Do you crack on your DO collegues?

[ForbiddenComma]

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I am in an MD program, but there is a DO program in town as well.

People in my clique and I sometimes drive over and taunt the DO students. We hit them over the head with mallets and then make catcalls like "Why don't you massage your brain back into place?" There's always DO jokes making the rounds too. Like, "How many DO's does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Answer: They don't. They just make the person feel better about sitting in the darkness because they treat the patient, not the disease." Ooh boy, real kneeslappers!



Obviously, I jest. I don't know what program trotter observed, but the M3's I've seen from the DO school are worked like beaten slaves just like the M3's from the MD school. (depending on the rotation, of course.) They also routinely take the USMLE step 1 in addition to COMLEX which can't be easy. They have a beautiful campus and I think the school is ranked in US News' "clinical" rankings (you know, the list that everybody always ignores 😕 ).

I hear, secondhand, that the only real drawback to DO school is that it is still harder to match into specialty care in some regions, as opposed to primary, due to the DO schools' self-avowed emphasis on primary care, "treating the patient not the disease," non-Western techniques (OMM) and so on. This can be easily overcome if the DO student busts his or her ass a little harder than their MD counterparts. Hopefully the bias will disappear completely over the years.

 

[Elysium]

I feel like I am in group therapy. I guess I understand where most of you guys come from since I am still bitter for getting my rejection letter from University of Michigan 2 years ago. I mean why did they give me false hope by giving me that interview, and now I am stuck with people who went to michgan state for undergrad. Life is not fair sometimes. Seriously, whenever I go to ann arbor I feel like I am missing out by being in detroit and being in this crappy state school they call wayne state. Which by the way are all University of Michigan rejects. Ba humbug.
I am just counting the days I have to go for my suffering to be over, 2.5 years, Detroit sucks, I should've went to TUCOM, where the sun is always shining, and you get free massages by hot girls everyday. It would've been paradise.
Oh yeah, we have a lot of kids failing their classes too at wayne. I think 17 kids out of 260 failed anatomy last year. This year 2 people failed micro. We have a lot of stupid people here, there is this guy, or girl I don't know, who is getting more then 5 standard deviations below the mean. I mean how is that even possible. What was that person thinking taking these exams in the first place.
O.k., so how am I going to end this. To my DO friends out there, by the way I got some in TUCOM and MSUCOM, face it you suck. But at least you get free messages, I'd kill for one right now. And anything beats living in Detroit, we have nothing going on here except for gossipy students.
take it easy

Detroit is pretty wretched, I agree. But believe me, both TUCOM's aren't any picnic either. At one, you've got the asbestos (MI). At the other, you've got 110 F summers, a giant warehouse (with 170 DO students, 40 PAs, 20 OT's, 20 nurses and ABSOLUTELY ZERO study space) with sketchy clinical rotations (read: no academic hospitals, all preceptors). And OMM is not really a massage. It's all cute until you have to memorize 120 counterstrain tenderpoints (and their tx) in addition to your anatomy, phys, phys diagnosis, neuro, micro, OMM written, and intro to clinical medicine exams! All in the same week! WOOHOO! OMM is a joke. There are so many other things you wish you could be doing than voodoo crap.

 

[lotanna]

Why is this same question asked all the darn time, drop it, only people who really ask these questions are 1st yr students and pre-meds

 

[crys20]

Why is this same question asked all the darn time, drop it, only people who really ask these questions are 1st yr students and pre-meds

I'm asking it because I'm about to make a huge decision...Where to go to med school. I'm asking it because I'm about to...most likely, purely by choice...enter osteopathic medicine. This is a huge, huge decision for me. SDN, just like you just did always spout off that anti-DO is just a premed thing, or just a premed and 1st year thing. But, clearly based on some anecdotes here it sometimes isn't and you find anti-DO sentiment all the way up to the old, gray haired level. Whether or not this is gonna dissuade me from going DO is irrelevant but for me right now it's important to know everything there is to know about what the path involves beffore I pick it ya know?

