- Joined
- Feb 21, 2004
- Messages
- 13,864
- Reaction score
- 40
- Points
- 4,671
- Medical Student
- Resident [Any Field]
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
How is that a common symbol?...
Also, I'm afraid I have to side with dozitgetchahi here (btw, I have absolutely no idea how to pronounce your name in my head). A bunch of disclaimers are placed into these posts just so you people wouldn't react this way (e.g. "this is bull****"). Let's have an open mind here, shall we?
While I agree that there's no logical reason why a physician with a DO degree would be any different from an MD-wielding physician...isn't there the slight possibility that there might still be some difference? In the grand scheme of things, no two things are actually equal on all levels. We already know that DO schools look for different qualities and characteristics when choosing their students as compared to MD schools. Aren't pre-meds who decide to apply MD-only sometimes arrogant, obnoxious, and just a little close-minded? Who's to say that the difference in applicants accepted by MD and DO schools (not to say there's not much overlap; there is) can't carry over to actual practice?
My point is: it's not the osteopathic program that somehow makes a medical student holistic and more "patient-centered"...it's the type of applicants that decide that they want to do osteopathic medicine. They may have different values and goals going in that translate to the differences one may see in practice. Hence, it IS individual, but an individual may be more likely to want to go MD, or more likely to want to go DO; it may be skewed depending on the quality you're looking at.
My two cents; don't kill me now. 🙄
It is but you must not know many cultures to get what my name means or my symbol means though most people I know get it pretty quickly.
That said, lets not turn this into being about me. I don't know why a thread has to be about a person's avatar as it is irrelevant to the topic being discussed.
Since you are all so smart it is not hard to figure out for yourself. And yes it is a common symbol to anyone who is not culturally ignorant.
That said, this is about DO vs. MD and bedside manner.
I will stress again that DOs nor MDs nor FMGs/IMGs vs. those trained in the states are necessarily better then one or another.
I've met some pretty ****ty FMGs and some really great ones. I've met some pretty ****ty DOs and some great ones. I've met some pretty ****ty MDs and some great ones. And then there are the ones who are competent but not necessarily nice and there are the ones that are nice but not necessarily competent. And then there are those physicians who are neither competent nor nice and pretty shady and unethical. You want to be a good physician, you will determine for yourself what kinda physician you become, not your degree. Your degree will be the gateway to getting there but DO vs. MD is a useless debate.
Likewise, it is like saying DOs are somehow always more holistic in their approach to medicine then MDs. Yet, quite a few DOs I talk to will tell you they did DO route because they wanted to get into medicine and couldn't make it in the MD schools due to lower scores or just liked a DO school they chose better then some of the schools they were accepted to in the MD realm, but don't necessarily believe the overall philosophy to be superior or utterly different MD schools. In fact, most DOs I talk to rarely are found using the very basis of what made MD and DO schools different---in other words they don't use OMM at all.
In fact, quite many of them are impossible to tell from an MD because their is no difference in the way they implement treatments. In fact, when it came down to proper training for their field, many of them were trained by MDs in MD residency programs. And even if DOs were present in the teaching process, the programs were AMA rather then AOA accredited programs and therefore were taught how they teach to MDs in residency.
Therefore, I don't believe this to be a huge difference.
However, that said, I do see some relevance in the point that a lot of DO grads are either nontrads or those who might have had slightly lower scores in one area but whom were taken on a whole beyond their numbers. On the other hand, a lot of MD students (albeit not all) are students who have never even failed anything in life and have had limited life experiences, limited struggles, etc. So perhaps there may seem to be a difference in what some people perceive to be the personalities of different students in different programs. But even so, I still believe that there will be both good and bad docs on all sides and in the end we are what we make of our education and choose to be.
Holding a DO or holding an MD is not what will make a compassionate or a competent physician. One is not automatically more competent then the other and one is not automatically more compassionate then the other. We are what we are and who we become as a physician will be decided upon by us and the kind of people we are, not by the degree we hold or school we went to.

