Let's concede, for argument sake, that for a tiny few specialities like critical care medicine and radiology, if you are not an exceptional DO, it may--"may"--be harder to find a residency. Let's also conceded that the big medical centers have, in general, either unequivocally discriminated against DO's or just happened to keep them out of these few programs. (There are plenty of surgical residencies (DO and non-DO) for DO's around the country. It's much harder to find a DO wanting a competitive surgical specialty who didn't get it than one who did.) If you have zero clue what med you want to do and feel you just may want interventional radiology and will be heart broken if it's hard for you to nab it, yes, you may want to hold out. But such a person would also need to realize that purely by statistics, not taking into account who you are, the deck is stacked against anyone wanting these specialities who doesn't come from a school on that short list--and, to be sure, that list doesn't include the least known MD schools, the deck is stacked against them the same way. How many people from individual obscure MD's land these residencies that critics charge DO schols with being unable to provide?
A good argument against this, though, is the simple fact that if you really want interventional radiology, you wont listen to us and will just do what you have to get it, and you will get it. The joke in this whole debate is that steely resolve trumps all of us. No annonymous poster will ever be able to prove that a particular premed will never get a particular residency. Thus, if you want the rarest specialities, you have to be stellar no matter what, regardless of whether you're MD or DO.
Now the notion that the schools with the most prestige and the highest numerical entrance standards is preposterous, first because the data to suport it is there, but it's conclusions are mild and certainly not unequivocal--I'm thinking about the MCAT people's research. But also, inevitably, such logic would lead one to conclude that, by a purely numerical standard, well, most state universities, with a rare few exceptions, pale in comparison to the top ten "US News" MD's. Well, by that logic, so do most private MD programs as well. The conclusion necessarily must be that if you don't graduate from harvard or hopkins, well, you must be an inadequate doctor. No reasonable person would agree with this. They certainly wouldn't dare to do so in public. Maybe over a glass of burbon at the harvard club, but no flesh and blood people, who just want to have their family see a doctor. Such people don't give a poop how magnificient a big schooler thinks he is.
The other problem with the numerical standard is there are at least three DO schools--and probably more--that have higher numerical standards than some md schools, namely michigan state, des moines, and north texas. So are these schools "better"? By now, any reader of this probably thinks this line of reasoning is crazy, and he/she would be right.
Plus I have received more--more!--admissions offers from MD programs than DO programs. Everyone assumes that DO's admissions come from their bottom feeding. My case showed me that this is not without its controversy as well. My numbers are decent 3.65/31, especially by DO standards, and I got into fewer DO schools. I was pretty surprised and called up the schools, and they said that my health care peace corps experience wasn't sufficient. That's a pretty high extracurricular standard if you ask me, and it suggests that DO's have different admissions priorities.
Most premed students who apply exclusively md don't give DO's a fair shake and usually know nothing about oseopathic medicine other than that the numerical admission standards are lower.
Please do me a favor: don't listen to those kinds of premeds. They simply don't know what they're talking about. Find someone knowledgeable and do your own research.
Saying "Don't apply DO" is like saying only apply to the Ivy's for college. They're the only ones who provide decent education. If you don't get in, go get an expensive grad degree and support you and your family financially for a whole year. It's really a skam, this premed degree industry, except for those who know what they're getting into. Honestly, I doubt the magic letters are worth the 30 or 40 k, a kid will have to bleed out to satisfy the egos of these places.
I don't mean to insult anyone here, but I'm so sick of hearing that DO schools are totally inferior. It's like saying all repubs are inferior to all dems. It's such an insensitivie and stupid political statement, who would ever want to defend it? (And I am a liberal-learning guy.)
