MD or DO?

[HoldMD]

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This might be the wrong branch of the forum to post this, but I was interested in what the residents and attendings feel about MD vs. DO training, specifically w.r.t. conflict of interest.

For MD training,

• The LCME (AMA/AAMC) oversees medical student education, assuring that quality medical students are produced (Mission: AAMC - "improve the health of the public by enhancing the effectiveness of academic medicine". AMA - "To promote the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health.")

• The ACGME oversees residencies, making sure that competent residents are graduated (Mission: "improve health care by assessing and advancing the quality of resident physicians’ education through accreditation")

• The ABMS and member boards provide board certification services, to ensure the public receives a high-quality doctor (Mission: "establishes standards for physician specialty certification and Maintenance of Certification, including performance assessment...support the public's quest for safe, high-quality healthcare")

• Specialty societies provide education and development for dues paying members. (Missions: vary)

All these organizations are independent of each other, and all are designed to serve the public. Essentially each serves as a check on the other to ensure that no low-quality doctor is delivered to the public.

For DO education,

• The AOA does all the above (Mission: "to advance the philosophy and practice of osteopathic medicine by promoting excellence in education, research, and the delivery of quality, cost-effective healthcare within a distinct, unified profession")

Does anyone else see a conflict of interest here? It is in the AOAs best interest to make sure more medical schools are accredited, regardless of quality. They would like more students to graduate and to join residencies accredited by them, and make sure everybody completes a residency (again, regardless of quality) so that they can take the AOA boards and become members of AOA societies.

For example, if a low-quality student was to complete an AOA accredited medical school, what would be the motivation for the AOA to "catch" him during residency and say - "your medical education sucked, you should not finish residency" - essentially they would be saying that the AOA failed at properly identifying the problem during medical school.

Is the AOA looking out for public interest or is it trying to increase it's membership?

 

[Trifling Jester]

This might be the wrong branch of the forum to post this, but I was interested in what the residents and attendings feel about MD vs. DO training, specifically w.r.t. conflict of interest.

Dude, residents couldn't care less about the letters behind your name or where you trained. You could go to med school in Timbuktu and nobody would give a damn. As long as you carry your weight and don't pass work off onto someone else you'll do just fine.

-The Trifling Jester

 

[Shinken]

This might be the wrong branch of the forum to post this, but I was interested in what the residents and attendings feel about MD vs. DO training, specifically w.r.t. conflict of interest.

For MD training,

• The LCME (AMA/AAMC) oversees medical student education, assuring that quality medical students are produced (Mission: AAMC - "improve the health of the public by enhancing the effectiveness of academic medicine". AMA - "To promote the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health.")

• The ACGME oversees residencies, making sure that competent residents are graduated (Mission: "improve health care by assessing and advancing the quality of resident physicians’ education through accreditation")

• The ABMS and member boards provide board certification services, to ensure the public receives a high-quality doctor (Mission: "establishes standards for physician specialty certification and Maintenance of Certification, including performance assessment...support the public's quest for safe, high-quality healthcare")

• Specialty societies provide education and development for dues paying members. (Missions: vary)

All these organizations are independent of each other, and all are designed to serve the public. Essentially each serves as a check on the other to ensure that no low-quality doctor is delivered to the public.

For DO education,

• The AOA does all the above (Mission: "to advance the philosophy and practice of osteopathic medicine by promoting excellence in education, research, and the delivery of quality, cost-effective healthcare within a distinct, unified profession")

Does anyone else see a conflict of interest here? It is in the AOAs best interest to make sure more medical schools are accredited, regardless of quality. They would like more students to graduate and to join residencies accredited by them, and make sure everybody completes a residency (again, regardless of quality) so that they can take the AOA boards and become members of AOA societies.

For example, if a low-quality student was to complete an AOA accredited medical school, what would be the motivation for the AOA to "catch" him during residency and say - "your medical education sucked, you should not finish residency" - essentially they would be saying that the AOA failed at properly identifying the problem during medical school.

Is the AOA looking out for public interest or is it trying to increase it's membership?

 

[billydoc]

This might be the wrong branch of the forum to post this, but I was interested in what the residents and attendings feel about MD vs. DO training, specifically w.r.t. conflict of interest.

For MD training,

• The LCME (AMA/AAMC) oversees medical student education, assuring that quality medical students are produced (Mission: AAMC - "improve the health of the public by enhancing the effectiveness of academic medicine". AMA - "To promote the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health.")

• The ACGME oversees residencies, making sure that competent residents are graduated (Mission: "improve health care by assessing and advancing the quality of resident physicians' education through accreditation")

• The ABMS and member boards provide board certification services, to ensure the public receives a high-quality doctor (Mission: "establishes standards for physician specialty certification and Maintenance of Certification, including performance assessment...support the public's quest for safe, high-quality healthcare")

• Specialty societies provide education and development for dues paying members. (Missions: vary)

All these organizations are independent of each other, and all are designed to serve the public. Essentially each serves as a check on the other to ensure that no low-quality doctor is delivered to the public.

