D.O. or SMP?

[Sawyertd21]

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I've already been accepted into a top-tier D.O. school (MSUCOM) but am on the fringe of getting into an MD school, having gotten 2 interviews (but no acceptances). I have also been accepted into the Georgetown SMP, and am still waiting for the Cincinnati SMP.

Is it best to take the D.O. or do SMP and begin in a MD school (fairly good one, assuming I can link into Georgetown or Cincinnati) a year later?

Also, I know that for the Georgetown SMP you don't have to repeat the medical school courses at all so technically I'd be half done with my first year when if I get in there. Is it the same for the Cincinnati SMP? Or do you start from scratch?

 

[LesBois88]

This is your decision, we can't really help much. I don't know the specifics of the cinci SMP.

If it were me- I'd go to MSU-COM for sure. Why spend more time in school?

 

[JeetKuneDo]

Here's what I would consider. If the MD title is important to you, then by all means go into the SMP. From what I've read, I'd choose Cincy SMP over Georgetown. Georgetown is older, but it also has a bigger class size (something like triple the amount of Cincy.) Also, if you do link to Georgetown and do get to not take some first year classes, do you still pay full tuition? If not, that's an extra year you have to pay full tuition and an extra year of lost earnings as a physician. Just things to consider.

 

[nlax30]

MSUCOM is a great school and you shouldn't have any qualms about attending. It's always risky to give up an acceptance (and maybe burning a bridge there) for the possibility of another the next year.

That said, if the DO "thing" is going to cause you to be self-conscious or just absolutely gunning for some uber competitive residency like plastics or derm than I guess try for the MD.

 

[willen101383]

It would be really risky. Who is to say you actually get into any of these MD schools? How do you know you are "on the fringe" of getting in to an MD school?

I dont know how there is a question here. This is MSU..not Rocky Vista. I would be taking this and being a year ahead of the game.

 

[patel2]

Go for the SMP if you want an MD school, but be prepared to possibly be permanently black-listed from every DO school in the future. So if the SMP doesn't lead to an MD acceptance, you may be headed off to the Carib the following year.

 

[Brachyury]

Go for the SMP if you want an MD school, but be prepared to possibly be permanently black-listed from every DO school in the future. So if the SMP doesn't lead to an MD acceptance, you may be headed off to the Carib the following year.

Mmmm, I'm not sure about that. The OP was accepted, but did not enroll. Thus they would have to claim that they are a reapplicant, but that's about it. Would they be blacklisted at MSU? Probably. Would they be blacklisted at all DO schools? No.

Georgetown does not have a great track record of accepting their own, however Georgetown is the gold-standard for SMPs. If I were you, I'd choose Cincy because it's smaller, just as good as Georgetown, and I'm pretty sure that you can claim Ohio residency and thus be elligible for Ohio's several state schools (including Ohio's public DO school).

 

[Prncssbuttercup]

I second and third the other posters, if you're looking to be a physician, take the DO acceptance, if you need to be an MD or are planning on a difficult specialty, try for MD, but I'd say 1 yr less of debt and school is one year you don't have to pay back, and you'll be a year closer to being done...

 

[cliquesh]

Sounds like you want to be an MD. So do the SMP or retake your MCAT. One year of your life isn't that big of a deal. You may not be accepted into MSU again, however.

 

[Californian]

Go to DO school... SMP is not guaranteed and expensive.

 

[JaggerPlate]

Logically, it makes no sense to decline any medical school acceptance (without another option), especially to a very solid school like MSUCOM. However, based on the thread in general, it sounds like you do want the MD title - nothing wrong with that. So, I'd honestly probably recommend doing the SMP and applying to allo next year.

Keep in mind that this is going to cost you:

-1 year of your life (minimum)
-The price of the SMP
-A loss of around 200k due to the year you won't be making an attending physician's salary
-The cost of applying again
-The cost of interviewing (plane tickets, hotel rooms, suits, etc) again

Also, like a few others have said, a SMP is not a guaranteed acceptance by any means. However, if you really want the MD (be honest with yourself), then I say go for it ...

