Do you ONLY apply to MD schools? Why not DO?

[ReptarBar]

---

Members do not see this ad.

because they are inferior. my primary care doc is a DO, and i remember he used to press on some pressure points on my back for my asthma lmao. then he just wrote the prescription.

 

[Pons Asinorum]

because they are inferior. my primary care doc is a DO, and i remember he used to press on some pressure points on my back for my asthma lmao. then he just wrote the prescription.

inb4willenhighlightsyouridiocy

 

[Totally Rad]

I just had a simple question. Do all of you apply to DO schools in case you do not get into MD schools? I see a bunch of threads of people "not getting in", so why would you wait a year or two to reapply and hopefully get into MD schools, when your guaranteed to get into DO schools right away, and then apply to your selected residency anyways? 😕

Although I do not entirely agree with the philosophy behind osteopathic medicine and will only apply to allopathic schools, I would not say that an admission into an osteopathic institution is "guaranteed". They may have more lenient MCAT requirements, but they make up for it by adding additional requirements to the application process. It is quite extensive and expensive as many earlier posts have shown.

 

[Pons Asinorum]

Although I do not entirely agree with the philosophy behind osteopathic medicine and will only apply to allopathic schools, I would not say that an admission into an osteopathic institution is "guaranteed". They may have more lenient MCAT requirements, but they make up for it by adding additional requirements to the application process. It is quite extensive and expensive as many earlier posts have shown.

I dig your posts, but man I hate that non-standard font. Just saying.

 

[ReptarBar]

inb4willenhighlightsyouridiocy

you know im just a troll, right?

 

[Pons Asinorum]

you know im just a troll, right?

That's never stopped the DO Insult Alarm from being sounded in the past.

 

[Totally Rad]

I dig your posts, but man I hate that non-standard font. Just saying.

Thanks, I like to stand out 🙂😉 but seriously tho, with the stigma attached to the field of osteopathy, is it really worth it? I find it kind of a nuisance that most osteopaths seem to have to defend their field in a rather apologetic manner, and claim that it is somehow "better" than the traditional allopathic. I do not think osteopathic is "better", just different. It is an alternative form of medicine that few pursue out of actual interest, but rather pursue because they could not matriculate into an MD school (if this perception is false, why is it the reason that most DO's give?). And I simply do not agree with the theory behind OMM; it can cure a few ailments (for bodily misalignments), but definitely not ALL ailments as Sir Still hypothesized.

 

[Pons Asinorum]

Thanks, I like to stand out 🙂😉 but seriously tho, with the stigma attached to the field of osteopathy, is it really worth it? I find it kind of a nuisance that most osteopaths seem to have to defend their field in a rather apologetic manner, and claim that it is somehow "better" than the traditional allopathic. I do not think osteopathic is "better", just different. It is an alternative form of medicine that few pursue out of actual interest, but rather pursue because they could not matriculate into an MD school (if this perception is false, why is it the reason that most DO's give?). And I simply do not agree with the theory behind OMM; it can cure a few ailments (for bodily misalignments), but definitely not ALL ailments as Sir Still hypothesized.

I like where this thread is heading...

 

[slatermd]

I like where this thread is heading...

Who would've predicted this direction based on the thread title

I'm shocked it took this long. PS Pons, I this image is good, but I think it could use more cowbell. Let's resize +750%. Quoted for posterity.

 

[MCAT guy]

My thoughts on DO.

It is an equivalent degree.

Older doctors may have negative stereotype towards.

Your career options are similar for the most part. (Highly competitive ACGME spots will be difficult for DO's to match, I.e. Ortho/ENT/etc, some of my interests)

DO's have counterpart residencies I believe, so I guess they have similar options. I only look at NRMP data, so I don't know DO data.

In the end, you are a quality doctor because of the person you are, not the degree.

 

[MCAT guy]

Agreed with Torr.

If you don't like what you've read, then avoid DO. I actually was going to apply DO but feedback told me I'd be fine on MD. But I never cared too much about MD/DO.

The only thing that might have swayed me is interests in fields like otolaryngology, which is probably tough for DO's to match ACGME.

EDIT: Holy crap! Torr just deleted a post or something. Gold member!

 

[Totally Rad]

My thoughts on DO.

It is an equivalent degree.

Older doctors may have negative connotation.

