I knew I would get questioned on my statement. The fact of the matter is that there is no reason in the world that I would make this up. The name of the actual hospital itself is of little consequence. I spoke very briefly early one morning with a DO fellow. I started the conversation because he is a DO and I am a DO student ? I stated there are not too many of us around here to get the conversation going. He stated he had been to a number of different places in the country and this was the first time he had encountered this. He had been an attending before he came to do a fellowship. Went to school in Michigan. Don?t know where he did residency or practiced. His pager kept going off so we really only chatted briefly. Later I recounted this to another DO student on rotation with me (same department, different service). He said he had spoken with the Chair of the Dept. (a very well known and respected figure). Basically he told him the same thing. They were discussing residency opportunities since this student was interested in going into the field of the particular service we were on (I was not). As a side note there are DO attendings, residents and fellows in this program. This chair was old-school kinda crusty AOA honors ticket on his wall kinda guy. He liked the DO?s he had a lot.
Anyway, my initial reaction was that this policy was pretty dumb. And it probably is. Then I got to thinking about some of the hospitals I have rotated through and how there residents and their training programs are. Mercy Suburban for instance. Decent little community hospital. Terrible morning report, which is for all services, very weird. Interns at times would read a case directly out of a journal. No attendings present. No noon conference. VERY limited pathology. I also realize that there are some great DO training programs and some crappy MD ones. My point is that, IMHO, DO residency training programs are not up to snuff in a lot of ways. That is most of them. I know there are excellent ones out there in a number of fields.
Here?s the thing. Don?t discount what I am saying just because you don?t believe it or youv?e never witnessed it firsthand. Open your eyes. Discrimination is everywhere in society. Age, gender, socioeconomic status, color, creed, religion, size, looks, etc. are all the basis of discrimination in society today. Who is not to say that DO?s aren?t discriminated against in some part of society?
Bobo
