I am reading some more about Osteopathic medicine. One article that I am reading says that if you go to a DO school you have to take the COMLEX. So if you want to take the USMLE you have to take both the COMLEX and USMLE? How do schools prepare you for these exams? If I go to a DO school and decide to take the USMLE will I completely have to study for these boards around my medical school classes? Will I be having exams in my medical courses and studying for my boards simultaneously? Will DO schools be more focused on preparing for the COMLEX than the USMLE?
Also it says that "While MD students typically rotate through large affiliated hospitals during their clinical years, osteopathic medical students are often exposed to a wider variety of clinical settings (i.e., hospitals of varying size, community-based clinics, etc.)" This sounds great to me. At the end of the day I think it would be nice to have a taste of all of these different settings. Why don't MD students do this too? Is this going to negatively affect me?
Thank you for all your help!
As a DO, you MUST take the comlex and you have the option to also take the usmle.
The content of both exams is very similar, with the exception of OMM on the comlex, so if you're studying for the usmle you're basically studying for the comlex.
The question style, however, is very different between the two exams. As a result, you have to spend extra time becoming familiar with the format/style of both exams.
DO schools obviously focus their training for the comlex, but they teach everything that is tested on the usmle.
Every MD school is different. Some schools have their students rotate only at their main university hospital. Some schools send 1/2 of their students to their university hospital and the other half to smaller community hospitals. From my experience with MD students, they usually spend half their time at their university hospital and the other half at community programs.
DOs, on the other hand, send their students exclusively to community programs. Usually you're at a different hospital each month and you may have to travel all over the state or even to a different state each month. I thought it was kind of annoying because during the first few weeks of the rotation everything is new and you're kind of lost, and then as soon as you become comfortable with the hospital its time to move on to a different hospital.
I don't know how much it really matters, though. I intubated over 50 patients, put 5 A-lines, 3 chest tubes, and 2 central lines as a medical student, whereas some of my internmates from top 20 medical schools, didn't have an opportunity to do any of that as a medical student. But does it really matter how many procedures you do as a medical student? Probably not. I've had to put a central line or A-line in someone every day of my intern year so far, so if I never did it in medical school, I would have learned to do really quickly as an intern.
I can say that the teaching at the hospital I'm at right now is way better than the teaching I received as a medical student, but I read a lot when I was in medical school, so it wasn't a big deal for me.
Also, the patients are WAY more complex here than any of the hospitals I rotated at as a medical student, so I think that's probably the biggest disadvantage rotating at only community hospitals as a medical student. Nevertheless, I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job so far, so I think my medical school education was more than adequate.
