D.O's at kaiser
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Actually I think it might have something to do with how close your clinic is to a DO school. The Kaiser I normally visit in southern California has many DOs from Western who work there.
Just your luck of the draw. They're everywhere.
My family doctor from Kaiser is a DO, and he's great. You're right though, I always see more MD than DO, but I've run into plenty of DO's. My dad was an MD at Kaiser for like 30 years, he said he knew plenty of DO's. I guess it's just a mixed bag.
My husband & I have different docs at Kaiser, all are DO's. I originally called and asked specifically for a DO because they first set me up w/an MD. The lady I talked to asked why I wanted a DO & I just said b/c that was the profession I was trying to get into. 🙂
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My mother works in high risk obstetrics at Kaiser in So Cal and teaches residents, med students and fellows. She just gets less DOs than MDs coming through for teaching (~30/70 in her field). Once they are there, she doesn't believe that they are worse/better prepared.
In general Kaiser is a pretty competitive place to match, however, and then they will hire the best of their residents/fellows when they have spots. DO's represent a minority of the physicians out there, and then a substantial chunk don't take the USMLE (needed to match at Kaiser), and then a substantial chunk don't score competitively enough to match at many Kaiser hospitals. Additionally, I think a lot of DOs who do score really well have idealogic issues working at a big HMO and don't apply to Kaiser fresh out of school.
So, it isn't that they don't take DO's, it's that you need to be a great candidate (DO or MD) to get offered employment there. They don't tend to have a lot of non-entry-level hiring in her field.
In general Kaiser is a pretty competitive place to match, however, and then they will hire the best of their residents/fellows when they have spots. DO's represent a minority of the physicians out there, and then a substantial chunk don't take the USMLE (needed to match at Kaiser), and then a substantial chunk don't score competitively enough to match at many Kaiser hospitals. Additionally, I think a lot of DOs who do score really well have idealogic issues working at a big HMO and don't apply to Kaiser fresh out of school.
So, it isn't that they don't take DO's, it's that you need to be a great candidate (DO or MD) to get offered employment there. They don't tend to have a lot of non-entry-level hiring in her field.
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That's funny ... most of the things I read on the site are negative about working at Kaiser (for pretty much all fields).
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What's that?
I haven't seen a lot of commentary on SDN about Kaiser (or were you talking about other sites?). As far as HMO's go, So-Cal Kaiser is pretty much the best functioning one. I can speak much about No-Cal Kaiser, and they are different entities at this point, I believe.
You have job security. And if you do high risk OB, or another high risk field, Kaiser handles all of the ridiculous lawsuits. Kaiser has a policy to take all of its malpractice cases to suit, and your malpractice insurance isn't taken out of your paycheck. My mom basically couldn't even work outside of an entity such as an HMO b/c of the malpractice.
The downside is, of course, that you are only seeing insured patients, and you are stuck within the rigidity of an HMO, which can sometimes make referrals annoying. I've grown up within the system, however (w/ some horrible illnesses), and I've never had a bad time or terrible annoyance with the system. And in California, Kaiser and all other systems like it are required to take a certain # of Medicare/Medicaid patients, so you actually do get some underserved diversity. That's how Octopussy got her IVF babies delivered at a Kaiser facility. I can imagine that there's not a lot of room in Kaiser for OMM...so, in that regards, I can see that hardcore fans of manipulation may not embrace Kaiser, but I'm not even sure that's the case--it's just that every D.O. I've known who worked at Kaiser abandoned their OMM b/c they didn't think it was very worthwhile in the field of high risk OB (the only techniques the admit to using are adjusting the birthing posture to encourage the baby to come out during difficult births to avoid C-section...they feel they're better than the M.D.'s).
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I can definitely see why some people would like not dealing with the business side of it all, and getting a nice retirement, but the complaints that I have heard - come from the FP forums on this site and basically include:
-huge rush to see patients/too many patients
-headaches of dealing with big HMO
-not the $ you make in PP
-not the freedom you make in PP
Who knows how valid this is for all fields at Kaiser, or if it's a universal feeling ... just what I've heard.
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Yes, you will see a different representation based on which Kaiser So-Cal. From Kaiser-Sunset to Bellflower, etc.
Kaiser Sunset, for instance gets a lot of applicants out of USC and a fair # out of Western. The further away from Western you get the more the D.O. representation drops off. It also definitely depends on which dept.
I bet that in Northern California, you see more D.O.'s from Touro Mare Island.
I applied to D.O. schools as well as M.D., and I found it frustrating and infuriating to a certain extent that reputations or even knowledge of the existence of any given school among local physicians was fairly limited to those practicing within a few hundred miles of the D.O. school in question.
Somewhat off topic, but...
I've worked at MSSM, Columbia, and Albert Einstein in Manhattan--my mentors there only knew of NYCOM & UMDNJ-SOM. My mom at Kaiser in LA only knew of Western (until now...now she's weeelll versed, and a little bitter at NYCOM for the fee they charged to hold my seat). My friend's father at UC-Davis thinks Touro Mare Island is the bees knees b/c he's seen Davis detriorate and Touro improve during his tenure. And my mentor at U Miami knows no schools except for NOVA, NYCOM, and UMDNJ-SOM after working in NY. It's truly unfortunate. They all work with a handful of D.O.'s, but they never bothered to ask any of them where they went to school...for all the extra money the private osteopathic schools put into tuition, I think some of it should be put into increasing reputation *not only* among applicants and regional physicians but also among the national physician population. I know many of them want to serve the region where they are located...but face the fact that their schools will benefit from bigger names that help out their graduates! I'm on an M.D. path now, and I think I will know far more about my D.O. peers than most of my colleagues when we meet in residency, and that's really unfortunate.
Kaiser Sunset, for instance gets a lot of applicants out of USC and a fair # out of Western. The further away from Western you get the more the D.O. representation drops off. It also definitely depends on which dept.
I bet that in Northern California, you see more D.O.'s from Touro Mare Island.
I applied to D.O. schools as well as M.D., and I found it frustrating and infuriating to a certain extent that reputations or even knowledge of the existence of any given school among local physicians was fairly limited to those practicing within a few hundred miles of the D.O. school in question.
Somewhat off topic, but...
I've worked at MSSM, Columbia, and Albert Einstein in Manhattan--my mentors there only knew of NYCOM & UMDNJ-SOM. My mom at Kaiser in LA only knew of Western (until now...now she's weeelll versed, and a little bitter at NYCOM for the fee they charged to hold my seat). My friend's father at UC-Davis thinks Touro Mare Island is the bees knees b/c he's seen Davis detriorate and Touro improve during his tenure. And my mentor at U Miami knows no schools except for NOVA, NYCOM, and UMDNJ-SOM after working in NY. It's truly unfortunate. They all work with a handful of D.O.'s, but they never bothered to ask any of them where they went to school...for all the extra money the private osteopathic schools put into tuition, I think some of it should be put into increasing reputation *not only* among applicants and regional physicians but also among the national physician population. I know many of them want to serve the region where they are located...but face the fact that their schools will benefit from bigger names that help out their graduates! I'm on an M.D. path now, and I think I will know far more about my D.O. peers than most of my colleagues when we meet in residency, and that's really unfortunate.