For DO education,

• The AOA does all the above (Mission: "to advance the philosophy and practice of osteopathic medicine by promoting excellence in education, research, and the delivery of quality, cost-effective healthcare within a distinct, unified profession")

Does anyone else see a conflict of interest here? It is in the AOAs best interest to make sure more medical schools are accredited, regardless of quality. They would like more students to graduate and to join residencies accredited by them, and make sure everybody completes a residency (again, regardless of quality) so that they can take the AOA boards and become members of AOA societies.

For example, if a low-quality student was to complete an AOA accredited medical school, what would be the motivation for the AOA to "catch" him during residency and say - "your medical education sucked, you should not finish residency" - essentially they would be saying that the AOA failed at properly identifying the problem during medical school.

Is the AOA looking out for public interest or is it trying to increase it's membership?

MD vs D.O is really an original thread here 😱Thanks for a much of deep thought BTW, where are yu attending, or "hold MD"? just curious 😕

 

[8744]

Mission statements are so totally bogus. They mean almost nothing and are written by people with way to much free time. The fact that anybody takes mission statements seriously is a symptom of the incredible insipidness of our age.

Most doctors, DO or MD, have no idea what the mission statements are for their respective professions and they don't care either. Looking for hypocrisy in the blatherings of a sessile bureacracy is like looking for Catholics in the Vatican. What do you think you'll find?

The only mission statement 99.999 percent of doctors really need is, "Hey, it's a decent job with good pay and most people think it's kind of cool too."

 

[8744]

Dude, residents couldn't care less about the letters behind your name or where you trained. You could go to med school in Timbuktu and nobody would give a damn. As long as you carry your weight and don't pass work off onto someone else you'll do just fine.

-The Trifling Jester

A-friggin'-men. As if it matters what you have after your name. The training of the two professions is so similar that DOs and MDs are almost completely interchangable. A lot of MDs take courses in OMM, as a matter of fact, and most DOs don't do any, so how does the OP like them apples.

 

[8744]

Oh, and the Core Compentancies are bogus as well. Just another boring bureaucratic quagmire through which we have to wade to finish residency. Like I give a crap about quantifying and describing things that used to be common sense.

 

[RockfordWF]

This might be the wrong branch of the forum to post this, but I was interested in what the residents and attendings feel about MD vs. DO training, specifically w.r.t. conflict of interest.

For MD training,

• The LCME (AMA/AAMC) oversees medical student education, assuring that quality medical students are produced (Mission: AAMC - "improve the health of the public by enhancing the effectiveness of academic medicine". AMA - "To promote the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health.")

• The ACGME oversees residencies, making sure that competent residents are graduated (Mission: "improve health care by assessing and advancing the quality of resident physicians’ education through accreditation")

• The ABMS and member boards provide board certification services, to ensure the public receives a high-quality doctor (Mission: "establishes standards for physician specialty certification and Maintenance of Certification, including performance assessment...support the public's quest for safe, high-quality healthcare")

• Specialty societies provide education and development for dues paying members. (Missions: vary)

All these organizations are independent of each other, and all are designed to serve the public. Essentially each serves as a check on the other to ensure that no low-quality doctor is delivered to the public.

For DO education,

• The AOA does all the above (Mission: "to advance the philosophy and practice of osteopathic medicine by promoting excellence in education, research, and the delivery of quality, cost-effective healthcare within a distinct, unified profession")

Does anyone else see a conflict of interest here? It is in the AOAs best interest to make sure more medical schools are accredited, regardless of quality. They would like more students to graduate and to join residencies accredited by them, and make sure everybody completes a residency (again, regardless of quality) so that they can take the AOA boards and become members of AOA societies.

For example, if a low-quality student was to complete an AOA accredited medical school, what would be the motivation for the AOA to "catch" him during residency and say - "your medical education sucked, you should not finish residency" - essentially they would be saying that the AOA failed at properly identifying the problem during medical school.

Is the AOA looking out for public interest or is it trying to increase it's membership?

You don't have to go through the AOA as a DO --> you can do ACGME and ABMS. Therefore, it would not be a conflict of interest.

 

[DogFaceMedic]

I agree with much that has been said. The sentiment in the real world is there is no difference between MD and DO, and that certainly reflects my experience. The only difference is that MD gets more instant recognition in academic research than DO, which is unfair, but a real prejudice.

However, I don't like the way the DO schools conduct admissions and insist there is much greater difference between MD and DO than there is.

I would recommend to the DO Deans that they parallel their admissions schedules with MD programs, so that students are not caught between choosing between programs and having to put down $100+ to hold a spot. I think the quality of applicants would increase, and there USMLE pass rates as well.

But, for the DO deans to change would force them to admit there were less differences clinically between DO and MD than they like to pretend.

 

[HoldMD]

I agree with much that has been said. The sentiment in the real world is there is no difference between MD and DO, and that certainly reflects my experience. The only difference is that MD gets more instant recognition in academic research than DO, which is unfair, but a real prejudice.

True, the difference between an MD and DO in practice is merely theoretical, I agree that nobody really cares about the distinction, in the public and in the healthcare field.

The issue I am raising is one of transparency and conflict of interest - the public today demands checks and balances and is quite wary about even the appearance of any improperiety that could possibly have negative effects on public health. Seems to me that the AOA may need to distance itself from it's all-encompassing nature, and from it's stated mission of serving itself (rather than the public).

Such a change would not be an admission of "difference" between MD and DO - merely a step to increasing public confidence in their training procedures.