Ok perhaps I was a bit too brief in my post above. But you don't have to travel very far in this forum to see that there are real differences in the quality of clinical year experience/education between MD and DO schools, and that's where the real problem is.
Again this is only one school specifically, but the DO school that sends students to my hospital to do their "core clerkships" is doing its students a HUGE disservice. Their experience is nothing at all like my clerkships, and I went to a pretty average, middle of the road MD school.
Their core Medicine clerkship consists of 4-8 weeks of basically shadowing an intern/attending pair on rounds (and they do not pre-round ever, never arrive earlier than 7AM, maybe write one note if they're more advanced/competent students, etc) . . . and these rounds are not exactly academic rounds. There is almost no learning for them, at least that would take place at a third year student's pace/level. A usual exchange between intern and attending might be as follows:
Intern: "So I put Mr. Smith (a 76 year old demented patient) on Ativan PRN for when he gets agitated."
Attending: "I would switch that to haldol actually, but check his EKG first."
Two extremely important learning points were covered right there (avoiding benzos in the elderly and haldol's [and other antipsychotics'] danger of prolonging the QT). Most of that is already understood by the intern and the attending, and the student is left there to wonder what exactly was going on there (even if he indeed understands those basic concepts, how can he be sure there isn't more he's missing?)
I realize that's a very specific example, but it's how things are run at my hospital, a "core Medicine clerkship" for DO students (it's a small community hospital).
Even worse, one of the most consistent traits I see among the DO students who rotate through my hospital is a complete inability to actually BE A MEDICAL STUDENT. An average non-med student who has read the first few pages of First AID for the Wards could likely perform better than these students, at least for the first week or two. Having never been a part of a teaching hospital, there is just no understanding of how the med student - resident - attending world of interactions occurs. Whereas in most MD schools that have teaching hospitals (so, basically all) it's just a fact that students on inpatient services come in early (sometimes earlier than the intern) to round on their patients (plural, mind you) and write notes and present the patients and their proposed treatment plan to the attending on rounds, this natural daily occurrence just isn't present in smaller non-academic hospitals. They are two very different worlds.
I honestly feel bad for some of the DO students who come to my hospital, because they're paying more for med school than I did and they are getting shafted by their school, big time.
IMO this logic is backwards. The only thing that will result in no need to explain to patients is if the degree is MD. MDO still requires explanation to the same degree as DO does. I just don't see an argument here that doesnt seem like a sham covering for some other motive.
