DO's of today and DO's of the past.

[TNT]

---

Members don't see this ad.

My family physician is a DO, and he is a great physician. He is a graduate of COMP and did his family practice residency at a Stanford affiliate hospital(santa clara valley medical center, for the people that are curious), so his training is cleary good. It made me wonder though, considering the way osteopathic medicine has changed for the better, are the DO's graduates of today of better quality than the DO's of say 10 years ago, or 20 years ago.

My opinion... I think so. I think in the last several years, with the advent of the internet and other means of obtaining information about osteopathic medicine, the DO schools are attracting better applicants. Also, I think the training has improve a lot. Any opinions.

[This message has been edited by TNT (edited April 21, 2001).]

 

[turtleboard]

It's interesting to note that one of the factors affecting competitiveness of a med school application cycle is the economy. The US has experienced one of the greatest and longest economic booms, and at the same time, we witnessed applications fall from a high of nearly 60,000 to less than 40,000 over three or four years.

While all that happened, average MCATs and GPAs of matriculated students rose. I can't explain that except for maybe some of the dumber kids decided to go into business for the money, and made the pool a lot more self-selective.

Anyway, yes, osteopathic medicine has advanced quite a bit in the past 20 years, but I doubt the advancement of the profession has as big a part in attracting better quality applicants as you seem to imply. DO applicant pools follow the same trends MD applicant pools follow. With the decrease in the number of applications to MD schools, we see the same drop (though somewhat larger) in applications to DO schools.

The profession is currently trainig perhaps the most academically qualified group of osteopathic medical students ever in its history, and with this group the profession is poised to make headlines in the future. With the recent economic downturn and an eventual recession, I think you'll see the competitivenenss of both MD and DO schools rise and you'll have even brighter med students across the board.



------------------
Tim Wu.