new DO schools??

[Krazykritter]

I don't see what the real problem w/ what you guys are calling an apparent lack of research. A number of the faculty I have talked w/ choose to teach here b/c they love to teach and are here to help students. For example, at many larger institutions (mostly MD university programs), faculty are required to carry so many hundred thousand dollars worth national grants. A full professorship title means that they must have brought in over $1 million in grants.

At DMU, most faculty members have labs that they run at least during the summer if not for 2/3 of the year. This allows for a true open-door policy where students are able to find profs whenever they aren't in class. I much prefer this atmosphere to the one I felt at some of the larger MD programs I interviewed at.

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[jabroni108]

DO schools are all about making money. They do not care about what happens to graduates. This is evident by my experience at a DO school and the fact DO residencies are shrinking, and failing to to fill their match at a dismal rate of about 50%. DO schools are banking on the fact that ACGME programs will accept the grads (where, overall the training is better). I feel VERY fortunate that I will be graduating this year and matched in a decent residency. I feel that in the near future, DO grads will be faced with an increasingly difficult passage into acceptable post graduate training.

My two cents.

Plus, the tuition keeps rising and I am now 200000 in debt. Thanks DO schools!

 

[OSUdoc08]

DO schools are all about making money. They do not care about what happens to graduates. This is evident by my experience at a DO school and the fact DO residencies are shrinking, and failing to to fill their match at a dismal rate of about 50%. DO schools are banking on the fact that ACGME programs will accept the grads (where, overall the training is better). I feel VERY fortunate that I will be graduating this year and matched in a decent residency. I feel that in the near future, DO grads will be faced with an increasingly difficult passage into acceptable post graduate training.

My two cents.

Plus, the tuition keeps rising and I am now 200000 in debt. Thanks DO schools!

I do not find this true for public D.O. schools. The situation with private D.O. schools is the same with private M.D. schools, in general. It is not a D.O. issue.

 

[BMW19]

Sorry matriculated. But even if they accepted a few hundred not near the 80% mark.

B-

Accepted 86 or Matriculated 86?

 

[scpod]

I do not find this true for public D.O. schools. The situation with private D.O. schools is the same with private M.D. schools, in general. It is not a D.O. issue.

I don't think that you can really say that any DO schools are about making money, public or private. Now, on the question of tuition, both of the MD schools in my state have raised tuition considerably each of the last few years. Every public college in the state has. That's not necessarily a "private school" thing. The two LECOMs have had their share of bashing on SDN, but they haven't raised tuition like a lot of other places have.

 

[DrBowtie]

I don't think that you can really say that any DO schools are about making money, public or private. Now, on the question of tuition, both of the MD schools in my state have raised tuition considerably each of the last few years. Every public college in the state has. That's not necessarily a "private school" thing. The two LECOMs have had their share of bashing on SDN, but they haven't raised tuition like a lot of other places have.

Rocky Vista I'm sure will be about making money.

 

[scpod]

Rocky Vista I'm sure will be about making money.

Yes, but is that a bad thing? Every medical practice in America is essentially about making money. Sure, we all want to help people, but not if we are not making the kind of money that we need to, after we spent many years and hundreds of thousands of dollars on an education. America is a capitolist society.

 

[DrBowtie]

Yes, but is that a bad thing? Every medical practice in America is essentially about making money. Sure, we all want to help people, but not if we are not making the kind of money that we need to, after we spent many years and hundreds of thousands of dollars on an education. America is a capitolist society.

Never said it was bad. It's filling a demand, but it might not have a favorable reputation.

 

[somnolent]

Never said it was bad. It's filling a demand, but it might not have a favorable reputation.

True. It isn't at all good for a favorable reputation. I asked Dr. Shettle (AOA President) about this situation when he was on campus last week. While he didn't sound too terribly convincing, he did say that the AOA has been talking to them about changing their status from for-profit to non-profit.

I took that with a grain of salt, though, because he also said that they have been working on raising accreditation standards for new schools, and working on creating new residencies, and working on this, and working on that.....

 

[MacGyver]

All the AOA has to do is raise the accreditation standards to say that ONLY nonprofit schools can be built.

But of course the AOA wont do that. They are so worried about ramping up massive numbers of DOs to compete for public image against MDs that they dont give a damn about quality schools, they just want massive numbers of DOs pumped out as quickly as possible.

Absolute fools

 

[NonTradMed]

All the AOA has to do is raise the accreditation standards to say that ONLY nonprofit schools can be built.

But of course the AOA wont do that. They are so worried about ramping up massive numbers of DOs to compete for public image against MDs that they dont give a damn about quality schools, they just want massive numbers of DOs pumped out as quickly as possible.

Absolute fools

Harsh but I have to agree with this sentiment. I think the AOA is more interested in quantity than quality. While I don't mind an increase in the number of physicians (since the population naturally increases, stands to reason physician numbers will increase as well), I do find it unnerving the fast pace of the school increases. While I think the current new DO schools seems to do fine, I'm worried that the accelerating pace of new DO school openings may cause problems.

It's not so much even the numbers as the fact that they are increasing DO schools so fast they don't seem to be ensuring quality clinical rotations and residency placements for these graduates.