But I agree that these topics are beaten to death. The worst one is DO vs Carib which seemingly pops up every other day 🙂

 

[BadVB750]

Reading this thread made me wish I had a gun and a single bullet. 🙄

GO WSOX

 

[crys20]

Really, see I thought it was a nice thread 🙂

 

[WatchingWaiting]

I'm asking it because I'm about to make a huge decision...Where to go to med school. I'm asking it because I'm about to...most likely, purely by choice...enter osteopathic medicine. This is a huge, huge decision for me. SDN, just like you just did always spout off that anti-DO is just a premed thing, or just a premed and 1st year thing. But, clearly based on some anecdotes here it sometimes isn't and you find anti-DO sentiment all the way up to the old, gray haired level. Whether or not this is gonna dissuade me from going DO is irrelevant but for me right now it's important to know everything there is to know about what the path involves beffore I pick it ya know?

But I agree that these topics are beaten to death. The worst one is DO vs Carib which seemingly pops up every other day 🙂

I'll tell you what. For all the delusional osteopaths that post "only pre-meds and first-year med students care about where you went to med school," here's a little message from the Dean of Stanford's School of Medicine, offered in passing as he assesses the need for MD schools to increase enrollment in the next few decades:

So an important question is, if there is a need for additional physicians in the workforce, should they come from our allopathic schools or from other sources? We do know that these students perform far differently on the USMLE exams and that the GPA and MCAT scores of those entering offshore or osteopathic schools are far lower than those admitted to US allopathic medical schools. Indeed, most of the students pursuing offshore or osteopathy schools (between 63-94%) applied to allopathic schools but did not achieve admission. A related question, therefore, is what happens to the graduates from the nation's Graduate Medical Education programs. Do those individuals who trained in the Caribbean schools or schools of osteopathy compensate for prior weaknesses by doing the graduate medical training in LCME/ACGME programs? And what kind of physicians do they become?

With context:

http://deansnewsletter.stanford.edu/archive/09_19_05.html#7

At the present time, there are places for about 8000 graduates of non-LCME accredited medical or osteopathic schools in LCME certified graduate medical education programs. Put another way, approximately one-third of residency programs are being filled by students graduating from Caribbean (i.e., "offshore") schools, which are not reviewed by the LCME or osteopathic schools within the USA (as well as some international schools). Both the offshore and the osteopathic sectors have been increasing in size during the past 10-20 years, while the number of allopathic medical schools has remained relatively static at about 125. The offshore medical schools account for 5% of the graduates entering LCME/ACGME approved residency programs, while the schools of osteopathy account for 11% of the individuals entering residency programs. Neither type of school follows the model of our allopathic medical schools, which are unique, of course, because of the research they perform and the research faculty who comprise them. In fact, most of the schools of osteopathy send their students to allopathic schools or hospitals for their clinical training programs. At the current time, only 64% of the graduates entering LCME/ACGME internship/residency programs come from our LCME accredited allopathic schools. This proportion has been decreasing as the offshore schools in the Caribbean and the schools of osteopathy increase their class size. Of additional note, the fact that the Caribbean and osteopathic schools do not have research programs, and in some cases do not even have significant clinical faculty, means that they are much less expensive to operate -- and easier to expand.

So an important question is, if there is a need for additional physicians in the workforce, should they come from our allopathic schools or from other sources? We do know that these students perform far differently on the USMLE exams and that the GPA and MCAT scores of those entering offshore or osteopathic schools are far lower than those admitted to US allopathic medical schools. Indeed, most of the students pursuing offshore or osteopathy schools (between 63-94%) applied to allopathic schools but did not achieve admission. A related question, therefore, is what happens to the graduates from the nation's Graduate Medical Education programs. Do those individuals who trained in the Caribbean schools or schools of osteopathy compensate for prior weaknesses by doing the graduate medical training in LCME/ACGME programs? And what kind of physicians do they become?

Interestingly, when I asked whether students entering Caribbean or osteopathic schools were more diverse or filled special niches, I learned that neither of these possibilities is the case. In fact, those entering Caribbean schools are less diverse, and the financial situation is such that they have to have more resources to pay for their education than those entering US allopathic schools.

 

[crys20]

First let me say that one of the reasons that states favor expansion of osteopathic medicine via funding for additional schools is that when you look at the schools that produce primary care physicians (obviously what this country needs right now) DO schools comprise pretty much the entire top 10-15. I can't remember exactly, but it was a USNews chart I saw a couple weeks ago. So if we're talking about producing physicians to fill this gap in primary care, you really need to consider what schools produce them. I would argue then that DO grads do, in a large way, fill a special niche that being primary care...With an additional emphasis on prim care in rural underserved locations.

