MDs hating on DOs where I work

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docisthegoal

docisthegoal

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Ok so I work in an ED as a scribe and I would say more than half the MDs working here (no DO ED docs out of 10-12 docs) maybe more just have no respect for DOs and I have been realizing it lately. They are nice people but listening to them hate against DOs when brought up is making me livid. "Why would you be a DO?" "You won't be happy." A doc told me today "You know patients only go to a DO office if they can't get into an MD office" and "Although they train the same as MDs they aren't as good which is why people want MDs". Then when asked if I was going to DO school she/he said "Well everything I said is true". Prior to working here I have never seen such hate and have seen and even worked with multiple highly respected DOs. I don't usually let things get me mad but this did it. I feel like I just work at a hospital that is not DO friendly but anyone who wants to say something to calm be down would be appreciated. Seeing professionals talk about other professionals in such a way is sad.
 
docisthegoal said:
Ok so I work in an ED as a scribe and I would say more than half the MDs working here (no DO ED docs out of 10-12 docs) maybe more just have no respect for DOs and I have been realizing it lately. They are nice people but listening to them hate against DOs when brought up is making me livid. "Why would you be a DO?" "You won't be happy." A doc told me today "You know patients only go to a DO office if they can't get into an MD office" and "Although they train the same as MDs they aren't as good which is why people want MDs". Then when asked if I was going to DO school she/he said "Well everything I said is true". Prior to working here I have never seen such hate and have seen and even worked with multiple highly respected DOs. I don't usually let things get me mad but this did it. I feel like I just work at a hospital that is not DO friendly but anyone who wants to say something to calm be down would be appreciated. Seeing professionals talk about other professionals in such a way is sad.
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You'll encounter people who say stupid things in medical school, too, including patients, professors, and attendings.
Nod politely and maybe even give a subtle "mhmm" and furl your brow as if you're taking them seriously.
 
There are judgmental people everywhere, especially in the older generation. They might not realize that MD and DO practices are coming closer and closer together, even merging residency in a few years. But this isn't so different than people judging their colleagues based on other things such as gender, race, etc. For example, I heard since ortho is so male dominated, female ortho surgeons don't feel as welcome in their "all boys club." It's just one of those things that people will come across. But who cares about what they think 🙂 you do you!
From personal experience, I've seen many classmates go into the medical field for the pay, and heard them they would only consider MD because of the "prestigious" title behind their name. I'd choose a compassionate DO who actually cares about their patients any day as my doctor vs a snobby MD, like my previous classmates. There are many great MDs out there and most don't care anymore if they work along side MDs or DOs, but it just seems like you came across the wrong ones.
 
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DrBowtie said:
Obviously they won't hire you into their group if they feel that way.
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+1

docisthegoal said:
I can't wait to work my butt off to be one of the best then come back and show these people what a DO is all about
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More power to you.

docisthegoal said:
Was dead serious saying that. Unless their poker face is good.
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They are serious. As a former ER scribe, some of the MDs looked down upon DO. I didn't pay any attention. I smiled and agreed to everything they said. hahaha Whatever makes them sleep better at night
 
cyang55 said:
There's judgmental people everywhere, especially in the older generation. They might not realize that MD and DO practices are coming closer and closer together, even merging residency in a few years. But this isn't so different than people judging their colleagues based on other things such as gender, race, etc. For example, I heard since ortho is so male dominated, female ortho surgeons don't feel as welcome in their "all boys club." It's just one of those things that people will come across. But who cares about what they think 🙂 you do you!
From personal experience, I've seen many classmates go into the medical field for the pay, and heard them they would only consider MD because of the "prestigious" title behind their name. I'd choose a compassionate DO who actually cares about their patients any day as my doctor vs a snobby MD, like my previous classmates. There are many great MDs out there and most don't care anymore if they work along side MDs or DOs, but it just seems like you came across the wrong ones.
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Yeah I know someone from college and they only applied MD this cycle but haven't heard anything yet. He refuses to go DO route due to title so he is preparing for pharmacy school applications now instead.
 
docisthegoal said:
Yeah I know someone from college and they only applied MD this cycle but haven't heard anything yet. He refuses to go DO route due to title so he is preparing for pharmacy school applications now instead.
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Good. That's 1 less competitor you have to worry about when you apply for residency.
 
docisthegoal said:
Yeah I know someone from college and they only applied MD this cycle but haven't heard anything yet. He refuses to go DO route due to title so he is preparing for pharmacy school applications now instead.
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Imagine if s/he has to work under a DO one day or gets lots of drug prescriptions written by DOs, priceless.
 