Good luck 👍

 

[bigyihoroi]

I just know if you decide to take the MSU acceptance, you will start making your $200-300K a year earlier than taking the SMP route. Plus SMP says nothing about guarantee acceptance to med school. Good Luck!

 

[ilovelanguages]

Logically, it makes no sense to decline any medical school acceptance (without another option), especially to a very solid school like MSUCOM. However, based on the thread in general, it sounds like you do want the MD title - nothing wrong with that. So, I'd honestly probably recommend doing the SMP and applying to allo next year.

Keep in mind that this is going to cost you:

-1 year of your life (minimum)
-The price of the SMP
-A loss of around 200k due to the year you won't be making an attending physician's salary
-The cost of applying again
-The cost of interviewing (plane tickets, hotel rooms, suits, etc) again

Also, like a few others have said, a SMP is not a guaranteed acceptance by any means. However, if you really want the MD (be honest with yourself), then I say go for it ...

Good luck 👍

Knowing my forthcoming scenario is far from guaranteed, you have neglected to take into account MSUCOM's heinous tuition rates as compared to the tuition rates of the MD school he (for argument's sake) is accepted to next year. If MD tuition happens to be $30k, that's 40k saved each year for a total of $160k that partially offsets the financial losses described above. I'm not arguing either way, I'm not even sure how correct my math is, just pointing that out.

 

[cliquesh]

.

 

[patel2]

Mmmm, I'm not sure about that. The OP was accepted, but did not enroll. Thus they would have to claim that they are a reapplicant, but that's about it. Would they be blacklisted at MSU? Probably. Would they be blacklisted at all DO schools? No.

Georgetown does not have a great track record of accepting their own, however Georgetown is the gold-standard for SMPs. If I were you, I'd choose Cincy because it's smaller, just as good as Georgetown, and I'm pretty sure that you can claim Ohio residency and thus be elligible for Ohio's several state schools (including Ohio's public DO school).

Yes but all DO schools (through aacomas) will see you were a reapplicant and that you had an acceptance to a DO school in the past. On the applications they ask if you ever applied and/or were accepted to a DO school in the past, and if yes to the latter, you need to explain. All DO schools will see that you had the MSU acceptance and declined it without a compelling reason. Just saying to other schools that "you weren't a good fit at MSU" or something along those lines will be an insta-reject.

I'm totally neutral about the wisdom of doing an SMP or going to the DO school (I'm not sure what I would do tbh), but I'm just saying that the OP will likely be blacklisted from DO schools in the future, unless he comes up with a great reason to explain to them why he didn't take MSU acceptance.

 

[JeetKuneDo]

Knowing my forthcoming scenario is far from guaranteed, you have neglected to take into account MSUCOM's heinous tuition rates as compared to the tuition rates of the MD school he (for argument's sake) is accepted to next year. If MD tuition happens to be $30k, that's 40k saved each year for a total of $160k that partially offsets the financial losses described above. I'm not arguing either way, I'm not even sure how correct my math is, just pointing that out.

I say this depends on if he was on the fringe of getting into a state school or not. Aren't most tuitions that are 30k just state schools while most private schools are on par with DO schools?

 

[Isoprop]

Don't do the SMP. An SMP is the last chance high risk shot of getting an acceptance into a med school. You absolutely MUST get a 3.5 or higher in an SMP to get a chance. Getting below a 3.5 will pretty much kill your chances anywhere in the US and even some carrib schools.

We are talking about a 3.5 in medical school classes where you are graded with medical students. The best and the brightest students study their asses off just to pass... and you need to honor those classes. Anything less will bar you from gaining admission anywhere.

 

[bongobingo]

Georgetown SMP only truly increases your chances of getting into Georgetown Med School. That is if you have a 0% chance now since you were not able to get into lesser MD schools, you will have a 15-40% if you do well in SMP. Other medical schools are not terribly impressed. If you get a high GPA it's good, but it's no different from someone who got the same high GPA in ugrad. If your EC's suck or ugrad gpa sucks you will not be getting a lot of interviews. Georgetown med school does not necessarily accept the student with the highest gpa. You still have a 1 out 2 chance on your interview and if you don't interview well it is <1 out of 2. And if you don't do well in SMP, you will not even get an interview at Geogetown and will end up in DO anyway. 1 year costs $50k tuition+$300k/yr attending salary. Thats the cost of a FERRARI. Wonder what 2 years gone to waste cost? I guess if you are confident that you interview well and that you can score 1std above med school class average at least on some of the exams, then it may be worth it. Or better yet, if your parents are rich, it is worth it.

