calcuttaho
Full Member
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2023
- Messages
- 37
- Reaction score
- 96
I’m a reapplicant (LM ~72, ORM), have finished all my applications for MD schools, and am considering applying to DO schools. I’ve been talking to a couple of doctors, and most of them told me that if I’m interested in a medical speciality, I would be fine applying DO, but if I’m interested in surgery, I should wait for MD. I have shadowed and spoke to a LOT of doctors. I’m not entirely set on a speciality yet, but there’s both competitive and non-competitive specialities that I’m interested in. I like surgery, a lot. Really, I have only been able to cross off some specialities off my list, and everything else is still on the table:
I’m a dude, so OB/GYN is off the table. Interested in procedure heavy specialties, so psych and neurology are off the table. Shadowed two FM docs: older one did all sorts of stuff like biopsies and injections, younger one exclusively did medications and referrals. Could see myself as the older FM doc, not in a million years as the younger one. The older one told me that training has changed since he was in school, and that most FM docs are trained like the younger one. So I guess FM is off the table. Shadowed EM doctor, felt like I would end up super jaded if I pursued a career in it. That shadowing experience actually inspired me to apply to MD/MPHs. The day had a few super interesting cases, but it felt like the majority of cases were the result of a broken American safety net. Diseases that should have been caught earlier, violence that never should have happened, and patients where the best course of treatment are lifestyle changes that are impossible to implement because of food deserts and sedentary jobs to support their families. I know I can’t avoid social issues in any speciality, but it feels like its the most overbearing in EM. Don’t like low stress specialities. One (superficial, I know) reason I love medicine is that I get to avoid the sleepy office 9-5 jobs. I want to see complex patients and be learning for the rest of my life. So Derm, ENT, and a handful of IM specialties are off the table, too.
So I realize I kind of crossed off the majority of non-competitive specialties, so most of the doctors told me that I should MD or bust. But I was talking to another doctor, and he told me that the only reason DOs don’t match as well is because DO schools generally accept students with lower test scores and worse resumes. He also said that residencies care about the resume, not the pedigree, and it’s just that MD schools accept people who are better equipped to get the resume. In other words, if I took Ross University and Harvard, kept the funding and professors the same, but swapped the student body between the schools, Ross would have the incredible match list and Harvard wouldn’t match half of their class. He told me that there’s no problem in applying to DO for surgery as long as I’m willing to grind my a** off, go to every conference and make connections, and prove to programs that I’m a good applicant.
Is that true? I don’t care about any superficial reasons to not apply DO. Don’t care about status, and I’d like to end up in private practice anyways so I don’t care about losing academic medicine opportunities. I’m fine with learning OMM and taking COMLEX if that’s what’s needed to become a doctor, even though I’d prefer not to. I’m in Pa so we don’t have any cheap schools, so tuition isn’t a factor. P/F would be nice, but it is what it is. Literally the only thing holding me back from applying DO is the idea that it might impact my career in some way. If that isn’t even true, then I’m just going to apply DO. Does anyone know if this is true?
I’m a dude, so OB/GYN is off the table. Interested in procedure heavy specialties, so psych and neurology are off the table. Shadowed two FM docs: older one did all sorts of stuff like biopsies and injections, younger one exclusively did medications and referrals. Could see myself as the older FM doc, not in a million years as the younger one. The older one told me that training has changed since he was in school, and that most FM docs are trained like the younger one. So I guess FM is off the table. Shadowed EM doctor, felt like I would end up super jaded if I pursued a career in it. That shadowing experience actually inspired me to apply to MD/MPHs. The day had a few super interesting cases, but it felt like the majority of cases were the result of a broken American safety net. Diseases that should have been caught earlier, violence that never should have happened, and patients where the best course of treatment are lifestyle changes that are impossible to implement because of food deserts and sedentary jobs to support their families. I know I can’t avoid social issues in any speciality, but it feels like its the most overbearing in EM. Don’t like low stress specialities. One (superficial, I know) reason I love medicine is that I get to avoid the sleepy office 9-5 jobs. I want to see complex patients and be learning for the rest of my life. So Derm, ENT, and a handful of IM specialties are off the table, too.
So I realize I kind of crossed off the majority of non-competitive specialties, so most of the doctors told me that I should MD or bust. But I was talking to another doctor, and he told me that the only reason DOs don’t match as well is because DO schools generally accept students with lower test scores and worse resumes. He also said that residencies care about the resume, not the pedigree, and it’s just that MD schools accept people who are better equipped to get the resume. In other words, if I took Ross University and Harvard, kept the funding and professors the same, but swapped the student body between the schools, Ross would have the incredible match list and Harvard wouldn’t match half of their class. He told me that there’s no problem in applying to DO for surgery as long as I’m willing to grind my a** off, go to every conference and make connections, and prove to programs that I’m a good applicant.
Is that true? I don’t care about any superficial reasons to not apply DO. Don’t care about status, and I’d like to end up in private practice anyways so I don’t care about losing academic medicine opportunities. I’m fine with learning OMM and taking COMLEX if that’s what’s needed to become a doctor, even though I’d prefer not to. I’m in Pa so we don’t have any cheap schools, so tuition isn’t a factor. P/F would be nice, but it is what it is. Literally the only thing holding me back from applying DO is the idea that it might impact my career in some way. If that isn’t even true, then I’m just going to apply DO. Does anyone know if this is true?