Tr1LL said:
Tell them you can't spell doctor without DO, flip them off and leave. Do that!
Click to expand...

.....Say no more.....

Mr.Bean-Middle-Finger.gif
 
oOKawaiiOo said:
They are serious. As a former ER scribe, some of the MDs looked down upon DO. I didn't pay any attention. I smiled and agreed to everything they said. hahaha Whatever makes them sleep better at night
Click to expand...

I'd also tell them it's okay that they're in EM instead of ortho/derm/ENT - and tell them to be aware of measurement error:
http://measurepenis.weebly.com/
 
docisthegoal said:
I can't wait to work my butt off to be one of the best then come back and show these people what a DO is all about
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That chip on your shoulder won't help you much - just be a physician. There is a lot of trash talk in medicine. You have to do your job and watch your back. It's not that different from working in a cubicle farm.
 
docisthegoal said:
Ok so I work in an ED as a scribe and I would say more than half the MDs working here (no DO ED docs out of 10-12 docs) maybe more just have no respect for DOs and I have been realizing it lately. They are nice people but listening to them hate against DOs when brought up is making me livid. "Why would you be a DO?" "You won't be happy." A doc told me today "You know patients only go to a DO office if they can't get into an MD office" and "Although they train the same as MDs they aren't as good which is why people want MDs". Then when asked if I was going to DO school she/he said "Well everything I said is true". Prior to working here I have never seen such hate and have seen and even worked with multiple highly respected DOs. I don't usually let things get me mad but this did it. I feel like I just work at a hospital that is not DO friendly but anyone who wants to say something to calm be down would be appreciated. Seeing professionals talk about other professionals in such a way is sad.
Click to expand...
Really though, this whole thread can be summed up in one phrase that has stood the test of time for ages:
tumblr_nanmrzEdOE1t5obpho5_500.gif
 
When I was shadowing anesthesia, this ortho MD asked me where I wanted to go to school - I told him I wanted to attend my state school if possible (we have both MD and DO, but he knew I meant DO) and he literally said "hey, f@&$ what other people say, that's a damn good school and there is nothing wrong with them (DOs)." Who cares what people think, you can just call me Doctor 😉
 
Maybe this is the nontrad in me, but don't let your job and the prospective titles after your name define who your are. Medicine is a job and there is no sense in chasing prestige in it, because when you die the people closest to you wont remember you by your job title.
 
OrdinaryDO said:
When I was shadowing anesthesia, this ortho MD asked me where I wanted to go to school - I told him I wanted to attend my state school if possible (we have both MD and DO, but he knew I meant DO) and he literally said "hey, f@&$ what other people say, that's a damn good school and there is nothing wrong with them (DOs)." Who cares what people think, you can just call me Doctor 😉
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Hehe I've had a cardiothoracic surgeon tell me the same. Guess it depends on the person! And yes, title doesn't mean too much when people still call ya doctor😎
 
DO IM resident at a very good, middle (or upper-middle tier) midwestern IM prog here.

MDs and DOs walk side by side around our hospitals, and nobody notices the difference. Many of our IM chiefs have been DOs.

At least in our neck of the woods, 'DO bias' is practically nonexistent.

There may be regional pockets of bias, however - in med school I did an away at this large community hospital. There was a smaller, largely DO-operated hospital nearby. The MDs at the big hospital slagged the smaller hospital (and, accordingly, DOs) with almost every opportunity they could get...but when you saw the grossly mismanaged, completely ****ed up stuff that got transferred in from that hospital you could kinda see where they were coming from.