The other problem is the issue of quality of student. I guess only time will tell whether students will maintain the same quality or decrease but I think if the rate of new DO schools built is faster than the overall applicant pool, there will come a point where the new DO schools will need to scrap the bottom of the barrel just to fill up their classes.

And we can belabor the point that so and so's aunt got a 15 on the MCAT and still made it into neurosurgery but the fact remains that when you have a class filled with people whose scores hit below 20, there WILL be a high percentage of the class who will fail out.

Aside from issue of allowing thousands of students to blow their money on a degree they won't even receive, the ease of entry into DO schools will only serve to devalue the DO degree in the public's eye. Face it, the public sees higher value in things that's harder to attain. Even though DOs are competent doctors, they will only see the ease of entry and higher failure rate. Think Caribbean schools....even though Ross and the other schools continually churn out competent docs, the ease of entry and high dropout rate makes it suspect in the public's eye.

 

[goodb29]

As the US population grows (300 million this August), we will obviously need more physicians (MDs and DOs), but I think the role of the physician will change as to more of a supervisory role. I say this because as insurance companies and HMOs look to cut costs they would rather pay for a less expensive PA/NP/PharmD's to take care of more basic clinical cases. The MDs/DOs will have a more highly specialized role of coordinating the care of more difficult patients because of their extensive clinical/residency training. The physician (MD/DO) would still be the center of the patient's care but they may delegate some more mundane duties so as to take the pressure off them for caring for so many patients. Just some thoughts...

 

[Lindyhopper]

As the US population grows (300 million this August), we will obviously need more physicians (MDs and DOs), but I think the role of the physician will change as to more of a supervisory role. . .

There really isn't much societal downside in continuing the expansion of high level education. If there does develope an "oversupply" of trained physicians, they'll still be employed. They will still be treating patients. Physicians will just not delegate as many patient care responsibilties.

Who do want performing a physical on your mother? a DO who completed an IM residency OR the same person who went to a 2yr PA program?

 

[Skaterbabe74]

The problem with new DO schools IMO

2) Worse clinical education based on the osteopathic propensity for community based training vs County, VA, or University Hospital training for MD's and also less available faculty (look at US news faculty-student ratio)

3) No real research faculty which makes DO schools more like technical schools or degree mills than places of higher education

I've chosen to quote just these two comments, but I will also be addressing some of the concerns about for profit and not being associated with an established university as well with regards to the new school in Colorado.

First I agree that it would be better if the new school was associated with U of Colorado, or Colorado State than being for profit, but the fact of the matter is that the financial resources of both universities are awful right now. Higher Education funding in Colorado is dismal. There's just no way either university could afford to open a new branch hence the for-profit option. The question is whether the new Colorado school will remain for-profit and unassociated with an established school forever. U of Colorado and Colorado State both have a tendency to take smaller schools under their umbrellas later down the road when they become established and meet the standards of the system.

As far as I know the location of the new Colorado school has not been decided yet, although most likely it will be south denver or colorado springs. Both locations are ideally suited for training medical personnel. In all likelihood the south Denver location would use the same facilities that UCHSC uses plus some of the south Denver hospitals (including the one where all of the Denver Broncos receive treatment). The Colorado Springs location would use the same locations that Univ of Colorado at Colorado Springs uses for their nursing school (one of the top rated nursing schools for it's size in the nation btw). Colorado Springs has a Children's Hospital, 3-state-of-the-art regular hospitals (one attached to the Children's hospital), plus all of the VA stuff (being a town with 4 military bases). So, in this case anyway. the argument that the clinical education will suffer just isn't going to happen. Good faculty will of course need to be hired, but that's an issue at every university/college in the country.

As far as research I agree that DO schools tend to have less research faculty than MD schools, but just because a school isn't associated with another university doesn't mean that they can't hire good research faculty. Colorado has booming research in all areas so I don't see why just because it's a DO school automatically means that the administrators of the school will decide to not hire good research people. Being for profit will mean that they are interested in churning out research and products in order to make more money, so I would think they will have a vested interest in hiring faculty willing to do research.

Colorado has an extreme need for another medical school whether it's DO or MD. Colorado also tends to have a more holistic approach to life in general so a DO school would be a good fit. We already have a ton of the other health care profession programs, but we need more medical schools!

Overall, adding a school in whatever form is a good thing for Colorado. Hopefully they decide to build it in Colorado Springs as they need it more than Denver does, but either way this is a good thing in my opinion.

 

[gusterbyu]

Colorado has an extreme need for another medical school whether it's DO or MD...We already have a ton of the other health care profession programs, but we need more medical schools!

Overall, adding a school in whatever form is a good thing for Colorado...

I just came across the end of this thread, i don't know if anyone has mentioned that one of the new DO schools is going to be in Utah. It's about freakin time. Utah has a need for another medical school. One of my professors was telling me about it and how they asked him to be the dean. He said it will probably be within the next 5 years or so. SO many kids in Utah go to medical school it seems, but rarely do any of them get into the one state school, the U of U. It will definitely be a money maker either way.

 

[Aaron Earles]

I know the dean of the school opening in Yakima, WA. He will have a great curriculum there. They are now building a brand new facility for the school. It is not scheduled to open till 2008, but I know it will be an excellent medical school once established.