Your career options are similar for the most part. (Highly competitive ACGME spots will be difficult for DO's do match, I.e. Ortho/ENT/etc, some of my interests)

DO's have counterpart residencies I believe, so I guess they have similar options. I only look at NRMP data, so I don't know DO data.

In the end, you are a quality doctor because of the person you are, not the degree.

I agree and acknowledge that osteopathic physicians are fully licensed doctors in the U.S., but may you elaborate a little more on the "Older doctors may have negative connotation."?

 

[Atlas Shrugged]

Come on guys, there is a lot of spiritual energy in the body that most people are too dull to recognize. This website has a good overview cranial osteopathy for those of you willing to open your minds a bit.

http://www.cranialacademy.com/cranial.html

Please tell me you're joking.

 

[Torr]

Agreed with Torr.

If you don't like what you've read, then avoid DO. I actually was going to apply DO but feedback told me I'd be fine on MD. But I never cared too much about MD/DO.

The only thing that might have swayed me is interests in fields like otolaryngology, which is probably tough for DO's to match ACGME.

EDIT: Holy crap! Torr just deleted a post or something. Gold member!

Lol. I wrote it and felt it futile so deleted.

Behold the power of the gold!

 

[WashMe]

I agree and acknowledge that osteopathic physicians are fully licensed doctors in the U.S., but may you elaborate a little more on the "Older doctors may have negative connotation."?

That font seriously has to go. It's hard to even read it. I know you want people to think you're unique, but you don't want your particular form of self-expression to keep people from reading your posts, do you? That font burns my eyes.

 

[patel2]

I agree and acknowledge that osteopathic physicians are fully licensed doctors in the U.S., but may you elaborate a little more on the "Older doctors may have negative connotation."?

The AMA used to call DOs quacks up until the 60s. Heck, in 1962 the AMA spent 8 million dollars in California to ban osteopathic medicine (and succeeded). It wasn't until the Supreme Court overturned this decision in 1974 that DOs were licensed to practice in California (though even after the ban, DOs were given the option of receiving an MD degree for $65 and attending some brief seminar). I'd say it's mainly the older (emphasis on older) docs who are in their 50s+ who may have bias and think DOs have inferior education to an MD (particularly in regard to OMM treatments). Definitely not all, but some, and I suspect it's related to be the contentious battles within organized medicine that occured before we were all born, and the fact that there was a time in their lives that DOs and MD were not seen as being equivalent degrees

In the same way, many older DOs are really bitter towards MD organizations (like the AMA), and because they were so discriminated against at one time, they still see it as very important to maintain a distinct identity. AOA leadership is always emphasizing things like "how DOs treat people as a whole, treat not the symptom but whole person", despite the fact that MDs do the exact same thing in clinical practice. I'm not a DO student, but from perusing the DO boards, it seems like students often find themselves at odds with the leadership (i.e. as evidenced by the movement to get rid of cranial from the comlex and some people have even advocated awarding an MD, DO degree, including the dean of Nova-Southeastern)

 

[mvenus929]

I just had a simple question. Do all of you apply to DO schools in case you do not get into MD schools? I see a bunch of threads of people "not getting in", so why would you wait a year or two to reapply and hopefully get into MD schools, when your guaranteed to get into DO schools right away, and then apply to your selected residency anyways? 😕

Primarily because it was a whole lot more cost efficient to apply only MD. If it didn't make any cost difference, I might've applied to DO schools. But then, there are few DO schools in locations where I'd want to spend four years, so maybe not.

And you're not guaranteed to get into DO schools. But nice try.

 

[Bravetown]

Primarily because it was a whole lot more cost efficient to apply only MD.

Cost effective ehh not really I'm pretty sure the ACCOMAS application cost is the same as AMCAS and if you are worried about spending the extra $90 bucks to get verified, when DO secondaries are like $50-60 and MD where around $70 (GWash $120 😡) they'll add up quick. And for all the one's bitching about filling out another application it takes like two hours. On the other hand the thought that I have to learn cranial makes me cry a little.

 

[Just Joshin]

I think you're a bit confused about residency. There are separate MD and DO residency programs with entirely separate matches, and while DOs do get spots in MD programs it takes a lot of extra work to switch over (e.g having to take both sets of licensing exams and often having to juggle both matches, etc). Take a look at all the "DO trying to match allo" threads in the residency programs. Does that mean it's impossible? Of course not, and great DOs certainly match in allo programs, but it's definitely an uphill battle compared to their MD colleagues.

