This was mainly done by california because at the time they were suffering a large physician shortage and there was still a very large stigma and people were not going to D.O.s . Therefore this legislation was enacted for a few years. (guess the differences are not that big of a deal ha)
Just another option of how the doctor could have both ...
Uh, no. From Bob Jones "The Difference a D.O. Makes":
""Progress both within and outside the (Osteopathic) profession had encouraged a lull of contentment in some circles, but in 1961, the calm and complacency were shattered by a bombshell in California, the stronghold of osteopathic medicine. When the smoke cleared, the D.O.'s found that most of the hospitals in the state had dropped their osteopathic relationships, and the osteopathic college itself had been converted into an M.D. institution. And 85% of the state's D.O.'s had traded their earned Doctor of Osteopathy degree and sixty-five dollars to boot for an alien piece of paper that identified them as M.D. graduates of the rechristened college.
All this came about through an incredible series of events. Although the procedures eventually were ruled unconstitutional, their impact was severe.
The first and most important phase of the Califonia Medical Association's strategy had been to convert the College of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons in Los Angeles to the California College of Medicine. The college, founded in 1896 as the Pacific College of Osteopathy, was not only the largest of six osteopathic institutions across the nation in terms of enrollment but was also widely regarded one of the best.
in its first act, the newly reconstituted college granted M.D. degrees to its faculty. Then it handed out M.D. degrees to 2,400 California D.O.'s, who agreed to the conversion, including Dr. Vincent P. Carroll, a past president of the American Osteopathic Association. Meanwhile, 260 loyal D.O.'s shunned the new degree letters offered them.
In 1962, the voters of California approved Proposition 22, which prohibited further licensing of D.O.'s - only those licensed by the state would be able to practice. That meant that the only new physicians in California would be M.D.'s.
Many commentators saw the California debacle as the death knell for osteopathic medicine in America. If the profession could be practically wiped out in the state where it had been the strongest, the observers reasoned, then what chance was there for survival in the weaker states?......
Unwittingly, the AMA had surrendered one of its biggest guns - the charge the osteopathic training was incomplete and faulty. If 2,400 graduates of osteopathic colleges were deemed worthy of Doctor of Medicine degrees, then logic would suggest that the degrees were interchangeable adn of equal value - excluding the ludicrous aspect of teh sixty-five dollar fee. In an even more convincing act of blessing, the AMA elected Dr. Vincent P. Carroll, the past AOA president, for membership in its House of Delegates." [pp. 36-39]
The California episode stimulated osteopathic medicine accross the nation;.... And although the long-standing osteopathic college has been lost, 1978 saw the opening of the new College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific, at Pomona, California."