 

[Sawyertd21]

How much of a difference do SMP's make? Meaning, I'm a fringe candidate, so say I accept doing an SMP next year and apply again this summer. Do medical schools consider it a really good thing? Would I have then get multiple interviews, including those from quality schools (60-20 ranking) and have a high chance of getting accepted? Or is it a minor boost, meaning I'd just get an interview more here or there and possible waitlist.

Would it put me 2 years behind, having to apply after the smp is over? Or do med schools just wait for the fall term update before giving a decision for smp students?

Also, I plan on doing a specialty (cardiology, radiology, oncology or maybe some kind of surgery). Is it comparatively the same to get one of these residencies through a DO program vs an MD, or much harder? That is my only concern about going to MSUCOM.

As for having to reapply, that isn't a concern because I could just hold my spot and defer for a year. So, I wouldn't be reapplying to MSU.

Thank you for all your responses

 

[Sam212]

How much of a difference do SMP's make? Meaning, I'm a fringe candidate, so say I accept doing an SMP next year and apply again this summer. Do medical schools consider it a really good thing? Would I have then get multiple interviews, including those from quality schools (60-20 ranking) and have a high chance of getting accepted? Or is it a minor boost, meaning I'd just get an interview more here or there and possible waitlist.

Would it put me 2 years behind, having to apply after the smp is over? Or do med schools just wait for the fall term update before giving a decision for smp students?

Also, I plan on doing a specialty (cardiology, radiology, oncology or maybe some kind of surgery). Is it comparatively the same to get one of these residencies through a DO program vs an MD, or much harder? That is my only concern about going to MSUCOM.

As for having to reapply, that isn't a concern because I could just hold my spot and defer for a year. So, I wouldn't be reapplying to MSU.

Thank you for all your responses

What are your stats like?

 

[Slack3r]

Georgetown SMP only truly increases your chances of getting into Georgetown Med School. That is if you have a 0% chance now since you were not able to get into lesser MD schools, you will have a 15-40% if you do well in SMP. Other medical schools are not terribly impressed. If you get a high GPA it's good, but it's no different from someone who got the same high GPA in ugrad. If your EC's suck or ugrad gpa sucks you will not be getting a lot of interviews. Georgetown med school does not necessarily accept the student with the highest gpa. You still have a 1 out 2 chance on your interview and if you don't interview well it is <1 out of 2. And if you don't do well in SMP, you will not even get an interview at Geogetown and will end up in DO anyway. 1 year costs $50k tuition+$300k/yr attending salary. Thats the cost of a FERRARI. Wonder what 2 years gone to waste cost? I guess if you are confident that you interview well and that you can score 1std above med school class average at least on some of the exams, then it may be worth it. Or better yet, if your parents are rich, it is worth it.

Not one thing in this post is correct.

 

[willen101383]

How much of a difference do SMP's make? Meaning, I'm a fringe candidate, so say I accept doing an SMP next year and apply again this summer. Do medical schools consider it a really good thing? Would I have then get multiple interviews, including those from quality schools (60-20 ranking) and have a high chance of getting accepted? Or is it a minor boost, meaning I'd just get an interview more here or there and possible waitlist.

Would it put me 2 years behind, having to apply after the smp is over? Or do med schools just wait for the fall term update before giving a decision for smp students?

Also, I plan on doing a specialty (cardiology, radiology, oncology or maybe some kind of surgery). Is it comparatively the same to get one of these residencies through a DO program vs an MD, or much harder? That is my only concern about going to MSUCOM.

As for having to reapply, that isn't a concern because I could just hold my spot and defer for a year. So, I wouldn't be reapplying to MSU.