Not exactly. It depends on the specialty. Most DOs WILL match allo, if that's what they want. It's the extremely competitive specialties that is harder for DOs. But then again, a DO just matched allo integrated plastics.

 

[Just Joshin]

Agreed with Torr.

If you don't like what you've read, then avoid DO. I actually was going to apply DO but feedback told me I'd be fine on MD. But I never cared too much about MD/DO.

The only thing that might have swayed me is interests in fields like otolaryngology, which is probably tough for DO's to match ACGME.

EDIT: Holy crap! Torr just deleted a post or something. Gold member!

Hate to break it to you, but otolaryngology is tough for MDs too. At least with DOs, you had your own DO residencies in the field that you could also apply to.

 

[Just Joshin]

I agree and acknowledge that osteopathic physicians are fully licensed doctors in the U.S., but may you elaborate a little more on the "Older doctors may have negative connotation."?

Older doctors remember a time when most MDs felt DOs were inferior. The newer generation of doctors are more accepting of the degree and I think over time, that bias will diminish.

 

[Just Joshin]

The AMA used to call DOs quacks up until the 60s. Heck, in 1962 the AMA spent 8 million dollars in California to ban osteopathic medicine (and succeeded). It wasn't until the Supreme Court overturned this decision in 1974 that DOs were licensed to practice in California (though even after the ban, DOs were given the option of receiving an MD degree for $65 and attending some brief seminar)

And this right here should prove that the ban was nothing more than people flexing their muscles because they didn't like two different medical degrees. They didn't believe DOs were inferior. If they did, they wouldn't have allowed them to become MDs.

 

[UbuntuGM]

bottom line is, if you get into an MD school, there aren't many conceivable reasons to go DO.

 

[BaronVonZ]

This thread makes me think of a room filled with propane as a chain smoker fiddles with the door lock. In that spirit:

I think an MD and a DO might be roughly equivalent if you're applying around the middle of the pack, but there is no DO equivalent to top MD programs. Going to virtually any school in the top 10 or 20 will earn you recognition and build connections that may have a substantial impact on your career.

 

[patel2]

This thread makes me think of a room filled with propane as a chain smoker fiddles with the door lock. In that spirit:

I think an MD and a DO might be roughly equivalent if you're applying around the middle of the pack, but there is no DO equivalent to top MD programs. Going to virtually any school in the top 10 or 20 will earn you recognition and build connections that may have a substantial impact on your career.

Irrespective of the MD/DO debate, I don't think this statement is true even within the MD world. For academic medicine/research, it probably is. But for private practice and getting into residency, factors like "school-name recognition" and "connections" associated with being at a top school are not nearly as important as they are in law/business fields, since residency is so heavily based on board scores and clinical rotation perfomance.

I do agree that competitive ACGME residencies do have a DO bias, especially in surgical fields. But I would argue that a kid who goes to his state MD or even a mid/lower-tier US MD will be at no disadvantage over the Hopkins grad, in terms of developing connections that could impact his future career (outside of academia). Whereas in law the person who goes to the top 20 is at an infinite advantage over a state or low-tier grad.

 

[BaronVonZ]

Irrespective of the MD/DO debate, I don't think this statement is true even within the MD world. For academic medicine/research, it probably is. But for private practice and getting into residency, factors like "school-name recognition" and "connections" associated with being at a top school are not nearly as important as they are in law/business fields, since residency is so heavily based on board scores and clinical rotation perfomance.

Are you arguing the degree of the advantage or that an advantage exists? If its the latter then you are mistaken - the fact that board scores are more important in residency placement than school choice does not invalidate the contribution of academic prestige. Also, patients with a choice in which doctor they want to see will be more likely to seek the services of a physician that went to a school with a name they can recognize (should they choose to look into it). There are other benefits - teachers aspire to teach at top 10 programs just as much as students aspire to study there, and as a result top schools likely have some very impressive faculty for their students to learn from.

The ranking itself may not matter all too much, but I don't see someone turning down Harvard for a DO school - there are simply advantages (minor ones perhaps, but advantages none-the-less) that the DO school could simply not hope to match.

 

[JaggerPlate]

Agreed with Torr.

If you don't like what you've read, then avoid DO. I actually was going to apply DO but feedback told me I'd be fine on MD. But I never cared too much about MD/DO.

The only thing that might have swayed me is interests in fields like otolaryngology, which is probably tough for DO's to match ACGME.

EDIT: Holy crap! Torr just deleted a post or something. Gold member!

