DO's in military residencies

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doc4sure

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Hey everybody!!!! I just wanted to know if DO students are just as successful at obtaining good military residencies as MD students. If there are any military DO students out there, please tell me about your experiences. Also, what do you do for your active duty during each summer? I should find out if I will get the Air Force scholarship on the 20th. Thank you.
 
Hey there. I am currently on scholarship w/the Air Force. In terms of military residencies, from what people have told he, it doesn't matter if you are DO or MD. You are a military doctor and they don't make any further distinction.

In terms of Active Duty Tours, you have to do one for each year of scholarship you receive. You can either do your first ADT the June prior to school or the June right after your first year. Your first one will be Commissioned Officer Training at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery, AL. I will be going this summer because I didn't get the scholarship until mid-April last year. The three other ADTs can be done in several ways. Some people will do an actual military rotation at the very beginning of their 3rd year (sometime before the end of the fiscal year, which is the end of Sept), then do another 2 rotations during their 3rd and 4th years. This gives you the opportunity to see three different bases/hospitals, make connections, see what you like, etc. You also have the ability to do an ADT after your 2nd year in research and a few other things. After my 2nd year, I'm planning on going to the School of Aerospace Medicine Orientation Course, which usually runs for 4 weeks in June/July. I will then do one rotation my 3rd year, and one my 4th year.

I'm going to PM you the link to the website that we use for communications between the people who administer the scholarhip and the students who receive it. There is a small forum on there, but it isn't used much. If you have any further questions, please let me know. I've got tons of info, but i would have to email some of it to you.

Good luck
 
a lot of questions can be answered in the poorly named "military residencies" forum....should be relocated to a different area and just called the military forum.

The military does not care if you are MD or DO when awarding residencies...it just isn't a big deal to them.
 
Although the type of degree do matter in the residency selection process the military commitee is increasingly concerned of some osteopathic school's weakness in their clinical educations... Perhaps the fault lies on more on student's lack of diligence in pursuing quality clinical rotations and their apprent gap of knowledge will be revealed in the military internship.
 
Weakness in clinical education? Gap of knowledge? I'm getting more clinical experience then the MD school 50 miles south of me. I've been seeing REAL patients since my first month of school, and the other DO school I interviewed at were the same. What are you talking about and where are you getting your information?

Also, since we are learning osteopathic manipulation and touching lots of people every week, I think osteopaths ease into rotations much more smoothly than our counterparts that have never seen a patient until their first rotation.

Sorry if I'm sounding a bit defensive, but when you say that we have a weak clinical education and gaps in our knowledge, well, that's just a low blow.

If the military thought DOs were anything less than doctors, they wouldn't give us the scholarship. My brother in the Army has a DO as his physician. They are ALL treated equally.
 
I wish it wasn't true either. I am getting this info. from a reliable source, colonel from the military. He didn't even share with us the specifics school since he is a higly political position.However you will begin your clinical education (third year) and you will know what I mean since I am beginning to feel it right now. Largely as DO student we play a large part in how good or bad our clinical education we will have. Although this rule should apply to evey students regardless of degree he partcularly showed concern of some DO schools which I am not in position to judge or even know the conditions of their clinical education.
 
We had the army director of medical education come visit us here at UNECOM last week, and the DO vs MD thing did not even come up. When you're applying for a residency, you're a future military doctor applying for a residency. She was on a tour of all the New England medical schools, and she told us the same stuff about residencies that she told the kids at harvard, BU, Yale and UConn a few days before.
 
Haujun,
when I was a HPSP student , all my rotations told us how much better we DO students were on the clinical aspect compared to the MD students. Look it doesnt matter at all. All schools have good students and bad students, whether DO or MD. When you get into your clinical rotations you will rapidly learn where your weaknesses are. The mark of a good student is to leanr from your weaknesses...
 
Originally posted by DermpathDO
Haujun,
when I was a HPSP student , all my rotations told us how much better we DO students were on the clinical aspect compared to the MD students. Look it doesnt matter at all. All schools have good students and bad students, whether DO or MD. When you get into your clinical rotations you will rapidly learn where your weaknesses are. The mark of a good student is to leanr from your weaknesses...

Thats correct. You can be a $hitty lazy DO or MD. It isn't degree dependent. Anyone can slide by in their clinical years and hide in the shadows. Those people will suck early in their internship year, but will catch up after a few months. I just wouldn't want them as my physician's.

I have never felt inferior or weak when working with my MD colleagues. One's training does indeed depend on their own level of dedication. Too bad that a concerning number of DO's your military source worked with are substandard. I'm sure he has no underlying bias.

By the way, how do these residents perform compared to allo's at the end of thier intern year? It is an important question.

Vent
 
Does the Airforce have a lot of Emergency medicine residencies? Also, does the military favor any particular DO schools? I am trying to decide between TCOM and DMU-COMS. Please reply soon. I need to decide by the 16th.
 
This past match, there were 23 ER residencies accounted for. If you PM me with your email address, I can email you the match list. It breaks down every specialty, but also includes fellowships and residencies that are not available to grads in their first year.
 
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