I'm not sure that I understand or agree with the comment that osteo schools don't follow the "unique allopathic model" re: curriculum. The curriculum is identical with the addition of OMM. The classes at each of the 3 DO schools I've seen thus far are taught in large part by PhDs with MDs and DOs on staff. What does research faculty have to do with the quality of teaching? I would argue that non-high powered research faculty would tend to be better teachers of the clinical sciences since teaching is their focus.

 

[ForbiddenComma]

First let me say that one of the reasons that states favor expansion of osteopathic medicine via funding for additional schools is that when you look at the schools that produce primary care physicians (obviously what this country needs right now) DO schools comprise pretty much the entire top 10-15. I can't remember exactly, but it was a USNews chart I saw a couple weeks ago. So if we're talking about producing physicians to fill this gap in primary care, you really need to consider what schools produce them. I would argue then that DO grads do, in a large way, fill a special niche that being primary care....

Here we are: USNews med school rankings: Primary Care

Note that an osteo school ranks higher than Harvard on this list.

Make of USNews what you will... but I don't think there's much question that having a high-powered research staff at your school does not equate better training at clinical care. Note how well public schools are represented here: training primary care doctors for their respective states is a much higher emphasis for them than for the elite private schools.

btw, I didn't know that Michigan State had both a DO program and an MD program... strange

 

[crys20]

Here's what I was thinking of.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/webextras/premium/sb_med_primarycare.php

 

[rockit]

How many DOs are in primary care because that was their option. My own small experience with two separate DOs, both in a family practice, was terrible. Both had bad presence in the room and did, in my opinion, a poor job of being a doctor. There are fine DOs, but I think that a portion of them are crappy, and the crappy portion is larger for DOs than MDs.

That said, anybody that does their job well gets my respect.

 

[subtle1epiphany]

Since this conversation has turned to MSU and the osteopathic college in particular, I've decided to briefly chime in.

Our staff for anatomy consists of a PhD in anatomy, a DO specializing in PM&R, and a MD who never attended residency. All of our basic science courses, including anatomy, are taught by faculty who hold PhDs in their respective fields and are involved in substantial research befitting MSU.

Furthermore, all courses (aside from OMM and our Doctor/Patient Relationship course) are taught with MD and DO students in the same lecture hall, taking the same exams on the same days with the same books.

Our rotation sites at the DO school comprise all the sites that CHM uses and about 12 or so more. Many of these clinical sites are specifically osteopathic hospitals and we have been adding rotation sites every few months. The system that COM has set up, state-wide, is now a model for not only the State of Michigan, but the federal government. Hospitals are lining up to recieve our students and our residents.

Research at MSU is among the highest in any DO school, up there with Texas and New Jersey. While this isn't anywhere near Harvard or WashU, our primary care output is incredible and the school is dedicating new funding for research.

With regard to our primary care output, this is one of the reasons for the increase in class size at MSUCOM, the State of Michigan acted on its projected shortage of physicians and since grads of UofM, Wayne State, and the MD school at MSU are all exported to a great degree, they decided to expand our funding and increase our enrollment.

In addition, while I think the MD school here is excellent (many of my close friends are CHMers), COM has been known to attain substantially higher board scores than they have the past few years.

 

[fuegorama]

what kind of physicians do they become?
.

This is the one question that really deserves an answer.

The rest of this diatribe is a little strange considering the source. "63-94%" Would a paper coming out of Stanford ever try to publish this as evidence?

No research? While it is true that COMs have done some serious self-mutilation by not aggressively pursuing research opportunities, this has started to change in the recent past. Both TCOM and UNECOM have dedicated biomedical research programs. UNE's physical plant for its research facility will hopefully be a reality within 4 years.

What is the point here? Who will these new docs be? Will they be coming from the vast untapped, invisible pile of students with superior stats that have not been applying to either Allo or Osteo programs? Where are these MCAT masters and wizards of O-chem?
I'll tell ya. When a 27, a 3.5 and an extra decade +/- gender/race don't make the cut at their state school. They see the lack of spots and go to the alternative. They are keeping seats warm at DO schools.

But back to the question. As I wrote in another post, I would put the majority of my medical education against anyone's. That includes Stanford. About 50% of us take the USMLE. We do not perform as well. About 3/4 of us that take it pass first time. What does this mean? About 50% of us pursue ACGME post-grad education and the vast majority pass without difficulty. What does this mean?
What does the MCAT, Step 1, Step 2, pre-clinical grade set mean?
What would a convincing data set look like that proved or disproved that DOs give care that is at least on par with our allopathic colleagues?

