Their MBA and MPH programs are in conjunction with St. Joseph?s and Temple, respectively. They have an MS in Biomedical Science, but no PhD program. The students I know there say the PhD program is supposedly on the way. However, since this is not where my interest lies, I have not tried to confirm this.
On this same note, there are a few other schools that are "rumored" to be expanding their dual degree options beyond the Master's level within the next 2-4 years, namely UHS and NSU. As everyone knows, it is not the quality of instruction that makes a school famous and gets it big grants, it is the quality of the research that it produces. Great ?teachers? do not get their picture on the cover of ?Newsweek?, however, great researchers do. The few deans I have heard speak; have confirmed this is the current sentiment. The D.O. schools are trying to capitalize on the momentum they have shared over the last two decades. They want to maintain their primary care focus, while expanding in other arenas. More and more matriculating students are choosing to go to a D.O. school, even when accepted to M.D. institutions. This can be attributed to a few things, some of which are a marked increase in AOA advertising (e.g. full page ads in USA Today) and D.O. schools being ranked in that dreaded US News list (everyone quotes from this list, e.g. when I interviewed at UT-San Antonio they quoted from this list because they were ranked in Urology and Orthopedics. The University Health System is now using the fact in their newspaper and TV ads, "among the top 100 hospitals in America"). In addition, when congress passed ?that bill? which limited the amount of money that residency programs receive when they take in FMG's, residency directors began looking harder at D.O. graduates. This combined with the fact that you see more and more D.O.'s in those "big name residencies" (in a proportionate amount of course) and the fact that the number of practicing D.O.'s is expected to substantially increase in the next ten years, means D.O.'s are quickly becoming a even larger force in the American health care. It will be exciting to watch.
As long as it continues to be a "team approach" and the MD vs. DO thing is looked at as an option for students interested in medicine, instead of ?us vs. them? concept. I think it will work out nicely. It is tough though, there is so much ego rapped up in the whole ?Doctor? thing that sometimes the focus is lost. In focus, I mean ?helping people? and improving the quality and quantity of healthy years that we live.
Sorry about the tangent, I just like to talk about this stuff. I am very happy to be heading off to a D.O. school.
Turtleboard: you seem to be a knowledgeable guy, if you see an error in my reasoning, point it out. I always welcome other opinions/points of view.