Thank you for all your responses

First of all OP....all US medical schools are generally "quality" schools. Basically your timeline is going to be like this (I actually did 1.6 year accelerated traditional masters before med school for the same purpose as you): matriculate this August....bust your ass for the year and apply as soon as the AMCAS/AACOMAS comes out in June. You will interview prob starting in August..and going until late spring or so. You will be matriculating TWO YEARS from now. No schools are generally going to give a rats ass about a few months of a SMP. They want to see the whole thing...especially if you really are a "fringe" candidate. You can always try to apply again in a few months and see what happens..but most programs are going to have your acceptance contingent upon you finishing your graduate degree.

As far as DOs specializing. Its not generally a problem. Are you going to end up at some top notch program with the same ease as an MD? No probably not. But coming from a school like MSU you will be on pretty solid footing. Honestly OP....you have these pipe dreams now of being a specialist...but do you know that it will actually happen? No you dont. In med school it is a ****LOAD of work to push into the 80s...and to keep your grades in the 90s is like nonstop studying and no life. I got a 3.75 in graduate level sciences in my masters program and studying about 6 hours a day my grades are almost always between 78-84 in my core class (we are on blocks). Anyways enough anecdotal evidence. But seriously go out and look at some "good" DO school match lists. I dont think you will be that upset.

But anyways....I think it would be a MASSIVE mistake to turn this acceptance down....that may culminate with you not ending up as a doctor.

And did MSU tell you that you can defer for a nonmedical/serious reason? I sort of doubt it....

 

[beachblonde]

Do any SMP at your own peril. Do poorly, and you are SUNK when it comes to attending ANY US medical school.

Georgetown also takes very few people from their SMP. Only the very few at the top. Are you positive you're going to get a straight 4.0 GPA at the SMP? Are you *that* sure that it's worth the risk? Is it worth the $30000 tuition?

Some things to think about. I would take the DO route unless you are absolutely dead-set on doing rad onc, in which case there are no DO residencies and maybe you should try for the MD route. But that's a pretty stupid reason, IMHO.

 

[willen101383]

Do any SMP at your own peril. Do poorly, and you are SUNK when it comes to attending ANY US medical school.

Georgetown also takes very few people from their SMP. Only the very few at the top. Are you positive you're going to get a straight 4.0 GPA at the SMP? Are you *that* sure that it's worth the risk? Is it worth the $30000 tuition?

Some things to think about. I would take the DO route unless you are absolutely dead-set on doing rad onc, in which case there are no DO residencies and maybe you should try for the MD route. But that's a pretty stupid reason, IMHO.

Totally agree with you. OP getting good grades in med school/a SMP is NOTHING like getting good grades in undergrad. Good luck either way you go....but I think it would be really unwise to take the risk. Take this from someone who has been where you are now.

 

[cliquesh]

Also, I plan on doing a specialty (cardiology, radiology, oncology or maybe some kind of surgery). Is it comparatively the same to get one of these residencies through a DO program vs an MD, or much harder? That is my only concern about going to MSUCOM.

I think it is actually easier for a DO to do cardiology than an MD, oncology is probably on par or maybe a little harder for a DO, radiology is going to be harder, and surgery (besides general surgery and maybe ortho) is going to be more difficult as well. MSU, by the way, has residencies in basically everything including derm, radiology, ortho, urology and so on.

@Willen, in my opinion, is exaggerating the difficulties of medical school, but, yes, in all likelihood you will not do well enough to do radiology/dermatology/ortho.

 

[livedie]

Is MSU's tuition expensive? The reason why I ask because if you go to a SMP program will that help you get into your state school? If so in the long run you will come out ahead or equal to loosing the year of salary because you will have less loans.

 

[Sawyertd21]

I think it is actually easier for a DO to do cardiology than an MD, oncology is probably on par or maybe a little harder for a DO, radiology is going to be harder, and surgery (besides general surgery and maybe ortho) is going to be more difficult as well. MSU, by the way, has residencies in basically everything including derm, radiology, ortho, urology and so on.

I just found out today that I've been accepted at UIC. So, smp is completely off the table for me now. It's now MD (90k a year costs, since I'm out of state) vs DO (40k a year costs). That includes living.