 

[fuegorama]

edit

 

[WatchingWaiting]

This is the one question that really deserves an answer.

The rest of this diatribe is a little strange considering the source. "63-94%" Would a paper coming out of Stanford ever try to publish this as evidence?

Have you ever read a meta-analysis? It's not like the American Osteopathic Association is putting out an annual report of how many of their students are actually MD-rejects. I'm not sure if 63-94% is a 95% confidence interval or just the range from the occassional papers that appear in Academic Medicine, American Osteopathic Association data releases, and the like, but there's nothing particularly odd about having that much uncertainty about the answer. Short of sticking a couple thousand recent first-year D.O. students on Sodium pentothal and surveying them about the med school application process (joke), it's not like you can say, 85.3% of osteopaths are there because they couldn't go allopathic.

 

[fuegorama]

Have you ever read a meta-analysis? It's not like the American Osteopathic Association is putting out an annual report of how many of their students are actually MD-rejects. I'm not sure if 63-94% is a 95% confidence interval or just the range from the occassional papers that appear in Academic Medicine, American Osteopathic Association data releases, and the like, but there's nothing particularly odd about having that much uncertainty about the answer. Short of sticking a couple thousand recent first-year D.O. students on Sodium pentothal and surveying them about the med school application process (joke), it's not like you can say, 85.3% of osteopaths are there because they couldn't go allopathic.

You are right on. I arched a little too quickly.
As you said, I would bet this is not a range, but separate speculations from multiple sources that have been syntaxed to make up this "range". Taken in the context of the post (look a leading representative of a fine medical school believes COMs are churning out potentially poor product) I thought a call on what this stat meant was appropriate.


The sodium Pentothal study sounds intriguing, but then you would be talking almost to the entirety of the DO matriculating class. A couple of thousand is a pretty big sample.
We are wee.

 

[Jinyaoysiu]

Do those individuals who trained in the Caribbean schools or schools of osteopathy compensate for prior weaknesses by doing the graduate medical training in LCME/ACGME programs? And what kind of physicians do they become?
.

Prior Weakness? You mean undergrad MCAT/GPA? This is what I'm talking about. There are these MDs like WachingWaiting that continue to focus in on the undergraduate portion of someone's past, and totally forgot the fact that there had been 4 years of med school that happened in between that, which include countless hours of studying and taking the national boards and more. Come on, these MDs should be smart enough to realize that. If these DOs/FMGs in fact do train in ACGME programs, that means they have accomplished just as much(if not more) as a similar MD that is in the same program. So what prior weaknesses are you talking about? that would need the ACGME program to "compensate?"

Like I said, some MDs think that way purely to inflate their own egos. These "prior weaknesses"(that happened in UNDERGRAD, that's assuming there was any weakness to begin with) of a DO...blah blah blah and fails to see the performance that particular DO could provide. If a 4th yr senior with 4.0 GPA/great student in every aspect in undergrad was applying for a reserach grant in his university, and got rejected because of his SAT scores that took place in HIGH SCHOOL, any decently intelligent MD or human being would agree that it's unfair because the university cared about such "prior weaknesses" instead of looking at the student's performance in undergrad. How come when it comes to the case of DO student, all of a sudden some MDs lose their intelligence to logically and fairly evaluate the worth of a physician? We all know the answers why and I truly feel sad for such individuals.

Some MDs/people have this really simple minded mentality thinking that if something's competitive to get in therefore people who don't meet the "standards" cannot possibly perform well. For example, We all know that derm is super competitive but come on, someone with a 190 on usmle or 27mcat(if people love looking at "prior" stuff)can be just as great of a dermatolgist, but in no way would he be able to match. Derm is not that hard, in fact neither is rad or surgery..etc if one puts in all the hard work. Apparently there are these people in these "competitive" positions that have self-esteem issues that need to go on these power trips and somehow make themselves feel more special. Some might not actively exhibit such sad mentality but it occasionally slips out, like some people that would talk about "prior weaknesses" in an online forum. Give me a break, we all know that's just plain sad, and our patients would be absolutely disgusted if they found out about this especially when doctors are supposed to be intelligent, compassionate, logical, fair, but in reality some are just self-serving shallow hypocrites.

