I want to enter medical school in the Fall of 2013, and I've shadowed and done research on a few fields, and I was just wondering how DO friendly these are? I know I don't want to do surgery (I've got completely unsteady hands), but how about PM&R, Neurology, Psychiatry, Emergency Medicine, and Diagnostic Radiology? My biggest preference would be PM&R. What do you guys think?
-
CycleTrack and SDN are teaming up to make medical school admissions more transparent and accessible! Read the announcement to learn how we’re supporting the future of CycleTrack’s free application-tracking tools .
DO Friendly Specialities?
Started by SoulinNeed
Get help with your application
Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.
According to a recent thread about DO rads, all of them are very very DO friendly. You should have no problem getting a ACGME residency in those assuming you don't suck in med school.
All except Rads are either DO friendly or just out right hyper uncompetitive. I think Rads is also apparently getting more DO friendly/ less competitive, but that may be since the field is in danger of invalidation thanks to it being easy to sending X-rays to India or having computers do it all.
You'll be hard pressed to find a non-Primary-Care field more receptive to DO's than PM&R
PM&R is very DO friendly. It is actually dominated by DOs. Neurology, psychiatry, and EM are also DO friendly. There are several very good AOA E-med programs, too.
Diagnostic radiology isn't super friendly, but if you have the board scores and apply broadly you will likely match. It is becoming more friendly every year.
Basically, the only unfriendly ACGME fields are the various surgical subspecialties, derm, and rad onc.
Your USMLE Step 1 score will decide how competitive you are for these ACGME residencies.
For the AOA ones, its a combination of your COMLEX score and audition rotation.
Most fellowships usually are DO friendly, thought at that point they care more about your residency performance than what school you went to. But yes, there are really not that many competitive specialties outside of Cardio or Gastro.
Not all of them, but many accept the COMLEX. I've also read that it may help to take both even for the residencies that accept the COMLEX just because it is easier to compare you to allopathic applicants.
I'm currently interested in neurology and still plan on taking both COMLEX and USMLE in two years.
Not always.
hmm why are they hyper uncompetitive?? just curious
Not always.
...and you know all this how? by talking with every residency director at your program? wait, you're not in medical school yet.
yes, i was in your same shoes, wondering which specialties were attainable for DO before I got into MD. now that i've seen more, though, there's only so much you can predict in the future. everything above is just speculation.
step 1: focus on getting into the best medical school you want to go into, whether it be MD or DO
step 2: study hard during basic science MS1-MS2 years
step 3: get shadowing experience in the residencies you're interested in during M1-M2 years; best time you'll have to get to know the attendings before everyone does during clinicals.
step 3: kill boards (g'luck). take USMLE, even if you're DO.
step 4: evaluate scores, talk with deans, see which fields you realistically have a chance of matching in - or which ones you have time to still do stuff for.
this whole process is going to be years from now. friendliness is also program dependent, some have not had a history of taking DOs regardless of specialty.
Why would I, a Juilliard trained undergraduate, refer to others for assistance?
Lol, anyway beyond that Seinfeld reference, it doesn't take a medical school student to be able to listen to the students here talk about these topics.
Lol, anyway beyond that Seinfeld reference, it doesn't take a medical school student to be able to listen to the students here talk about these topics.