Is it worth it? I know MDs tend to be more competitive as far as residencies go. But is it worth taking on the extra expense?

Thanks again for all the responses

 

[cliquesh]

I guess I would say MD. I don't think the education is really all that different. It will just make getting a residency of your choice easier. However, that extra 200k is going to kill you, especially if you need loans.

 

[JeetKuneDo]

I just found out today that I've been accepted at UIC. So, smp is completely off the table for me now. It's now MD (90k a year costs, since I'm out of state) vs DO (40k a year costs). That includes living.

Is it worth it? I know MDs tend to be more competitive as far as residencies go. But is it worth taking on the extra expense?

Thanks again for all the responses

UIC man, UIC.

 

[JaggerPlate]

90k a year 😱

What??????????? Can you give a breakdown of that? Are you going to receive any scholarships (some schools with outrageous OOS tuition offer hefty scholarships to OOS students).

Regardless, congrats! Like I said before, it does sound like you want the MD (and no one is going to hold that against you), so it's probably worth the extra change for you personally to go to UIC. It's all a personal choice. Cost was one of my biggest factors and the difference between what you'd pay at the DO school and what you'll pay at UIC is far, far more than I pay a year for everything.

 

[willen101383]

I think it is actually easier for a DO to do cardiology than an MD, oncology is probably on par or maybe a little harder for a DO, radiology is going to be harder, and surgery (besides general surgery and maybe ortho) is going to be more difficult as well. MSU, by the way, has residencies in basically everything including derm, radiology, ortho, urology and so on.

@Willen, in my opinion, is exaggerating the difficulties of medical school, but, yes, in all likelihood you will not do well enough to do radiology/dermatology/ortho.

I agree that I may be playing devils advocate a little too strongly....but I am trying to paint a picture of what most of my class is experiencing. I score right around the mean on most exams (which is 79-82ish) and I have had most of this material once already in either undergrad or grad school. Just sayin trying to say that you arent going to come into med school doing as well as you think you are going to do in most cases.

 

[Instatewaiter]

Georgetown SMP only truly increases your chances of getting into Georgetown Med School. That is if you have a 0% chance now since you were not able to get into lesser MD schools, you will have a 15-40% if you do well in SMP. Other medical schools are not terribly impressed. If you get a high GPA it's good, but it's no different from someone who got the same high GPA in ugrad. If your EC's suck or ugrad gpa sucks you will not be getting a lot of interviews. Georgetown med school does not necessarily accept the student with the highest gpa. You still have a 1 out 2 chance on your interview and if you don't interview well it is <1 out of 2. And if you don't do well in SMP, you will not even get an interview at Geogetown and will end up in DO anyway. 1 year costs $50k tuition+$300k/yr attending salary. Thats the cost of a FERRARI. Wonder what 2 years gone to waste cost? I guess if you are confident that you interview well and that you can score 1std above med school class average at least on some of the exams, then it may be worth it. Or better yet, if your parents are rich, it is worth it.

First Georgetown's SMP increases your chance of getting into med school period. I had multiple people in my medical school class (not georgetown) who did the georgetown SMP. For that matter I had a few people who did BU's and I think once who did Cinci's. Doing well in the Georgetown SMP will open doors at multiple schools. Conversely, doing poorly will close doors at most med schools.

I think the arguments posed on this thread are valid: if you want to go to an MD school, an SMP is your best bet. However, doing poorly will screw you. I agree with Willen. The competition in med school (ie an SMP) is intense and the stress of an SMP is much higher than first year of med school because you know you have to beat out the other med students. You just cannot tell if you will be able to beat out the other students to get the grade.

I am not so sure other DO schools will know you had an acceptance. I just don't think that data is shared. They will know you applied in the past.

I think the monetary arguement regarding losing a year of salary as an attending isn't valid for a few reasons. First if going to MSU is going to close doors for your future career compared to an MD school, who cares if you lose a year of salary? Would you be happy if your options are limited? Second, over the course of a lifetime you probably wouldn't notice the difference. You may notice the difference if you accumulate significant more debt by adding a year of expensive tuition though.