 

[ForbiddenComma]

There are these MDs like WachingWaiting that continue to focus in on the undergraduate portion of someone's past, and totally forgot the fact that there had been 4 years of med school that happened in between that

I think this is the essence of the argument. Once you are admitted, your undergrad history is meaningless, except perhaps for publications. There are plenty of great docs who went to a *COM school, and there are always idiots who slid into HMS purely through legacy. Which would you prefer as your own primary care physician?

The overall stats favor the elite MD schools, obviously, but we'll be dealing with our colleagues on a case-by-case basis. Making summary judgments of another doc's ability based purely on where they went to school is a fallacy.

 

[CHMer]

I'm a 4th year MD student at MSU and I have never posted on here before. However, I wanted to set the record straight concerning a few of the claims that subtle1epiphany has put forth concerning michigan state's MD and DO programs. Let me also say that I have nothing against DOs, indeed I even considered going to MSU-COM, I know many great DO docs, etc etc.

"Furthermore, all courses (aside from OMM and our Doctor/Patient Relationship course) are taught with MD and DO students in the same lecture hall, taking the same exams on the same days with the same books."

Right, we have the same profs/texts/exams for the basic science courses taught during the first year of med school. From Year two on, however, our curriculums go their separate ways. And, just like someone else's post indicated, the DO students don't take any shelf exams or any clinical exams whatsoever during third and fourth year. Also, unless things have changed over the last few years, the exam/course scores set by COM for passing were always 5-10% lower than those required of the MD students.

"Our rotation sites at the DO school comprise all the sites that CHM uses and about 12 or so more."

Wrong(at least in Grand Rapids). You rotate in some of the same CITIES as the CHM students, not at the same HOSPITALS. You are at smaller osteopathic hospitals(unless you use an elective month to rotate outside your hospital). The hospitals that the MD students do their clinicals at receive more funding, have more residency programs/residents, a higher patient volume/acuity and are more highly regarded across the board.

"Hospitals are lining up to recieve our students and our residents."

Perhaps this is true at the osteo hospitals in which you rotate or that house osteo residency programs. However, although a well qualified DO student can certainly match into most residency programs at allo hospitals in MI, it is markedly more difficult to do so than if you were an MD student(and it is near impossible at UofM).

"In addition, while I think the MD school here is excellent (many of my close friends are CHMers), COM has been known to attain substantially higher board scores than they have the past few years."

Allright, this is the straw that made the donkey a paraplegic. This assertion is just flat out ridiculous. First of all, we don't even take the same board exam. I have heard from innumerable COM friends who have taken both the comlex and the usmle that the latter is significantly more challenging, so this is like comparing apples to watermellons. Secondly, no one can make any qualitative or comparative statements about any MD school's board exam performance because the data is not available for analysis. You have no idea what any MD school's usmle average is, and neither does your administration(and if they told you otherwise, well, you swallowed a huge bolus of propaganda). Finally, as someone pointed out earlier, about 3/4 DO students fail the usmle the first go around(and I have to assume that they are the more ambitious students, attempting to secure an allo residency spot). Given that 2 people out of my class of about 100 failed step 1, I doubt that MSU-COM is that far to the right on the osteo bell curve that they have performed at such a level.

If one truly wants to conjecture as to which students perform better on the step 1 and 2 usmle board exams, one must examine the AVAILABLE evidence. MSU-CHM has substantially higher entrance GPAs and MCATs, substantially higher year one basic science course averages, takes NBME shelf exams for all clinical rotations and places far more students at competitive residency programs. I know which one I would bet all of my chips on.

At least wait until you are in the clinical portion of your curriculum before you begin blindly singing the praises of your school. And please refrain from posting things that aren't true, people actually read these threads and will call you out.

 

[Elysium]

As an aside, the majority of people at my (former) DO school wanted to do residency in something besides primary care. A lot of of them wanted to do ortho (most likely NOT going to happen), ER, rads, optho, and IM fellowships. Not that most of them will match - they probably won't. But don't think that everyone who goes to DO school WANTS to match in primary care, mostly because you'd have to be an f-ing ***** to go $200,000 in debt to make $100,000 as an FP.

 

[PsychEval]

In one osteopathic schools graduating class, approximately 30% of the students had a parent that was a DO. There are several 2nd and some 3rd generation DO’s out there. In fact, I have talked with a 3rd generation DO who comes from a family of wealth, he was under the impression that the most “arrogant” MD’s are typically those who are the first in their family to go to medical school. I could care less about the MD/DO arguing, I am a Ph.D. I make referrals to both MD’s and DO’s for medication evaluations. Recently, I referred a patient to a psychiatrist who happened to be a DO. The patient joked, “what is the difference in a MD and a DO? …..DO’s speak English.” True story. I guess my point is, discrimination runs both ways, among providers and patients. None of it seems particularly beneficial.

