actual practice of it. They were pretty impressed with what I had studied in chiro school and they're main question to me was whether I would be willing to relearn the material. In comparison many of the classes that are taught in chiro school are the same as in medical school. Outsiders just don't know that because they haven't been there. It also depends on the school you go to just like anything else.

The biggest issue I would like to clear up is the student loan default. I would agree that chiropractic would have the highest rate simply because when you graduate you have two choices: associateship or open your own practice. Chiro's do not have the benefit of working in the military, hospitals, or urgent care clinics, where from my experience these facilities would greatly benefit from that, either to contribute to overall health or simply reduce the need for excessive drugs or surgery. I have come across many patient's in my tenure as a chiropractor who go to their primary care doctors first. The doctor never exams them, and only prescribes the big 2: pain killers and muscle relaxers. In many cases that simply doesn't help. But if you look at the real situation that is all they can do for conditions relating to NMS pain.......
 
Getting back to the loan default, I have come to the conclusion that there is simply not enough opportunity for chiropractic to grow mainly because it is a divided profession. Having read the book, "the D.O.'s" the author stated the AMA gave the chiropractic profession the opportunity to join them because they either wanted to control the profession or they believed in its legitimacy. History will tell you it was the former.

Having read how the DO profession worked hard to be equal I see them as the rising profession in health care and if I had to do it all over again I would certainly pick DO. Back when I was your age though we didn't have much of the knowledge you guys do now about the DO profession. I'm glad I found it.

As for vaccinations, I'm all for them. I have a 2 year old daughter and to me it is better to be safe than sorry. However I do not believe in pumping drugs in a child that are not needed and definitely not until they're own immune system has initially developed.

To anybody who is or was in chiropractic looking to become a DO I would completely embrace your former profession to any school administrator or professor. It will show your commitment and hard work to achieving a career in the health care system rather than jumping around because you were undecided about what you wanted to do in life.

I told them I was looking to build upon the existing medical knowledge that I've acquired through chiropractic. I still intend to do that.

I'm open to any questions.
 
I'm just curious ... to the people in the thread that were in DC school and didn't end up using the DC, what is the job market like out there? I feel like I see a chiro office on almost every street corner and that saturation would be a problem??


Like somebody stated, if you're in a city that has a DC school there you are not only competing with local chiropractors but also the existing school clinics in the area. Depending on the school you go to that could be many.

The problem isn't the saturation it is the exposure of chiropractic to the community. If chiropractic serves 20% of the community imagine how the profession would grow if that number were doubled. Even then you haven't reached half the population.
 
So, when/if this comes up during interviews, I should say that I had an interest in the manual manipulation of chiropractic and not the philosophy? That statement would be true, but I should definitely explain that I found out about osteopathy from an initial interest in chiropractic's manual manipulation? I honestly had no idea about osteopathy until after I was interested in chiropractic.

You're treading on thin ice if you make a statement like that. Regardless of what you believe in you simply can't perform a manipulation or adjustment to any joint without believing in why you're doing it. That is borderline unethical, like you're giving somebody a drug but don't know what the physiological reasoning is behind it.

I didn't know much about osteopathic medicine before studying chiropractic either. But I embraced what I learned in chiropractic school. You may be surprised in how interested these interviewers are in the topic. Every health care profession has something to contribute to patient care.
 
Hello everyone, this is a great thread. I would like to add my opinion on this matter. I was attending Logan College when I realized that chiropractic was not the right path for me. I left after I received my B.S. in human biology and went on to attend KCOM. During my interviews I gave the interviewers my honest answer. I was interested in manipulation but wanted to be a physician, and the DO route was the right path for me. I feel that my education at Logan was excellent and it prepared me well for medical school. Now I am a third year surgical resident in an allopathic residency, I've certainly changed course since my time at Logan, but in the end I think it was a great experience. You'll do well on your interviews, just be honest and sincere.:)
 
Hello everyone, this is a great thread. I would like to add my opinion on this matter. I was attending Logan College when I realized that chiropractic was not the right path for me. I left after I received my B.S. in human biology and went on to attend KCOM. During my interviews I gave the interviewers my honest answer. I was interested in manipulation but wanted to be a physician, and the DO route was the right path for me. I feel that my education at Logan was excellent and it prepared me well for medical school. Now I am a third year surgical resident in an allopathic residency, I've certainly changed course since my time at Logan, but in the end I think it was a great experience. You'll do well on your interviews, just be honest and sincere.:)

Just curious, how much manipulation are you able to use in surgery? I can see some applications in ortho and sports med, but beyond that, I'm missing the obvious applications for cutters.*


*Disclaimer - I'm a stupid pre-med and obviously haven't learned OMT yet, so I'm trying to fill in gaps in my knowledge.
 
Great question. To be honest, I perform very little manipulation. This is just the nature of the surgical training and the 80 hour work restrictions.
 
i too was first interested in chiro before i saw the overwhelming benefits of DO...after shadowing a chiro a couple times i felt that the adjustments did help people,however, the work was so repetitive. Although the chiropractor said that he does different adjustments for every single patient, it looked way too routine for me. But i think its a good idea to bring it up and tell them what made you change your mind to DO instead of chiro
 
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