Is residency merger good or bad?

[Dr panda]

Hello everyone. So I am a bit confused, many people are talking that in 2020 DO and MD residencies are going to merge, but what does it mean for MD and DO graduates? Will DOs be more competitive for top programs? Don't know much about residencies yet, so would like to shed light on this.

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[deleted480308]

It’s good for educational consistency. Bad for DOs

 

[Dr panda]

It’s good for educational consistency. Bad for DOs

How exactly will it hurt DOs?

 

[CJhooper123]

How exactly will it hurt DOs?

More competition for surgical subspecialty residency spots that were formerly protected for DO students only (AOA).

 

[deleted480308]

How exactly will it hurt DOs?

Loss of an entire protected group of residencies that you only compete against DOs for? That’s bad

 

[Dr panda]

Loss of an entire protected group of residencies that you only compete against DOs for? That’s bad

Well, does that simply mean that DOs will be doomed to family medicine/ped?

 

[CJhooper123]

Well, does that simply mean that DOs will be doomed to family medicine/ped?

I know you're not replying to me... but no, it shouldn't doom DO's for family medicine/peds. Theoretically, the merger was supposed to improve the quality of AOA residency programs... so some people would argue that former AOA fam med/peds residencies would actually get better. But... better is subjective... and to my understanding, some of the programs just had to expand and hit the requirements of the ACGME programs. Not necessarily better lol.

 

[deleted480308]

Well, does that simply mean that DOs will be doomed to family medicine/ped?

Not doomed, but harder to get into some other things

 

[Isoval]

The sky isn’t falling and pigs haven’t flown yet.

The biggest losers here are probably going to be the schools that relied heavily on the AOA match to place their students. Schools that have matched majority ACGME will likely continue to do so with little change. Although there were fewer AOA programs than ever this year, my school still matched 9 Gen Surg with other hypercompetitive residencies (derm/uro/ENT/optho/IR/ortho) all being represented as well.

In the short term, it’s probably a net negative. In the long term, it’s probably a net positive.

 

[gonnif]

The sky isn’t falling and pigs haven’t flown yet.

The biggest losers here are probably going to be the schools that relied heavily on the AOA match to place their students. Schools that have matched majority ACGME will likely continue to do so with little change. Although there were fewer AOA programs than ever this year, my school still matched 9 Gen Surg with other hypercompetitive residencies (derm/uro/ENT/optho/IR/ortho) all being represented as well.

In the short term, it’s probably a net negative. In the long term, it’s probably a net positive.

The short term net positive is that it will add about 1,000 unfilled slots from osteopathic AOA to the overall residency pool.

 

[LongLiveThanos]

More IMGs will fill undesirable AOA residencies and DOs will lose spots to MDs in competitive specialties that were exclusively AOA. Competitive ACGME residencies will remain MD-exclusive.

 

[Stagg737]

Well, does that simply mean that DOs will be doomed to family medicine/ped?

No, but the very competitive fields will likely become much harder to get into in the shortness run (ortho, derm, etc) because formerly AOA programs will now be open to competitive MDs. Fields that are moderately to not competitive will likely be minimally affected (until the 5 million new schools start graduating classes).

Loss of an entire protected group of residencies that you only compete against DOs for? That’s bad

Eh, it will actually help DOs going into fields like FM or IM though because they can apply to all programs and not have to worry about getting back pulled out of the ACGME match if they match AOA. I had plenty of classmates who certainly could/would have matched ACGME but ended up at AOA programs that would have been further down their rank list because they played it safe. Going forward that won't be an issue.

 

[Goro]

Well, does that simply mean that DOs will be doomed to family medicine/ped?

No.

 

[gonnif]

The real answer to this question is, it doesnt matter. This is the system that you will have for residency. As I tell all applicants, speculating on things you cant change does nothing but increase worry and stress. Get into medical school first

 

[JS_90]

In long term, DO's might be faced with more and more competition from MD's when applying for the previous DO-only specialty residency spots. In short term, it won't change much, and any change would be extremely slow. After merger, these former AOA residency programs might give strong preferences to DO's for a number of reasons: people with DO pride who control these programs want residents with also DO degrees, program directors would be concerned whether MD's will rank them low in matching and be very cautious when sending interview invitations, etc.

But we never know what might happen in future. If one day LCME and AOA decides to turn DO degrees to MD degrees...

 

[meepdog]

I've seen a lot about this merger but am struggling to find a comprehensive resource fully explaining it. Would somebody on this thread mind directing me to a place where I can better educate myself on this?

 

[gonnif]

There isnt a comprehensive resource, certainly not any that will try and predict the effect on MD, DO and IMG because NO ONE ACTUALLY KNOWS WHAT WILL HAPPEN. This is all speculation and I very much doubt this will have any major impact of the distribution of residency spots to MD, DO and IMG
https://osteopathic.org/residents/resident-resources/residents-single-gme/single-gme-resident-faqs/

 

[993444]

But we never know what might happen in future. If one day LCME and AOA decides to turn DO degrees to MD degrees...

LCME and COCA should merge.....

 

[Dr panda]

Ok, this old thread turned into pure speculation, so I better close it. Thank you everyone for participating.