 

[little_late_MD]

But don't think that everyone who goes to DO school WANTS to match in primary care, mostly because you'd have to be an f-ing ***** to go $200,000 in debt to make $100,000 as an FP.

Ummmmm.....thousands, if tens of thousands of students graduate every year with between $50K and $150K in undergraduate debt. They vast majority of them will only find jobs starting at between $35K-$75K. Are they f'ing *****s too?

 

[allendo]

Ok, I think we have killed the horse! The point is that some people go D.O. b/c they want to(me), some people b/c they got rejected from M.D.(the majority), and what it all boils down to is that we become doctors and end up working in the same offices and hospitals. Yes, there are people who should not be doctors (M.D. and D.O.)! There are idiots in every realm of life.

 

[crys20]

You're right allendo. The problem is that in CHOOSING to be a DO is one choosing to endure a professional lifetime of unfair disrespect or even ridicule despite practicing adequete, competent or even exceptional medicine. This was my original question. My hope is that despite the blanket generalizations that many (most?) allo students/physicians have individuals will be intelligent enough to make judgements about DOs on a case to case basis and not disrespect/ridicule a colleague until they do something to deserve that.

The problem with that I think is like everyone at some point is gonna mess up, MDs and DOs alike so then you run into this slippery slope where being a DO would just give your MD counterparts another reason to call you out on errors.

 

[D.O. Guy]

ok, here's the deal, the reason D.O.'s get ripped on is because it is a lot easier to get into D.O. school. This makes it so that many people just go D.O. because they couldn't get into allopathic. I know every D.O. claims to have made the choice that they wanted to go D.O. all along but that's complete B.S. My guess is that 85% went D.O. because they didn't get into U.S. allopathic but didn't want to go overseas. Many friends of mine suddenly started embracing the D.O. philosophy after their orgo grades and mcat came back. D.O.'s can't keep pretending that everyone wanted to go d.o. because it's just not true. The only way to get rid of the stigma is to get rid of all the m.d. rejects going d.o. because they have to. We always need to distinguish overselves in some way because right know it is true, we are all m.d. rejects until we get rid of the bad apples.

 

[crys20]

I don't think anyone's pretending that everyone in DO schools chose to be there, or even that they WANT to be there. Obviously no one can argue that, the majority ARE people who were at the cusp between getting MD acceptances and not getting them. I guess it's a matter of what comes to mind when you're practicing one day alongside an MD...Do they look at you critically as a physcian and then make a judgement or is their first thought of what your mcat could have possibly been. Seems a little silly.

 

[D.O. Guy]

I don't think anyone's pretending that everyone in DO schools chose to be there, or even that they WANT to be there. Obviously no one can argue that, the majority ARE people who were at the cusp between getting MD acceptances and not getting them. I guess it's a matter of what comes to mind when you're practicing one day alongside an MD...Do they look at you critically as a physcian and then make a judgement or is their first thought of what your mcat could have possibly been. Seems a little silly.

seriously, just go m.d. I can't think of one reason to go d.o. if you have the choice. The whole different philosophy thing is b.s. M.D. opens more doors and the atmosphere in d.o. schools can be poisonous, as would any environment where people are there that really don't want to be there.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

I don't think anyone's pretending that everyone in DO schools chose to be there, or even that they WANT to be there. Obviously no one can argue that, the majority ARE people who were at the cusp between getting MD acceptances and not getting them. I guess it's a matter of what comes to mind when you're practicing one day alongside an MD...Do they look at you critically as a physcian and then make a judgement or is their first thought of what your mcat could have possibly been. Seems a little silly.

even if most osteopathic physicians opted to go that route because they were denied admission to allopathic schools, it still doesn't say anything about their individual merits because your odds of getting into an allopathic school depend so much on your state of residency. i might not get into my state school because it's competitive and doesn't give a strong preference to instate candidates. if i were an oklahoma, arkansas or even texas resident (all states i've lived in before), i would be almost guaranteed admission to one of their state allopathic schools. people in states like oregon, california, washington, pennsylvania and states without a medical school have a lot harder time getting into medical school. some of those people opt to go to osteopathic medical schools even though they would have no trouble getting admitted to an allopathic school if they lived elsewhere. it'd be ridiculous for a person who matriculated at an allopathic school in a state like oklahoma or arkansas to feel superior to osteopathic physicians.

