I agree that the article was pretty bad. The part about "Osteopaths call themselves surgeons" was about as dumb as "MDs call themselves surgeons"--of course they do, provided that they've done a surgical residency. But the uninformed reader would come away with the idea that DOs may not really be surgeons; rather they just like to think of themselves in that way.
For a profession that has taken its share of lumps along the way, this was not the best thing to happen. But let's not get too carried away. Most people won't have read the article, and it gave DOs a rallying point to help further your efforts to gain public support. If you could get CNN to print a clarification and/or a "compensatory article" that discusses an osteopath who is doing things that aren't normally expected from a person in that profession (an endocrinologist would be a nice example), and then point out that this is not a stretch for a DO, then you would have turned a negative into a positive.
However, let's keep things in perspective. No posting by Royce would be complete without a bit of what some people on this site will call bile--while others merely call it a dose of "unpleasant reality"--and this post is no exception. Specifically, what do you intend to do, if anything, about those DOs who promote such things as cranial osteopathy and chelation therapy? If you read the article that I suggested--found on
www.quackwatch.com, look for "osteopathy's dubious aspects"--you'll see what I mean.
As I see it, DOs are at a critical juncture in their history. Thirty years ago, they weren't allowed in CA. Now there are two schools of osteopathy in that state. The AOA, despite some missteps, is making moves to allow for greater integration into the allopathic world. (One example of this is their granting of exceptions to those people who complete an allopathic residency that allow them to retain full-fledged AOA certification.)
But the DOs one commonly sees today would be almost unrecognizable--and almost certainly unacceptable-- to A.T. Still, MD, who founded and codified their "approach" to medicine. Very much like their MD counterparts, DOs are performing surgery and giving drugs--all the things that Still abhored. The one major difference that remains, manipulative therapy, is not amenable to many avenues of medical practice--surgeons don't use this approach too often, even in post-op or diagnostic situations. And even in cases where its use is warranted--family practice is one such area of medicine--it's not used with great regularity.
So the question is: what is osteopathy's future? It descended from a form of medicine that it claimed was barbaric--and yet it ultimately wound up trying like the Devil to emulate it. What can be inferred from such a transformation? And what is the lesson to the pre-med who is trying to decide between two different fields, one of which is well known throughout the world; while the other claims in its bulletins to be far better and more humane than the mainstream form, but whose graduates flock in ever-greater numbers to embrace it whilst pretending to maintain a strong bond to their own branch of medicine.
There is no doubt that a DO CAN do anything that an MD can do. The problem lies in getting the opportunity to prove yourself as a DO. I have known many DOs, all of whom practice medicine at a very high level. But each of them applied to MD schools and only attended DO schools when it became clear that their MCAT scores were not sufficiently high enough for the MD schools' tastes. In most cases, they made application to DO schools in their SECOND attempt to gain admission to a medical school. Did it work for them? Sure. But it was, by their own admission, somewhat harder to gain the respect of their colleagues and the public whom they serve.
The moral: medicine is a tough career choice no matter which way you cut it. Many of the people who are posting on this board as die-hard DOs to-be would have been MDs if the opportunity presented itself. If you are a beginning pre-med, you have the opportunity to shape your career path. If you had a hard time in high school, prepare yourself for extra work in college to catch up. If you were an A-student in HS, make sure that you maintain your previous level of high performance. But most of all, shoot for the stars and demand the most of yourself. Even if you fail to reach Harvard, like yours truly, you can't be disappointed in yourself if you put forth your best effort.
Good luck
[This message has been edited by Royce (edited 07-05-2000).]