Nicely stated.

It seems like the MD v DO threads are starting to become more tame/logical, which is a good thing.

Like others have said ... there shouldn't be any contention expressed toward students who don't want to apply DO. If you want the MD, want to go to a certain sect of schools, feel like it will help you achieve something post-medical school that you desire (this is a discussion for a whole other time), then God bless - don't let anyone feel like you're arrogant for getting what you want.

Additionally, as others have pointed out, nothing in life is perfect and the DO model is no exception. I personally think it's a very solid system and produces excellent, competent physicians, who are making waves with their MD counterparts (like Joshin brought up, a DO just matched integrated plastic surgery at KU), but there are definitely some issues that I feel could be better - some of the disconnect with the AOA, the need to dump things like cranial to make OMM a more streamlined, applicable, and utilized modality, increase research at DO colleges etc.

However, I think one could definitely make the same argument toward a disconnect with the AMA (as only around 20% of physicians are members), if you really feel like arguing (I don't, and I don't personally see any discontent from DOs toward the AMA - we have a very strong student AMA chapter at my campus, for example, and the students, admin, and alumni are very supportive of it).

Altogether, I think both (DO and MD) are solid options for those wanting to become competent physicians. There are pros and cons to both models, and an applicant should be aware of this and also (in my opinion) keep in mind that applying to both is a solid choice if your goal is to keep chugging away and working toward the 'physician title.' However, some people want to apply one or the other, not apply MD, etc, and there's nothing wrong with this.

- DO student

 

[JaggerPlate]

I think what Patel is saying is simply that the 'top' connections don't affect life as much in medicine as compared to business and law.

For example, right now, there is a HUGE issue with JD saturation and people from no-name (and even some good, but not as well known) law schools are essentially finding no employment after school. Because of this, it's highly recommended you attend one of the 'top' (I think they designate 7 as such) schools simply because the network and connections post graduate are critical (and the same can be said for MBA programs).

However, if you look at something like medicine, the MD from Harvard and DO from the brand new school are still both obtaining residencies and treating a full patient load from 9-5 each day. Additionally, the idea of a post-graduate residency is, in many cases, much more important than where you went to school and is really what 'opens doors' as far as landing jobs, privileges, etc, is concerned. Furthermore, patients, from my experience, don't really pick docs based on name recognition. Maybe in an elective field like cosmetic surgery or something, but 99% of patients see a doctor because they are either a. in a hospital and that doc works there, b. they were referred by another physician, c. they feel comfortable with this physician.

Now, I'm not going to sit here any deny that going to Harvard, JHU, etc, wouldn't have very nice perks, networking, and likely open some very elite doors, but I think patel was just mentioning how the division between Ivy elite and 'other' isn't as big, prevalent, or important as seen in things like business and law.

Are you arguing the degree of the advantage or that an advantage exists? If its the latter then you are mistaken - the fact that board scores are more important in residency placement than school choice does not invalidate the contribution of academic prestige. Also, patients with a choice in which doctor they want to see will be more likely to seek the services of a physician that went to a school with a name they can recognize (should they choose to look into it). There are other benefits - teachers aspire to teach at top 10 programs just as much as students aspire to study there, and as a result top schools likely have some very impressive faculty for their students to learn from.

The ranking itself may not matter all too much, but I don't see someone turning down Harvard for a DO school - there are simply advantages (minor ones perhaps, but advantages none-the-less) that the DO school could simply not hope to match.

 

[patel2]

Are you arguing the degree of the advantage or that an advantage exists? If its the latter then you are mistaken - the fact that board scores are more important in residency placement than school choice does not invalidate the contribution of academic prestige. Also, patients with a choice in which doctor they want to see will be more likely to seek the services of a physician that went to a school with a name they can recognize (should they choose to look into it). There are other benefits - teachers aspire to teach at top 10 programs just as much as students aspire to study there, and as a result top schools likely have some very impressive faculty for their students to learn from.

The ranking itself may not matter all too much, but I don't see someone turning down Harvard for a DO school - there are simply advantages (minor ones perhaps, but advantages none-the-less) that the DO school could simply not hope to match.

I agree, but I was comparing Harvard to a state MD, not a DO. I think there are advantages to taking a US MD acceptance over a DO one, as that will leave more doors open in ACGME residencies. Second, your point about academic medicine is true. Teachers aspire to be at top ranked centers, and the faculty will consist of lots of ivy-league trained physicians.