I think it's really important to put your best foot forward and just kill it every day when you're a DO. You're representing the profession with everything you do and if you're sloppy, it's going to reflect on the rest of us.
 
docisthegoal said:
Yeah I know someone from college and they only applied MD this cycle but haven't heard anything yet. He refuses to go DO route due to title so he is preparing for pharmacy school applications now instead.
Click to expand...
costales said:
Well, it's hard to beat a Walgreens employee discount.
Click to expand...

Wow he's definitely gonna be that guy who has "Dr. John Smith, Pharmacy Manager" posted on the door to his Walgreens.
 
I've especially noticed a lot of hostility toward DOs on MD threads in here. The fact is, DOs are every bit as qualified as their MD counterparts. They even have an extra set of tools to draw from! Those narcissists who need to feel superior to others, and consequently insult DO students, are on the wrong side of history. DOs are here to stay. Never feel inferior as a DO student, for me it is actually a great source of pride. Great education, wonderful community, passionate doctors.
 
Someone, @AlteredScale, needs to put a lock on threads that have the keywords "MD vs DO," "DO bias," "MDs hating DOs," "can a DO become a physician?" No wonder so many people are worried about going into D.O. schools with this kind of advertisement.

Go to the best med school you can, do your best, gain a residency position, get a job, and do your job. Stop worrying about all the "will they like me," "can I get into surgery" b.s. The chances are, by the time you are ready to apply to residency programs, you won't have high enough scores to be a surgeon, ENT, dermatologist ANYWAY (even if you went to an MD school).

If you don't wanna be a doctor, then don't. If you do, go to the best school you can get into, bust your a**, and prove you can compete with the MD students. I am so sick of hearing the complaining from D.O. students about how they can't get into certain residencies because they are a D.O. student. Although this may be 150% true, it doesn't change the fact that you aren't an MD. Sure, it may not be fair if you score a 260 on your USMLE and are a top student, but it's the way it is and it's not gonna change. Instead of wasting hours on SDN bickering and starting a thread with 150+ posts of pre-meds going back and forth saying why MD is better and why DOs won't get this position, and why this PD won't accept you, worry about what you can change...your grades, your board scores, your ECs, yourself, etc. Maybe you won't become a world renowned neurosurgeon or derm doc as a D.O., but you can make a GREAT living doing something fulfilling that you enjoy that 99.99999% of Americans can't and MANY pre-med students would give their left male anatomy to be in your shoes.
 
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I worked with mostly MDs at my job before medical school (to be fair, at an academic institution, in a state with very few DOs in the first place). When I told them I was applying to DO programs, their first instincts were usually to wrinkle their nose a bit, but after <10 seconds of thought, each of them remembered a DO they'd liked/worked with/respected in the past and determined I wasn't making a terrible life choice after all.
 
Part of the problem is that certain DO schools put out a lot of drs and those who want to do the bare minimum to get through can get away with it. If you ask a question their first response with a tell me the answer look is "I don't know." At my hospital its sort of the joke that ---- DO means don't know. I tell my psych students and interns if they say "don't know" at the hospital I'll boot them. It's OK to not know something but say "I'll look it up" or "not sure but I will get back to you."

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk
 
docisthegoal said:
Ok so I work in an ED as a scribe and I would say more than half the MDs working here (no DO ED docs out of 10-12 docs) maybe more just have no respect for DOs and I have been realizing it lately. They are nice people but listening to them hate against DOs when brought up is making me livid. "Why would you be a DO?" "You won't be happy." A doc told me today "You know patients only go to a DO office if they can't get into an MD office" and "Although they train the same as MDs they aren't as good which is why people want MDs". Then when asked if I was going to DO school she/he said "Well everything I said is true". Prior to working here I have never seen such hate and have seen and even worked with multiple highly respected DOs. I don't usually let things get me mad but this did it. I feel like I just work at a hospital that is not DO friendly but anyone who wants to say something to calm be down would be appreciated. Seeing professionals talk about other professionals in such a way is sad.
Click to expand...
Why do you even care? In the whole scheme of things, really, who cares what this handful of acquaintances who barely know you think? Who died and made them arbiters of the medical world? Presumably you have already realized by this point in your life that just because someone says something, it doesn't make it true. If not, time to toughen up that skin and consider the source.

