How OMT-minded is your school?

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joshmygosh

joshmygosh

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[This is my first post on SDN. Hi! I'm Josh!]

I'm really wanting to go to a school that is heavily focused on osteopathic manipulation and philosophy.
I did see another post about this from 2015 by Dohnut, but I'm looking for more specific data.
If you're currently/previously a student at an osteopathic medical school, please provide me with all the information you can.
  1. What DO school are you attending/did you attend? If you are a graduate, please indicate your year of graduation.
  2. Approximately how many hours per week do/did you spend on OMM/OMT in a lecture setting?
  3. Approximately how many hours per week do/did you spend on OMM/OMT in a lab setting?
  4. What types of resources are available for practicing OMT both inside and outside the classroom?
  5. Is an OMT clinical readily available to 3rd/4th year students at your school?
  6. Does your school require students to have an OMT clinical?
  7. Do/did you feel that osteopathic principles and practice were integrated into your other classes?
  8. Is your school connected to OMT fellowships or residencies?
If you have any other information about how OMT is handled at your school, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Thanks a lot, and I look forward to interacting with you all more :soexcited:
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KCUMB is pretty easy going when it comes to OMM, which is really nice. It was part of the reason I chose this school. I don't think there is technically a required OMM rotation, though rotation sites may differ on this? Not sure.

The OMM nonsense does not transfer over into our other classes. I am in first year, and it seems like OMM is pretty disjointed from everything else, which is really a relief.
 
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sab3156 said:
KCUMB is pretty easy going when it comes to OMM, which is really nice. It was part of the reason I chose this school. I don't think there is technically a required OMM rotation, though rotation sites may differ on this? Not sure.

The OMM nonsense does not transfer over into our other classes. I am in first year, and it seems like OMM is pretty disjointed from everything else, which is really a relief.
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I don’t think our school is what he is looking for haha.
 
Magus5454 said:
KCU does have the OMM fellowship program though
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Yeah... they do some teaching, some grading on OMM practicals, and I guess research? I don’t exactly know what research they are doing because they haven’t spoken about it. Based on OP KCU is not what he’s looking for.
 
jcve34 said:
I don’t think our school is what he is looking for haha.
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Dude, I cannot believe this... I legitimately read his entire post, and my brain could not process the pro-OMM nature of his post, so it basically converted the entire post to the easier to understand "I do not want to go to a school that is OMM heavy". I am very disturbed now. How can I recover from this thread?
 
sab3156 said:
Dude, I cannot believe this... I legitimately read his entire post, and my brain could not process the pro-OMM nature of his post, so it basically converted the entire post to the easier to understand "I do not want to go to a school that is OMM heavy". I am very disturbed now. How can I recover from this thread?
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Go learn your Chapman’s points. That should definitely help.
 
Magus5454 said:
Just being honest 😛
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Lol sorry I thought you were OP

sab3156 said:
Dude, I cannot believe this... I legitimately read his entire post, and my brain could not process the pro-OMM nature of his post, so it basically converted the entire post to the easier to understand "I do not want to go to a school that is OMM heavy". I am very disturbed now. How can I recover from this thread?
Click to expand...

Now we can agree in something 100%.... I don’t know why someone would want this...
 
@joshmygosh My friend, the DO profession actually needs people who will work together with the medical community to put an end to this illegitimate relic from the 1800s called OMM. Please work with us future DOs in pushing for an end to this unscientific and medically irrelevant practice. Please go to physical therapy school if you really want to do this kind of stuff. You don't need to go to medical school to stretch peoples' muscles out and give them a massage. We want to bring respect to the DO degree, not embarrassment. Thank you for hearing me out.
 
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jcve34 said:
Yeah... they do some teaching, some grading on OMM practicals, and I guess research? I don’t exactly know what research they are doing because they haven’t spoken about it. Based on OP KCU is not what he’s looking for.
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Haha I know. I'm glad KCU doesn't have a super big focus on it
 
AnatomyGrey12 said:
Now we can agree in something 100%.... I don’t know why someone would want this...
Click to expand...

I wanted it coming into med school because I wanted to have a stronger understanding of the MSK system. For those going into sports med or ortho, it can be beneficial. Imo, the MSK system is basically a complex system of simple machines (mostly pulley's and levers), and understanding the actions and directions of force from various muscles and how they interact with connective tissues and bones they are attached to would be extremely beneficial to individuals working heavily with the system. I took several related classes in UG like kinesiology and foundations of sports med, and I was pretty surprised with how some aspects of OMM lined up with solid knowledge. Obviously not all of it, but several techniques like BLT, ME, or even HVLA do require an understanding of this particular area of anatomy and the pathological processes of the MSK system to be executed properly.

While I personally don't find it relevant to many fields and areas of medicine, there are certain specialties that I think would benefit strongly from the foundational knowledge required to understand the basis behind certain aspects of OMM.
 
Stagg737 said:
I wanted it coming into med school because I wanted to have a stronger understanding of the MSK system. For those going into sports med or ortho, it can be beneficial. Imo, the MSK system is basically a complex system of simple machines (mostly pulley's and levers), and understanding the actions and directions of force from various muscles and how they interact with connective tissues and bones they are attached to would be extremely beneficial to individuals working heavily with the system. I took several related classes in UG like kinesiology and foundations of sports med, and I was pretty surprised with how some aspects of OMM lined up with solid knowledge. Obviously not all of it, but several techniques like BLT, ME, or even HVLA do require an understanding of this particular area of anatomy and the pathological processes of the MSK system to be executed properly.