The point about patients more likely to pick a doctor out with medical school name recognition...eh, not so much. In private practice, once you have reached the stage of being board-certified in a specific field, the school you attended will have marginal (to the point of insignificance) effects on your patient load/potential earnings. It's theoretically possible that a person highly values ivy-league names and would only select a doctor based on that. But many people don't even understand the rankings/prestige. Your typical person outside of medicine probably would have no idea that Washington University in St. Louis or Baylor are of the most highly ranked schools in the country. What's more likely to impact your future career is your business skills, personal competence, referral base, city/town you work in, and the demand of your specialty in that region. And for patients who do look up the credentials of a physician, they'd be far more likely to research the place the person did their residency at, licensure/malpractice record, board-cerifications, patient reviews etc., since those would be the mark of a person's competence in that field.

I think the advantages of a top 20 MD are significant in academia and prestige (who wouldn't want to go if accepted?) but marginal in private practice and getting into a specific specialty (as compared with a lower-tier MD). There are advantages of any MD student getting into competitive ACGME residencies as compared to a DO, but that isn't unique to a top 20 versus a DO.

 

[MCAT guy]

Nicely stated.

It seems like the MD v DO threads are starting to become more tame/logical, which is a good thing.

Like others have said ... there shouldn't be any contention expressed toward students who don't want to apply DO. If you want the MD, want to go to a certain sect of schools, feel like it will help you achieve something post-medical school that you desire (this is a discussion for a whole other time), then God bless - don't let anyone feel like you're arrogant for getting what you want.

Additionally, as others have pointed out, nothing in life is perfect and the DO model is no exception. I personally think it's a very solid system and produces excellent, competent physicians, who are making waves with their MD counterparts (like Joshin brought up, a DO just matched integrated plastic surgery at KU), but there are definitely some issues that I feel could be better - some of the disconnect with the AOA, the need to dump things like cranial to make OMM a more streamlined, applicable, and utilized modality, increase research at DO colleges etc.

However, I think one could definitely make the same argument toward a disconnect with the AMA (as only around 20% of physicians are members), if you really feel like arguing (I don't, and I don't personally see any discontent from DOs toward the AMA - we have a very strong student AMA chapter at my campus, for example, and the students, admin, and alumni are very supportive of it).

Altogether, I think both (DO and MD) are solid options for those wanting to become competent physicians. There are pros and cons to both models, and an applicant should be aware of this and also (in my opinion) keep in mind that applying to both is a solid choice if your goal is to keep chugging away and working toward the 'physician title.' However, some people want to apply one or the other, not apply MD, etc, and there's nothing wrong with this.

- DO student

Jagger is a perfect example of a physician that I will respect and will be glad to call a colleague, more so than some of the goof balls I read in the allo forums.

This is why I believe to judge by the man and not the degree.

 

[shaggy alfresco]

I have no problem with DO physicians. I have a problem with cranial and such that they teach and test on while in DO schools, so I would never do it. Thankfully, almost no practicing DO uses cranial, so when it's all said and done, it's equivalent. But you still have to learn and be tested on cranial and I have no patience to learn pseudoscience like that so it's not for me.

 

[shaggy alfresco]

As for 'having to defend yourself', a relative of mine works at a lawfirm where you have to defend yourself if you didn't go to harvard or yale law school. You'll find that type of thing in everywhere, but overall, medicine has much less of that than almost any other field. It's not really going to affect your life.

 

[iqe2010]

Texas has a D.O. school, so I'm applying to it.

 

[JaggerPlate]

Texas has a D.O. school, so I'm applying to it.

Awesome program too.

 

[TheRealAngeleno]

Hey Jagger I'm not sure if you've done or are currently doing your clinical rotations but from your experience are there any resentment towards DO's in the hospital setting since they may be viewed as "inferior" ? Do DO's have to "prove themselves" in the hospital more so than their allopathic counterparts?

 

[Just Joshin]

Irrespective of the MD/DO debate, I don't think this statement is true even within the MD world. For academic medicine/research, it probably is. But for private practice and getting into residency, factors like "school-name recognition" and "connections" associated with being at a top school are not nearly as important as they are in law/business fields, since residency is so heavily based on board scores and clinical rotation perfomance.

I do agree that competitive ACGME residencies do have a DO bias, especially in surgical fields. But I would argue that a kid who goes to his state MD or even a mid/lower-tier US MD will be at no disadvantage over the Hopkins grad, in terms of developing connections that could impact his future career (outside of academia). Whereas in law the person who goes to the top 20 is at an infinite advantage over a state or low-tier grad.

