DO Students - Any regrets ? Rather have went MD or not ?

[limit]

How about it ? Have any Osteopathic students here felt regret about going to DO and finding out that it isn't what they expected it would be ? Would you have rather chose MD, or tried to apply next for an MD spot, or are you really happy where you are ? How are you recognized by MD's and other DO's ?


I'm just curious for honest responses.
Thanks a lot.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[PCSOM2002]

I can honestly say that I have absolutely no regrets about attending an osteopathic school. I have contact with several allopathic students who are friends, and my education is just as complete as theirs. I am currently in my clinical rotations and most of the physicians I have contact with are MDs, and I have not had any trouble being "accepted" by them. When I got accepted to DO school, I was working in a large medical center in the southeast and all the MDs I had contact with were VERY, VERY supportive of me attending an osteopathic school. Their views were that osteopathic medicine today is equal with allopathic medicine. The family medicine residency there even had AOA approval. I have yet to run into any resistance from MDs. Osteopathic medical training is a very nice option.

 

[pogodo]

I am just beginning my first year at an osteopathic school. I asked are mentor who is an internist a very similar question. He told me what an allopathic physician told him some years ago. That particular MD had taught in both types of settings and he said the inferiority of the DO will go away when the DO stops worrying about it. In other words we are trained in the same things MD's are trained in. We just happen to get a little extra. Thank God I went DO!

 

[mmerzouk]

that was a perfect statement!!!!!
you notice we DO's sometimes make a bigger deal about the issue of who is better than our counter MD friends. just know your stuff and you will do fine. i am very happy to be a DO!

------------------
ob/gyn wannabe

 

[limit]

Thats interesting to know. How about the whole primary care issue. Are you steered towards primary care or are you given more freedom in choosing a residency? do DO's actually do surgical specialties such as ortho or cardio or are you sort of guided to go into a primary care setting ?

Thanks for the replies so far, very helpful actually to see such resonses.

 

[mmerzouk]

come on, of course DO's are capable of anything our MD friends are!!! i did a cardiothoracic surg. rotation with dr. john dewalt from columbus.oh. oh i forgot to mention, he is a DO. not only is he a DO, but he trained at Baylor (in texas) with Debackey himself. there is just not as many DO docs in these fields as MD's. using basic math, that makes since. there are less of us all together. yeah, we usually do more primary care, but the doors are open for whatever you wish!!!!

 

[5950]

To answer the original question in this post, I am very glad I went to an osteopathic school. Being a DO will give me an extra treatment method that I would not have learned at an MD school (OMM). Of course, when it comes down it, we practice the same medicine, but it's nice to be able to have some extra tricks in the bag. :0)

 

[M00se]

There is no way I could ever just be an MD. I mean absolutely no offense by that, but I was a massage therapist before going to DO school. My hands would have gone to waste in an MD school. I hope to be an ER doc and I don't want to lose that sense of touch by the time I start my rotations. Secondly, our school doesn't pressure us at all to pick FP. Some of our 4th years are doing neurosurgery rotations.

------------------
Jim

 

[rwright21]

I was at a DO school for a short while. Thankfully, I was accepted into an allopathic school. You hear all these wonderful things about DOs but just remember your source. More than likely their DOs to be. I'm not bashing the profession, I think the philosophy is great. But for me MD is the preference and DO is the alternative. The main reason is because of the limitations. These guys say you can specialize in anything you want. I've talked to many DOs in practice and they said, "Just as long as you don't specialize, you'll be OK. If you try to go into something like surgery, you're SOL." As a DO you can do anything, but it's a lot harder to do it in an allopathic residency. And it just so happens, the best residencies are allopathic.

 

[guylon07]

Hey wright or whatever, think before you speak. For one thing you can tell that you don't know what in the hell you are talking about. Oh you spent a little time around a D.O. program. Well I have been a RN for a long time, and I was excepted into a MD and a DO program. I chose to go DO, because of the experience I have had with them over the years. I worked with a several very respected DO's that were surgeons and I.M. docs, and I know a very respected ENT that is a DO along with F.P., neuro, etc. The last unit I was in charge of was a trauma unit and we had two surgery residents when I left, one was an M.D. and one was a D.O., and I can tell you that I would have let that D.O. would have trusted that D.O. with one of my family members or myself. Don't even begin to say that you cant specialize as a DO. I think that you need to check your resources. However, on the other hand, I am glad that you went to another program, because you were going into the DO program for the wrong reasons. If you just want the white coat then thats fine, but believe me with my background I know the importance of learning comapassion, and with my past experiences I have seen that very few allopathic students (However I have seen a few) come out with the compassion for their patients that I have seen the majority of the osteopathic students come out with. Just get your story right before you speak. Hey I am going to look at this on the bright side. At least we won't have to worry about an A-hole like you giving us a bad name!

I am sorry if I upset anyone, but this kind of rumor really upsets me. If this person wants to bad mouth D.O.s they need to go to another site. I have worked really hard to get here and I have not one regret whatsoever about the decision that I have made to the D.O. profession.

 

[M00se]

Hey don't sweat wright. He's just some stupid shmoe who didn't have the grades and wasn't sure he was going to get to go to med school. If he was using osteopathic school as a plan B, he was NEVER going to be happy and may never be anyway.