While I personally don't find it relevant to many fields and areas of medicine, there are certain specialties that I think would benefit strongly from the foundational knowledge required to understand the basis behind certain aspects of OMM.
Click to expand...

If it were just MSK I wouldn’t have an issue with it...
 
sab3156 said:
@joshmygosh My friend, the DO profession actually needs people who will work together with the medical community to put an end to this illegitimate relic from the 1800s called OMM. Please work with us future DOs in pushing for an end to this unscientific and medically irrelevant practice. Please go to physical therapy school if you really want to do this kind of stuff. You don't need to go to medical school to stretch peoples' muscles out and give them a massage. We want to bring respect to the DO degree, not embarrassment. Thank you for hearing me out.
Click to expand...
idk man for MSK stuff it works. my primary care doc went to PCOM and staved off me having to get surgery for a long time with OMM. the other stuff is nonsense and I'm not super into it but it isn't irrelevant completely. feel free to not use it but I don't think calling for a full eradication is the way to go
 
joshmygosh said:
[This is my first post on SDN. Hi! I'm Josh!]

I'm really wanting to go to a school that is heavily focused on osteopathic manipulation and philosophy.
I did see another post about this from 2015 by Dohnut, but I'm looking for more specific data.
If you're currently/previously a student at an osteopathic medical school, please provide me with all the information you can.
  1. What DO school are you attending/did you attend? If you are a graduate, please indicate your year of graduation.
  2. Approximately how many hours per week do/did you spend on OMM/OMT in a lecture setting?
  3. Approximately how many hours per week do/did you spend on OMM/OMT in a lab setting?
  4. What types of resources are available for practicing OMT both inside and outside the classroom?
  5. Is an OMT clinical readily available to 3rd/4th year students at your school?
  6. Does your school require students to have an OMT clinical?
  7. Do/did you feel that osteopathic principles and practice were integrated into your other classes?
  8. Is your school connected to OMT fellowships or residencies?
If you have any other information about how OMT is handled at your school, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Thanks a lot, and I look forward to interacting with you all more :soexcited:
Click to expand...

Apply, go to interviews, and by the time you get an acceptance at hand and you see what your options are, then you can decide. I can tell you school X is very OMM heavy, but won't mean much if you don't get an acceptance from them.
 
Apply and get a feel at your interviews. I only went to 2 interviews this cycle; however, the difference in emphasis on OMM at each school was obvious.

Edit: Before you ask, these school were KCUMB and ACOM. ACOM actually had their OMM instructor come in and give a really inspiring speech about it while KCU was just kind of like "here's our OMM lab... Any questions?" lol.
 
RVU is pretty OMM heavy and gets great scores in OMM boards. They tell us up front that if you can survive RVU OMM curriculum, you will do great in boards as they go deeper than board required. Other than that if you have a huge interest in OMM, consider a fellowship for a year during your 3-4 year of school. You will learn more than you thought possible about OMM then.
 
Coltuna said:
Apply and get a feel at your interviews. I only went to 2 interviews this cycle; however, the difference in emphasis on OMM at each school was obvious.

Edit: Before you ask, these school were KCUMB and ACOM. ACOM actually had their OMM instructor come in and give a really inspiring speech about it while KCU was just kind of like "here's our OMM lab... Any questions?" lol.
Click to expand...
Yeah NYIT did a demo too
 
NSU had the OMM fellows spend like, 30 minutes with us demonstrating stuff and talking about the wonders of osteopathic medicine :help:
 
fldoctorgirl said:
NSU had the OMM fellows spend like, 30 minutes with us demonstrating stuff and talking about the wonders of osteopathic medicine :help:
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OMM seems like a really big waste of time since 99% of working DO's never use it in practice. Just think of all those 100's of instructional hours wasted in DO school on that stuff when it could be better spent learning actual medicine or something practical like coding, data analytics, EHR improvement, etc.

That being said, I've heard stories over the years of primary care DO's who made a pretty penny developing an OMM-heavy practice --- almost functioning like glorified chiropractors? Do insurance companies still reimburse well for OMT ??
 
On a completely different note ( I don't want to make a new thread) which schools put the absolute least emphasis on OMT? I am very interested in going into EM/FM but have zero desire to waste time learning OMT.
 
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sab3156 said:
@joshmygosh My friend, the DO profession actually needs people who will work together with the medical community to put an end to this illegitimate relic from the 1800s called OMM. Please work with us future DOs in pushing for an end to this unscientific and medically irrelevant practice
Click to expand...
On the flip side, I hope the profession recruits people who like/care about/use OMM and proceed to do research to figure out if and how it all works. I’m not going to defend cranial, but if someone could generate literature showing you can help treat pain, even just musculoskeletal, with OMT in addition or instead of opioids and gabapentin, I’m all for it.
 
ortnakas said:
On the flip side, I hope the profession recruits people who like/care about/use OMM and proceed to do research to figure out if and how it all works. I’m not going to defend cranial, but if someone could generate literature showing you can help treat pain, even just musculoskeletal, with OMT in addition or instead of opioids and gabapentin, I’m all for it.
Click to expand...

I tend to agree with that. If anything OMM has made me really comfortable with Palpation. I’m hoping on Clinicals that OMM will help with at the very least being comfortable palpating strangers and having some skill already there even if I don’t use OMT.
 
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