Great to see the article. Got to admit: it warms my heart, as an aspiring DO.
But it doesn't tell me anything I don't know about the profession. And, in fact, a bit to my dismay, it highlights to me my need for validation of the osteopathic profession. I think this same need is what makes me feel inferior and worried when I hear that, as DO's, we'll be limited in this or that way, or that our education is inferior...
I guess what I'm trying to say is that we should move past the need to establish that we're actual doctors. Legally and qualitatively we are. You don't see MD's sharing articles with each other about how they're patients are glad to be with allopathic doctors. If patients did express such sentiments, wouldn't it be an implicit rejection of us, if anything?
I guess I'm not sure where I'm going with this... But I don't think our public image will be significantly helped by more testimonials from patients expressing affection for "alternate medicine" or descriptions of how we offer special care. What we do need is some hard science backing up OMM and the real differences in our exam styles, if there are differences. You can see the research is finally ramping up--thank god. I think TCOM will be key in this effort, and they have already released some studies--I read a cool one on the lymph pump. I think such studies will encourage recently minted and practicing DO's to consider the extra treatments that they've learned.
We need more scientific studies that validate what we do. I'm confident that "touch" and manipulation are key to medicine. I was a tennis player and I used to love my chiropractic treatment. Plus, how many hundreds of millions do chiropractors pull in? The need is there. We just need some science to make us more consistent with the rationalist image of the doctor that prevails in the US. (I think other countries are a little kinder to alternate treatments--some are so by economic necessity, of course...)