------------------
Jim

 

[rwright21]

Whoa, I think you guys got the wrong idea. I do agree with you that DOs in general are show better bedside care. But ask yourself, is that the only thing that determines what a great physician is? Their compassion? If that's the case anybody could become a great physician. Let's face it the first two years are the same vs. your MD counterparts. But the education after is suspect. Read:

QUOTE]Originally posted by Kent Ray:
I am a 2000 grad from Des Moines. I am leaving the Osteopathic world for two reasons. First although the first two years at Des Moines were very good, the second two were so poor I am embarrassed to say I attended this school. As a third and fourth year student I had no contact with the school. They had no idea if I was learning or not. We had no tests to take and many of our rotations were poor.
Second, Osteopathic graduate education for the most part not on the same level as alliopathic. I can't say this about every program but I have been to several hospitals in Michigan, Iowa, and Ohio. The problem is that the people that are doing the teaching for the most part are not paid.
Some part of me is sad about having to leave. I wish things were different, but I must get the best education I can.

 

[guylon07]

Well I have had this discussion on here before, and once again I say that you get out of your program what you put into it. It is true that you can do your clinical rotations away from many schools, but some private allopathic institutions do the same thing. However, I don't believe that doing rotations at a institution that is affiliated with your school helps you to become a better doctor or gives a better expeience for the most part. I was a RN charge nurse at a allopathic state learning institution hospital, and if you think that the clinical rotations are really going to prepare you to jump out and be ready to go when you become a resident you are mistaken. You get out of it what you put into it. Most of the students that came through my unit could not find their butt with both hands when they came on the unit and they were no better when they left the unit. It did not matter if they were 3rd or 4th year. The ones who did know something usually had past clinical experience. Your learning clinical objectives comes from time and experience. Yes you will find some people who complain about not having a clinical site that is directly associated with a school, but those are usually the people who want to be spoon fed, and have someone right there holding their hand. However, I never talked to one allopathic student who completely enjoyed all of their rotations. At least we have some kind of say in where we want to go, and that in turn will help us get our foot in the door when we begin choosing our residency. I found this to be a big plus in choosing where I wanted to go to shcool. I will agree that it may be more convienient to have a hosp. right next door to your school to do clinicals in, but I think that I will be better off in the long run. Beleive me, I know. I hope you do well, but take it from someone who has been in the medical field for some time. Don't wait on them to do for you while you are on you rotations and residency. Get out there and do for yourself, and get out of your experience all that you can. Whether in a allopathic or osteopathic program you get out of your experiences what you put into them.

As far as the compassion statment goes, I know that this is not all it takes to be a good physician, and I did not mean that. I have seen residents and doctors with no compassion whatsoever and know medicine like the back of their hands, but you know their patients did not respect them. However, I have seen doctors and residents with the best of intentions who really cared for thier patients, but where dumb as a brick when it came to treating patients. I think that it takes a careful balancing act between the two, and I feel that the osteopathic programs emphasize this more than the allopathic programs do. (Just my thoughts)

 

[drusso]

I'm a fourth-year DO/MPH student and am definitely pleased with my education. I've had the opportunity to do things and learn things that I don't think I would have had I gone MD. Still, regardless of the degree earned, each medical school needs to be judged on its own merits.

[This message has been edited by drusso (edited 08-26-2000).]

 

[Dr. Pike]

Dearest Limit- I guess that I have always wondered what is would be like to be a doctor, and never even worried about the differences that I might, I emphesize might, face in the future from collegues; I will be a doc just like they will once I complete my training. After all, no one really cares where you went to school, just so long as you did well enough to get the "Dr." before your name. So remember what a wise man once questioned: what do you call someone who graduated last in their class at med school? Doctor.

 

[spunkydoc]

well guys..i think you have each made some valid points regarding md vs do.

i must say that i think that my training as a do has overall been more extensive than my md counterparts (of which i have many at high powered schools).

my regret about becoming a do is that my residency options absolutely suck.they are geographically undesireable, they are not very strong, and yes, i am going into EM, not FP.

are we steered toward primary care? not at CCOM..however, i think the AOA would like us all to go that way...

is there a true use and niche for OMT? as much as i hate to admit it--yes there is.

the problem is all politics--the AOA does not market us well at all...furthermore we do not market ourselves well..we spend a lot of time bellyaching and whining over the differences, regrets, wishes..very few actually take action--myself included..who has time? who is sure that this is the absolute right path?

if i had to do it over again i truly am not sure what i would do..at the time, i knew that becoming a doctor was most important to me and that doing it stateside was better than going to the carribean..

that said, i am proud to be a do in the sense that i know that i am learning to practice good medicine..however, i am truly ashamed of the AOA and its utter disorganization..this year's DO match is a true testament to that!

however, sometimes you just have to make the best of a situtation..there is certainly room for improvement..

consider this: whether at a DO or MD school, whether you love it or hate it, it is simply a vehicle to get you from A to B--from being a student to a doctor.

good luck!

 

[mmerzouk]

why does everything turn into a DO/MD who is better?? come one guys. we all can sit around and think of "stuff" that we do not like about our school. why do we spend countless seconds winning about little stuff. as a ms4, future DO, i love it!! yeah, sometimes things are not so hot, you know all the political stuff; kind of like the crap on this site. but i just shake my head and go about my life. but i guess i have worked with our MD peers, and so i have seen for myself that they are just like me. so, until you have the confidence as a doctor, DO/MD, this conversation about who is better will always play a role in your life. lucky for me, it is "small stuff" .

------------------
ob/gyn wannabe

 

[Test Boy]

Spunkydoc,

Did you take the USMLE? If not, do you think that would have made any difference as to the residency you got?