In the end, I think your decision should hinge on what specialty you want to go into. If you want to do FP, General IM, EM, neuro or psych, I think the decision is simple- go to MSU. If you want to do something very competitive like neurosurg, plastics, derm, urology, ortho or even a competitive medicine subspecialty like GI or cards you might be best served trying your luck at the SMP. If you want to do a middle of the road specialty (pretty much anything else in medicine, gen surg) you have a difficult decision to make.

Only you can decide if the extra tuition, time and risk are worth given up an acceptance.

 

[cliquesh]

I agree that I may be playing devils advocate a little too strongly....but I am trying to paint a picture of what most of my class is experiencing. I score right around the mean on most exams (which is 79-82ish) and I have had most of this material once already in either undergrad or grad school. Just sayin trying to say that you arent going to come into med school doing as well as you think you are going to do in most cases.

Do you think the bell curve at PCOM is really narrow? Like, pretty much everyone getting a low 80ish and it is rare to see a low 90? Or do you think it is a normal distribution where there are plenty of people getting low 90's on a test when the class average was 78?

 

[Everglide]

Also, I plan on doing a specialty (cardiology, radiology, oncology or maybe some kind of surgery). Is it comparatively the same to get one of these residencies through a DO program vs an MD, or much harder? That is my only concern about going to MSUCOM.

If you're ok with DO rads or surgery, MSU would be a good place for that. Apparently it's tough to match rads/surgery in Michigan without going to MSU... or so I've been told by non-MSU students.

I just found out today that I've been accepted at UIC. So, smp is completely off the table for me now. It's now MD (90k a year costs, since I'm out of state) vs DO (40k a year costs). That includes living.

That's ridiculously expensive. Though you sound pretty set on wanting the MD title, either way congrats on having a relatively nice "tough choice" to make.

 

[willen101383]

Do you think the bell curve at PCOM is really narrow? Like, pretty much everyone getting a low 80ish and it is rare to see a low 90? Or do you think it is a normal distribution where there are plenty of people getting low 90's on a test when the class average was 78?

We get absolutely no info as to how anyone does which pisses me off...aside from the means on exams. I dont really know but I am friends with a pretty good amount of people and from talking to people it seems like most people get right around the mean +/- 5 points but I dont really know. I do know that a bunch of people failed the course we just finished 2 weeks ago unfortunately.
I also know that there are a good bit of people getting in the 90s. Only one of the guys in my "group" gets 90s consistently and he spends his life in the library. I wish we got more stats...hell...post all the scores up with no identifiers just so you can see where you stand.

 

[jdsargen]

Why why why would you turn down an acceptance? You think it is a better decision to pay more money for an SMP and delay your income earning years for a possibly different degree designation? Just does not make sense. Even if you are on the brink of an MD acceptance I am assuming it would be a low tier medical school that probably has very comparable match results with whatever other school you have been accepted to.

You are going to get out of school what you put into it, whether it is an MD or a DO. Go to the DO and bust your ass to get whatever residency you desire to be the best doctor to your patients that you can be.

 

[J-Rad]

I think the monetary arguement regarding losing a year of salary as an attending isn't valid for a few reasons. First if going to MSU is going to close doors for your future career compared to an MD school, who cares if you lose a year of salary? Would you be happy if your options are limited? Second, over the course of a lifetime you probably wouldn't notice the difference. You may notice the difference if you accumulate significant more debt by adding a year of expensive tuition though.

In the end, I think your decision should hinge on what specialty you want to go into. If you want to do FP, General IM, EM, neuro or psych, I think the decision is simple- go to MSU. If you want to do something very competitive like neurosurg, plastics, derm, urology, ortho or even a competitive medicine subspecialty like GI or cards you might be best served trying your luck at the SMP. If you want to do a middle of the road specialty (pretty much anything else in medicine, gen surg) you have a difficult decision to make.

Only you can decide if the extra tuition, time and risk are worth given up an acceptance.