Truth be told, I'm kind of surprised to hear that this is coming from ER docs, because EM is definitely one of the more DO-friendly specialties. But hey, there are idiots everywhere. Including in the ER. :shrug:
 
DrMikeP said:
Part of the problem is that certain DO schools put out a lot of drs and those who want to do the bare minimum to get through can get away with it. If you ask a question their first response with a tell me the answer look is "I don't know." At my hospital its sort of the joke that ---- DO means don't know. I tell my psych students and interns if they say "don't know" at the hospital I'll boot them. It's OK to not know something but say "I'll look it up" or "not sure but I will get back to you."

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...



So if some attending asks you a question in conversation in rounds or something... and you don't know the answer. you'll say " i'll get back to you"

doesn't that seem no natural to the convo? what if he the attending was making a point or trying to teach you... i guess I'm just confused a little.


"So the last patient we saw. You know how his foot was blue. Well what pathway of nuclear .... .fsjdfjsf s affects this or that" Doctor


" i'll get back to you" me


"..." doctor


do you see what i am trying to ask?
 
You say I am not sure, but I will look it up, find out, do the reading I should have done, or ask how do you know if it is x or y, etc. Most of the docs I work with HATE to hear I don't know. It's OK to ask a question but walking around saying I don't know shows you didn't learn what you should have and makes the DOs from my univ look bad. I rarely hear the mds say I don't know. Just and observation and I'm a future do.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk
 
**** 'em. Don't mean nothing. Drive on.



docisthegoal said:
Ok so I work in an ED as a scribe and I would say more than half the MDs working here (no DO ED docs out of 10-12 docs) maybe more just have no respect for DOs and I have been realizing it lately. They are nice people but listening to them hate against DOs when brought up is making me livid. "Why would you be a DO?" "You won't be happy." A doc told me today "You know patients only go to a DO office if they can't get into an MD office" and "Although they train the same as MDs they aren't as good which is why people want MDs". Then when asked if I was going to DO school she/he said "Well everything I said is true". Prior to working here I have never seen such hate and have seen and even worked with multiple highly respected DOs. I don't usually let things get me mad but this did it. I feel like I just work at a hospital that is not DO friendly but anyone who wants to say something to calm be down would be appreciated. Seeing professionals talk about other professionals in such a way is sad.
Click to expand...
 
Goro said:
**** 'em. Don't mean nothing. Drive on.
Click to expand...

Full disclosure: I'm getting very large heroic vibes from you and other adcoms recently. I mean LizzyM recently said in a thread about someone having multiple DO acceptances and wanting to reapply MD following cycle:

LizzyM said:
Go DO. If anyone EVER gives you any sh *t about being a DO, just nonchalantly say, "My MCAT was 520 but I decided to go to DO school. I'm happy with my decision." Watch this happen :wow:
Click to expand...

Man, you guys are simply the best, and I am truly elated and inspired that you take the time to help premeds out with the application process.

3db1d0f.jpg
 
Well, I'm hoping to get some of you as my students!

Lawper said:
Full disclosure: I'm getting very large heroic vibes from you and other adcoms recently. I mean LizzyM recently said in a thread about someone having multiple DO acceptances and wanting to reapply MD following cycle:



Man, you guys are simply the best, and I am truly elated and inspired that you take the time to help premeds out with the application process.

3db1d0f.jpg
Click to expand...
 
DrMikeP said:
Part of the problem is that certain DO schools put out a lot of drs and those who want to do the bare minimum to get through can get away with it. If you ask a question their first response with a tell me the answer look is "I don't know." At my hospital its sort of the joke that ---- DO means don't know. I tell my psych students and interns if they say "don't know" at the hospital I'll boot them. It's OK to not know something but say "I'll look it up" or "not sure but I will get back to you."
Click to expand...