 

[OSUdoc08]

seriously, just go m.d. I can't think of one reason to go d.o. if you have the choice. The whole different philosophy thing is b.s. M.D. opens more doors and the atmosphere in d.o. schools can be poisonous, as would any environment where people are there that really don't want to be there.

Troll,

As an MD, how would you treat muscle strains during a game in an athlete?

Surgery? Drugs? No.

You need to do muscle energy. This means you would need a Physical Therapist on the sideline, who is trained to do this.

As a DO sports medicine physician, I won't need that physical therapist.

 

[OSUdoc08]

ok, here's the deal, the reason D.O.'s get ripped on is because it is a lot easier to get into D.O. school. This makes it so that many people just go D.O. because they couldn't get into allopathic. I know every D.O. claims to have made the choice that they wanted to go D.O. all along but that's complete B.S. My guess is that 85% went D.O. because they didn't get into U.S. allopathic but didn't want to go overseas. Many friends of mine suddenly started embracing the D.O. philosophy after their orgo grades and mcat came back. D.O.'s can't keep pretending that everyone wanted to go d.o. because it's just not true. The only way to get rid of the stigma is to get rid of all the m.d. rejects going d.o. because they have to. We always need to distinguish overselves in some way because right know it is true, we are all m.d. rejects until we get rid of the bad apples.

I didn't know that a statistics course was a requirement for entering Troll school.

 

[D.O. Guy]

Troll,

As an MD, how would you treat muscle strains during a game in an athlete?

Surgery? Drugs? No.

You need to do muscle energy. This means you would need a Physical Therapist on the sideline, who is trained to do this.

As a DO sports medicine physician, I won't need that physical therapist.

now everyone is a troll who doesn't drink the kool aid. seriously, get over yourself.

 

[San_Juan_Sun]

DOs: We work half as hard to make the same amount of money. 😉

I'm going to forward that to the AOA. Next year can be the Year of the Slacker.

Seriously, I don't know if we can break up DO students into those who "chose" to go DO, and those who didn't get into an MD. Obviously, we all chose to go to DO school. Are there some who went there because they didn't get an MD acceptance? Certainly. But I think that decisions like this are made for multitudes of personal reasons, and that answering the "Why did you go DO?" question is actually quite complex.

Do others "rip" on me bacuse I'm a DO student? Not to my face. There are multitudes of better reasons to mock me instead of my school choice. 🙂 Actually, I don't mind a little fun-poking as long as it's in jest. But when people ar actually serious about it, they are obviously tools (who really cares where someone went to school anyways?). And in that case, you already know what you need to know about that opinion.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

seriously, just go m.d. I can't think of one reason to go d.o. if you have the choice. The whole different philosophy thing is b.s. M.D. opens more doors and the atmosphere in d.o. schools can be poisonous, as would any environment where people are there that really don't want to be there.

you might not be a troll, but you seem to be misrepresenting yourself as someone who's actually in a do school. if one does a search of your past posts, it becomes apparent that that's not the case. how can you be so sure do schools are "poisonous" without ever attending one?

 

[Chief Resident]

So can we all at least agree that most students who go to DO schools do so because they couldn't/didn't get into American M.D. schools?

 

[sacrament]

As an MD, how would you treat muscle strains during a game in an athlete?

Surgery? Drugs? No.

You need to do muscle energy.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!

 

[Shodddy18]

So can we all at least agree that most students who go to DO schools do so because they couldn't/didn't get into American M.D. schools?

what the f*** does it matter??? Seriously.

 

[D.O. Guy]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!

seriously, osudoc's post is gold, can we get it as a sticky

 

[Chief Resident]

what the f*** does it matter??? Seriously.

Why do D.O. students get so defensive when a question like this is brought up?

 

[D.O. Guy]

Why do D.O. students get so defensive when a question like this is brought up?

as a former D.O. student I can tell you this is why I left, the people in D.O. school are so insecure that they can't just face reality. Then the guy above trying to say that being D.O. is somehow better, when if an M.D. said such a thing they would be banned from the board

 

[Chief Resident]

as a former D.O. student I can tell you this is why I left, the people in D.O. school are so insecure that they can't just face reality. Then the guy above trying to say that being D.O. is somehow better, when if an M.D. said such a thing they would be banned from the board

So would it be correct to say most people who go to DO school do so because they couldn't get into a M.D. school in the States?