Have you seen the match list for places like Harvard? Even the student who graduates last in his class ends up somewhere nice. Why do you think that is? You don't think it's because PDs look at the applications and realize that the student who finished last in his class still finished last at HARVARD?

 

[Just Joshin]

I think what Patel is saying is simply that the 'top' connections don't affect life as much in medicine as compared to business and law.

For example, right now, there is a HUGE issue with JD saturation and people from no-name (and even some good, but not as well known) law schools are essentially finding no employment after school. Because of this, it's highly recommended you attend one of the 'top' (I think they designate 7 as such) schools simply because the network and connections post graduate are critical (and the same can be said for MBA programs).

However, if you look at something like medicine, the MD from Harvard and DO from the brand new school are still both obtaining residencies and treating a full patient load from 9-5 each day. Additionally, the idea of a post-graduate residency is, in many cases, much more important than where you went to school and is really what 'opens doors' as far as landing jobs, privileges, etc, is concerned. Furthermore, patients, from my experience, don't really pick docs based on name recognition. Maybe in an elective field like cosmetic surgery or something, but 99% of patients see a doctor because they are either a. in a hospital and that doc works there, b. they were referred by another physician, c. they feel comfortable with this physician.

Now, I'm not going to sit here any deny that going to Harvard, JHU, etc, wouldn't have very nice perks, networking, and likely open some very elite doors, but I think patel was just mentioning how the division between Ivy elite and 'other' isn't as big, prevalent, or important as seen in things like business and law.

I disagree with this interpretation of Patel's post. Patel was saying that DOs are discriminated in the MD world, but that MDs don't really care if you graduated from a low-tier MD school versus Hopkins. That's simply untrue. The person from the low-tier MD school will still get a residency and could possibly get into a competitive field, but the kid from Hopkins is more likely going to have an easier time, assuming he didn't fail the boards or something like that.

 

[Geekchick921]

---Outside of the SDN world, a lot of people don't even know what a DO is, or if they think they do, they have false info.

Also outside of the SDN world, a lot of people don't give half a crap if their doctor is a DO or an MD.

I also live a few miles from a great DO school, so my area has very little bias if any.

I feel the same way. I've lived in/around Philadelphia all my life and PCOM having a reputation as an excellent DO school, the bias so many people on this forum always talk about seems pretty nonexistent here.

My thoughts on DO.

*snip*

Agreed!

 

[Slack3r]

That font seriously has to go. It's hard to even read it. I know you want people to think you're unique, but you don't want your particular form of self-expression to keep people from reading your posts, do you? That font burns my eyes.

Really? A block text font is that hard on your eyes?

Because of this, it's highly recommended you attend one of the 'top' (I think they designate 7 as such) schools simply because the network and connections post graduate are critical (and the same can be said for MBA programs).

It's T6. It also goes to T14.

Have you seen the match list for places like Harvard? Even the student who graduates last in his class ends up somewhere nice. Why do you think that is? You don't think it's because PDs look at the applications and realize that the student who finished last in his class still finished last at HARVARD?

Do you think this has more to do with the caliber of students Harvard accepts? The kid finishing last at Harvard likely would have been in the top quartile of his class at a state school. I think it speaks less to the teaching at Harvard and more to the type of students they accept. Unless you know the distribution of board scores, it would be hard to make an assumption that the "Hah-vuud" name had anymore to do with placement than an excellent academic record from an academically strong student body.

 

[chidoman]

.

 

[Just Joshin]

Do you think this has more to do with the caliber of students Harvard accepts? The kid finishing last at Harvard likely would have been in the top quartile of his class at a state school. I think it speaks less to the teaching at Harvard and more to the type of students they accept. Unless you know the distribution of board scores, it would be hard to make an assumption that the "Hah-vuud" name had anymore to do with placement than an excellent academic record from an academically strong student body.

Graduating last is graduating last. The difference is, if you graduate last at Harvard, you still get your choice of residency, for the most part because you graduated last at Harvard. Now, compare that with someone graduating last from a state MD school and they have to work harder to match into the same specialty/residency as the kid who graduated last at Harvard. IMO, it's partly name-recognition and the fact that PDs, like you, assume that someone graduating last at Harvard would be at the top of the class anywhere else.