I suspect the IDK students in question never saw "The Art of Pimping"
(http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/the-art-of-pimping-article-in-jama.628030/)
or something like "Success on the Wards" (e.g. http://www.feinberg.northwestern.edu/education/docs/current-students/Success-on-the-Wards-2012.pdf - many schools have their own local version). Most schools give students a lecture on what to expect and how to behave on rotations before 3rd year starts.
 
costales said:
I suspect the IDK students in question never saw "The Art of Pimping"
(http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/the-art-of-pimping-article-in-jama.628030/)
or something like "Success on the Wards" (e.g. http://www.feinberg.northwestern.edu/education/docs/current-students/Success-on-the-Wards-2012.pdf - many schools have their own local version). Most schools give students a lecture on what to expect and how to behave on rotations before 3rd year starts.
Click to expand...
Exactly, some schools are better at it than others. It seems as though the MD students at least in my experience are better at playing the game than the DO students. Not all DO students are bad at it either. Once practicing both are well respected as medical staff members and I actually liked the DOs better. I had a few drs advise against DO, but about the same number warned against medicine in general. So you do what you want and don't listen to those who would have you do differently.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk
 
DrMikeP said:
Exactly, some schools are better at it than others. It seems as though the MD students at least in my experience are better at playing the game than the DO students. Not all DO students are bad at it either. Once practicing both are well respected as medical staff members and I actually liked the DOs better. I had a few drs advise against DO, but about the same number warned against medicine in general. So you do what you want and don't listen to those who would have you do differently.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...


When you play the game of pimping, you win or you die.
 
docisthegoal said:
I can't wait to work my butt off to be one of the best then come back and show these people what a DO is all about
Click to expand...
yup, and thousand of D.O. have worked their butt off before you but haters are still haters. The best thing to do is ignore them
 
docisthegoal said:
Ok so I work in an ED as a scribe and I would say more than half the MDs working here (no DO ED docs out of 10-12 docs) maybe more just have no respect for DOs and I have been realizing it lately. They are nice people but listening to them hate against DOs when brought up is making me livid. "Why would you be a DO?" "You won't be happy." A doc told me today "You know patients only go to a DO office if they can't get into an MD office" and "Although they train the same as MDs they aren't as good which is why people want MDs". Then when asked if I was going to DO school she/he said "Well everything I said is true". Prior to working here I have never seen such hate and have seen and even worked with multiple highly respected DOs. I don't usually let things get me mad but this did it. I feel like I just work at a hospital that is not DO friendly but anyone who wants to say something to calm be down would be appreciated. Seeing professionals talk about other professionals in such a way is sad.
Click to expand...

MD, DO, I don't care a doctor is a doctor. You should troll the MD's by asking them why they work in the same ED as a "Lowly DO" and see how they respond? Were they not good enough to work in the Columbia/Harvard ED? lol
 
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docisthegoal said:
Ok so I work in an ED as a scribe and I would say more than half the MDs working here (no DO ED docs out of 10-12 docs) maybe more just have no respect for DOs and I have been realizing it lately. They are nice people but listening to them hate against DOs when brought up is making me livid. "Why would you be a DO?" "You won't be happy." A doc told me today "You know patients only go to a DO office if they can't get into an MD office" and "Although they train the same as MDs they aren't as good which is why people want MDs". Then when asked if I was going to DO school she/he said "Well everything I said is true". Prior to working here I have never seen such hate and have seen and even worked with multiple highly respected DOs. I don't usually let things get me mad but this did it. I feel like I just work at a hospital that is not DO friendly but anyone who wants to say something to calm be down would be appreciated. Seeing professionals talk about other professionals in such a way is sad.
Click to expand...
There are snobs in every profession. When I got out of business school and started my career in a Fortune 500 company, all MBA snobs either went to an ivy league or top 20 school, and they looked down on everyone else. The key is just to have a thick skin, work hard, and you can out perform some of them. Whether they are MD's or MBA's from Harvard.
 
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