Hi all!
Normally, I don't go about posting on this board. ( I am an avid reader, however!)
But, I would like to take the oppurtunity to defend my profession, by actually inviting everyone to actually look at the linked site for themselves before jumping to conclusions.
Actually for USMLE step 1, the percentages passing for FIRST time test takers were 95% allopathic and 87% osteopathic. For repeaters it was 51% MD and 28% DO, for an overall of 91% to 82%.
Basically to sum up it, the big issue seems to be the individuals retaking the test for osteopathic students: a mere 29 out of 349 that took the test. This doesn't sound like a very big deal at all, especially when comparing the percentages of first time test takers.
And to add further confusion, although DO students did statistically worse on Steps 1& 2, they did a percentage point better on step 3. Yet only 64 DO's took those tests.
So what does all this jibberish mean. NOTHING!!! Bottom line every medical school on the US shores ( DO, MD, or otherwise) have very little in common with each other to justifiably categorize them anyway.
Now to answer Elijah's question, IMHO it takes a special sort of person to thrive in most of the offshore schools. This type of person would in fact blast through our onshore schools like a champ. ( however they would probably never get credit for it) In all honesty, when I " get pretty" in the mirror each morning, I fail to see this individual. Thus, my decision to stay here where the medschools have more crutches to lean on.
"Am I this person?" Now this is the question you need to ask yourself. Chances are if your like most of the people on this board the answer is no. ( If not, then my apologies!)
Yet I digress, I am also from the south, and I like you noticed a defiency of DO's there. It honestly took me weeks to find one in my hometown. In fact, he was listed as an MD in the phone book. ( Not his fault, he had the two magical letters displayed prominently behind his name on his groups signs and billboards.) Despite his uniqueness, he never seemed to have trouble getting patients, nor did his patients, who almost always never heard of osteopathy before seeing him, seemed to care. Trust me it's not as big of a deal as you think. Actually, I get more ooh's and aah's over my choice of medschools from my hometown people because I'm going to learn more " stuff" as they put it.
But don't get me wrong, osteopathy has its issues, and there will be some who will quickly prejudge you.( Same for the offshore schools) The bigotry your bound to get no matter what you do. And the issues are more annoying than anything else, and will probably get better before they get worse.
Get luck making your decision elijah, hopefully you'll be a great physician one day
In good faith,
PCOM 2005
EDIT:
The USMLE data was from 1998, which was the latest date that I saw published on the site.
[This message has been edited by bluphilosopher (edited March 22, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by bluphilosopher (edited March 22, 2001).]