Just one thing to think about: why would a "fringe" candidate be expecting to end up in the highly competitive specialties? Barring the exceptional person who did fair-to-middling in UG and then went on to shine in med school and land the big name ROAD program, wouldn't you expect that the most likely specialties this person are going to go into are essentially the same from either DO or MD (i.e. they are going to end up in the non-competitive or moderately competitive specialties). There might be some more regional and programmatic flexibility to where they might train (esp for the "middle of the road specialt[ies]", but given the likelihood that it will be same paycheck at the end, $200K in additional debt is nothing to dismiss in this decision algorithm.

 

[RNwantDO]

According to MSUCOM site, 90% of students match their first residency choice. There are 186 DO residencies in the state of Michigan, that is programs not spots. Personally I am hoping to get into MSUCOM in 4-5 years from now, and would turn down many MD schools to go there. Check out the stats before doing anything rash especially since you sound like you are in-state tuition to MSU.

 

[cliquesh]

According to MSUCOM site, 90% of students match their first residency choice. There are 186 DO residencies in the state of Michigan, that is programs not spots. Personally I am hoping to get into MSUCOM in 4-5 years from now, and would turn down many MD schools to go there. Check out the stats before doing anything rash especially since you sound like you are in-state tuition to MSU.

That stat can be misleading, and I would only take it with a grain of salt unless you somehow know what everyone in the class really wanted to specialize in.

You have to rank a program for it to be considered your top choice. So, for example, let's say there is a guy who wants to do Ortho really badly, but he doesn't get any ortho interviews but gets 5 family medicine interviews. He really wanted to do ortho but he did not interview anywhere for ortho, so he didn't rank any ortho programs, but he ended up matching his first choice family med residency. This guy, even though he didn't enter the field of medicine he wanted, would be lumped into that 90% statistic.

 

[RNwantDO]

That stat can be misleading, and I would only take it with a grain of salt unless you somehow know what everyone in the class really wanted to specialize in.

You have to rank a program for it to be considered your top choice. So, for example, let's say there is a guy who wants to do Ortho really badly, but he doesn't get any ortho interviews but gets 5 family medicine interviews. He really wanted to do ortho but he did not interview anywhere for ortho, so he didn't rank any ortho programs, but he ended up matching his first choice family med residency. This guy, even though he didn't enter the field of medicine he wanted, would be lumped into that 90% statistic.

I know that, but have you looked at their matches? 3.7%, or 6 out of 161 participants matched into osteo ortho. I do not know the national stats, but that seems pretty good. Is there a lot of Family Med, IM? Yes, but there is a lot of other specialties on the list as well.

However, you still would be a DO and not an MD. Personally, I am about to get my RN initials; so obviously titles are not what I am after, I want happiness. I do understand that titles matter to some people, so to each their own.

 

[JaggerPlate]

First if going to MSU is going to close doors for your future career compared to an MD school, who cares if you lose a year of salary? Would you be happy if your options are limited? Second, over the course of a lifetime you probably wouldn't notice the difference. You may notice the difference if you accumulate significant more debt by adding a year of expensive tuition though.

LOL ... remember when you used to say valid things on SDN??? I miss it.

 

[DrLeon]

In the end, I think your decision should hinge on what specialty you want to go into. If you want to do FP, General IM, EM, neuro or psych, I think the decision is simple- go to MSU. If you want to do something very competitive like neurosurg, plastics, derm, urology, ortho or even a competitive medicine subspecialty like GI or cards you might be best served trying your luck at the SMP. If you want to do a middle of the road specialty (pretty much anything else in medicine, gen surg) you have a difficult decision to make.

Only you can decide if the extra tuition, time and risk are worth given up an acceptance.

Hmm... Did you know there are 9 DO cards residency programs in Michigan alone? 2 plastics, 7 diagnostic radiology, 4 derm, 9 ortho, 5 uro-surgery, and 2 neurosurgery programs. Again, they are all DO and all in Michigan, so it looks like he would have ample opportunity to try to get one of those specialties (although there may not be a lot of spots). I understand that DO may not have A LOT of spots for those that want to do the highly competitive specialties, but it is misleading and wrong to assume that you can only get them if you are an MD

 

[Slack3r]

...but it is misleading and wrong to assume that you can only get them if you are an MD

I don't believe anyone said that.