 

[Doctor Bagel]

as a former D.O. student I can tell you this is why I left, the people in D.O. school are so insecure that they can't just face reality. Then the guy above trying to say that being D.O. is somehow better, when if an M.D. said such a thing they would be banned from the board

you are such a liar. everyone, if you want to check this guy's legitimacy, read his very first post at this site. it was made in august of this year, and he was representing himself as a prospective student. so now you're a former student. yes, you are a troll.

here's mr. d.o. guy's first post here. you can see he's not a very trustworthy guy.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=219734

 

[Doctor Bagel]

So would it be correct to say most people who go to DO school do so because they couldn't get into a M.D. school in the States?

why ask him? who the hell knows who he is or whether or not he's ever attended an osteopathic medical school. he's got a track record of dishonesty here at sdn.

 

[stoic]

i think the point is being missed here.

what does it matter if someone got into a DO school and not an MD school? it doesn't. if someone can make it through med school, md or do, then they've got all the brains they need to be a doc.

what matters is when you get out on the floors, not how you do in biochem. and if we're gonna over-generalize things, then i think it's true that there are more pretenious jerks in MD schools than at DO schools (though compared to the baseline population, any faction of medicine is way above average)

 

[Chief Resident]

exlawgrrl, OSUdoc, and other DO students, do you mind answering my question?

 

[Doctor Bagel]

exlawgrrl, OSUdoc, and other DO students, do you mind answering my question?

read my profile and my post above. one, i'm not a do student but might very well be one next year. two, it's meaningless to say an applicant is necessarily inferior because he/she was not accepted at an allopathic school. getting accepted to a school in california is vastly different from being accepted at a school in arkansas, south carolina, west virginia, and i could go on and on.

three, who cares?

 

[Chief Resident]

read my profile and my post above. one, i'm not a do student but might very well be one next year. two, it's meaningless to say an applicant is necessarily inferior because he/she was not accepted at an allopathic school. getting accepted to a school in california is vastly different from being accepted at a school in arkansas, south carolina, west virginia, and i could go on and on.

three, who cares?

What you're saying is all good and everything, but can you actually answer the question?

 

[OSUdoc08]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!

You've obviously never worked for a football team. We do this pretty much at every game.

 

[Jinyaoysiu]

So would it be correct to say most people who go to DO school do so because they couldn't get into a M.D. school in the States?

No one has the stats on this but I believe that the majority of DO students were probably rejects from MD schools, just like I believe that majority of General Surgery residents were probably rejects from other surgical specialties such as neuro, cardio...etc

MD schools are competitive because of a limit in the seats, not because of some people are unqualified to be good doctors, just like certain specialties are competitive not because only a select few are capable. Anyone of decent intelligence could be well-trained in a specialty after spending all that resources and practicing for 7 years .

Some MDs/people have this really simple minded mentality thinking that if something's competitive to get in therefore people who don't meet the "standards" cannot possibly perform well. For example, We all know that derm is super competitive but come on, someone with a 190 on usmle or 27mcat(if people love looking at "prior" stuff)can be just as great of a dermatolgist, but in no way would he be able to match. Derm is not that hard, in fact neither is rad or surgery..etc if one puts in all the hard work. Apparently there are these people in these "competitive" positions that have self-esteem issues that need to go on these power trips and somehow make themselves feel more special. we all know that's just plain sad, and our patients would be absolutely disgusted if they found out about this especially when doctors are supposed to be intelligent, compassionate, logical, fair, but in reality some are just self-serving shallow hypocrites.

Now why does Chief Resident have this particular interest in finding out if most DO students were MD rejects?

 

[Doctor Bagel]

What you're saying is all good and everything, but can you actually answer the question?

honestly, i don't know. i've never been to an osteopathic medical school. unlike do guy, i don't lie about my past experiences. i've never seen any reports covering this subject, and i have no objective criteria to study from. my hunch would be that, yes, most people attend osteopathic medicine schools because they didn't get into allopathic medical school. again, this is meaningless, and it's a petty thing to care about once you're a physician.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

Now why does Chief Resident have this particular interest in finding out if most DO students were MD rejects?

don't know, but i bet he's a not a chief resident. 🙂