 

[Residual]

Also outside of the SDN world, a lot of people don't give half a crap if their doctor is a DO or an MD.

I meant this as a reason why many people don't apply to DO schools: they don't know about them.

 

[Geekchick921]

I meant this as a reason why many people don't apply to DO schools: they don't know about them.

I totally didn't get that. I hadn't had my coffee yet. 😳

 

[Bacchus]

Cranial, wah wah wah. Cranial is so important that my curriculum is dedicated to 3 lectures and one 1.5hr lab. In the grand scheme of things its a fraction of a percent. I didn't go to the cranial lectures so I had 1.5 hours of cranial.

Regardless of your degree you will have to put up with things you 1) don't care about and 2) don't want to learn about and 3) probably will never use again in your medical career.

Also, let's face it, MD/DO, you're not all going to be in the top of your class and matching into the competitive specialties. A fraction of students are inducted into the Ivory Tower.

Your merits as a physician are based on your results and word of mouth. Just because you went to a top 20 school doesn't mean you won't be a **** up in practice.

Those of you that would never dream of going to a DO school and think poorly upon it: Realize you will have colleagues someday that will be DOs (more than likely).

I'll let my performance and knowledge speak for itself. I'm not going to hide I'm a DO but it shouldn't make a difference regardless.

 

[Ignatius M.D.]

Graduating last is graduating last. The difference is, if you graduate last at Harvard, you still get your choice of residency, for the most part because you graduated last at Harvard. Now, compare that with someone graduating last from a state MD school and they have to work harder to match into the same specialty/residency as the kid who graduated last at Harvard. IMO, it's partly name-recognition and the fact that PDs, like you, assume that someone graduating last at Harvard would be at the top of the class anywhere else.

I agree that in medical school things aren't as straight forward. I wouldn't go as far to say that someone in last would be top, but with the knowledge that the overall quality of the class is top notch, wouldn't you say that it is reasonable to assume that last place person would do better somewhere else? You cannot totally dismiss this notion, or else you're like the person that scoffs at the idea that getting good grades at MIT or Stanford is harder than at Arizona State 😕 (no offense to ASU folks). This has been debated often, so I'd rather not go into it fully, but when at a place with higher caliber students it is harder to get into the upper quartile. It always amazes me that anyone disagrees with this in the first place.

 

[Ignatius M.D.]

I meant this as a reason why many people don't apply to DO schools: they don't know about them.

Either they completely don't know, or they are horrible misinformed. I told someone that I was thinking of applying to PCOM, and they made it sound like DO school was some weird alternate form of medicine where all you need is a 20 MCAT to get in (and so in their opinion no one there was qualified) and then they teach you some hybrid of voodoo magic/chiropractics.

 

[Norick13]

I was advised by a family friend who works at an NYC hospital that their hospital has a blanket no-DO policy.

Getting a doctorate is a hard-****ing-road, no matter the initials after your name, and I don't want to come out the other side and have to deal with crap like this.

 

[willen101383]

That's never stopped the DO Insult Alarm from being sounded in the past.

I actually managed to miss this somehow. I was actually on capital hill for the last 2 days with 700 DO students lobbying for tort reform,medical transparency,medicare reimbursement cuts, etc.

AKA attending to more pressing matters than caring what some little premed says about my profession.

and before you go trying to hate on DOs for "Dxing your asthma by pushing on your back" you should recognize that pushing on your back is part of the typical respiratory PE for MDs as well. Enjoy your premed studies reptar!

 

[willen101383]

Also outside of the SDN world, a lot of people don't give half a crap if their doctor is a DO or an MD.



I feel the same way. I've lived in/around Philadelphia all my life and PCOM having a reputation as an excellent DO school, the bias so many people on this forum always talk about seems pretty nonexistent here.



Agreed!

And we routinely get professors from Temple,Jeff, etc. If they thought down on PCOM for being a DO school you think they would bother coming here as guest lecturers?

 

[willen101383]

Hey Jagger I'm not sure if you've done or are currently doing your clinical rotations but from your experience are there any resentment towards DO's in the hospital setting since they may be viewed as "inferior" ? Do DO's have to "prove themselves" in the hospital more so than their allopathic counterparts?

He is an M1 (as am I). But the word on the street is that this isnt the case by any means. You are learning the EXACT same information as your MD counterparts, and should perform just as well if not better than MDs on rounds due to the extensive physical contact that DO students have constantly in preclinical years.