DO Internship

[bill cross]

I have been reading this forum for some time now and would like to complement everyone on their desire to help fellow members. I really appreciate all the great advice presented here.

I am currently an ER physician assistant. I have applied to 7 DO schools and have completed all of the secondaries. Now, I guess it's just wait and see.

My question is about required DO internships. I reside in Florida and to the best of my knowledge to be licensed in this state and some ohthers as well, I am required to do 1 year of ostepathic internship.
1) Is this still so?
2) Has anyone inquired if an allopathic residency (specifically EM) will offer PGY1 credit for that time or will it have to be repeated?

Any info on this topic will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks...Bill

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[prefontaine]

The questions about FL have been answered recently, go to the rotation/residency section.

It is difficult to find an open PG-2 slot, in general. You are not going to be able to enter EM as a PG-2, after an AOA general intership, with the exceptions of MSU and Albert Einstein.

 

[libbuser]

My question, is this: I understand to practice is some states as a DO you need to have the 1 year internship. Now, let's say that I don't want to be a member of AOA, and I decided to do a residency at a non-AOA approved hospital, can I still practice in that state, but I won't be able to be a member of the AOA? So, is it possible to go to a state, say FL., and do a MD residency and still practice?

 

[Medicine Man]

In the state of Florida you are required to do a D.O. internship year to get your liscence.

A few adendums though:
1: If you want to do EM then you might be in luck because some residenies have a "fast-track" which incorporates your internship into your residency, thus granting you credit for your year in hell.
Fast-tracks are abundant and you must check with each individual residency director to see what their rules are.

2: If you demonstrate "hardship" you can apply to the AOA to have your internship at an ACGME program "AOA-approved." A good example of hardship would be: "My wife has cancer and the only place they are doing the experimental procedure that could save her life is in Gainesville, where there are NO D.O. internship positions. I want to stay with her during her treatment and would like to have my internship in family med at UF AOA approved." A bad example would be: "Dude, I really love Gainesville and my wife just got offered a great job there so I want to get an internship there AOA approved."

The AOA has really begun to crack down on people abusing the hardship rule and thus it is rare to have your ACGME internship year AOA approved.

3: To practice medicine in the state of Florida you MUST have a liscence from your state medical board. Florida has one board for MD's and one for DO's (therein lies the problem).

In response to the comments made by "libbuser." If you don't want to be a member of the AOA then why did you go (I am assuming you do) to a D.O. school? Also, you are more than welcome to complete an MD (ACGME) residency (over 66% do!). You just have to do a DO internship year first!

 

[Pepper]

I have done quite a bit of reading on the web and otherwise and I'm still not clear what the exact advantage would be to do an allopathic residency. Is it the chance to get hopital privileges at a wider choice of hospitals when you're done with residency? Are there more patients at allopathic residencies giving you more experience and chances to learn? Can anyone address this please.....

 

[UHS2002]

Well, there are some specialties that don't have osteopathic residency programs. Additionally, the majority (but not all) of osteopathic hospitals are fairly small. If you are a gunner looking for a lot of patients you may feel that you are not getting all the exposure you want. Tied to this last point is that you get a lot of "zebras" at major medical centers, usually affiliated with allopathic hospitals, but mostly "horses" at community hospitals (and the majority of osteopathic hospitals would fall under this category). Lastly, some specialties have very few osteopathic residency positions (EM comes to mind) and you may need to be willing to "go allopathic" if you cannot match into one of these few positions.

 

[Pepper]

UHS2002,

thanks for replying. Can you tell me which specialties specifically are not offered in osteopathic hospitals. I was thinking that if you wanted to be a transplant surgeon or hand surgeon, for example, that you would have to do an allopathic residency because osteopathic fellowships in these areas are not available(??). Can you do a surgical osteopathic residency and then enter an allopathic fellowship?? Curious.

 

[libbuser]

ONCOLOGY is lacking in the osteopathic field. Only 1 site that I know of. Check out the AOA's site, or they have a think of all the DO sponsored programs.