OMT rant

Started by hfiso
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hfiso

Full Member
2+ Year Member
Oh my goodness. OMT is absolute quackery. Maybe 1-2% of the techniques are worthwhile, but overall a complete and utter joke. We would do ourselves a favor as a profession if we reduced the nonsense. I don’t need to go poking my partners pubic symphysis to figure out that it is tender. Of course it hurts when you poke a finger above their genitals. Oh and lifting their thigh will cure their pain with a “counterstrain technique.” Sure it feels good on some areas of the back, so let’s simplify and cut out some of the ridiculous variants of these techniques
 
EmilKraepelin55 said:
Just wait until you reach pelvic floor release or better yet craniosacral. That crap sent me into a spiral of pure animosity towards OMM.
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Chapman’s are what did it for me. The best is in lecture they said “don’t try to determine a diagnosis from a Chapman’s point, but you can use it to confirm a diagnosis you already have” yeah that sounds like good science. I’m not gonna confirm my conjunctivitis diagnosis with a point on your arm. Nope just no
 
Cornfed101 said:
Chapman’s are what did it for me. The best is in lecture they said “don’t try to determine a diagnosis from a Chapman’s point, but you can use it to confirm a diagnosis you already have” yeah that sounds like good science. I’m not gonna confirm my conjunctivitis diagnosis with a point on your arm. Nope just no
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Looked it up, it literally looks like the reflexology quackery that acupressure and acupuncturists are on about. What the hell. This is considered scientifically sound medicine??? How do schools of osteopathic medicine promote this stuff with a clean conscience??? I was expecting OMM to be mostly physical therapy type stuff, not straight up quackery.
 
hfiso said:
Oh my goodness. OMT is absolute quackery. Maybe 1-2% of the techniques are worthwhile, but overall a complete and utter joke. We would do ourselves a favor as a profession if we reduced the nonsense. I don’t need to go poking my partners pubic symphysis to figure out that it is tender. Of course it hurts when you poke a finger above their genitals. Oh and lifting their thigh will cure their pain with a “counterstrain technique.” Sure it feels good on some areas of the back, so let’s simplify and cut out some of the ridiculous variants of these techniques
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Suspend your disbelief, try to learn something useful, and work on your palpatory skills.

Failing that, close your eyes and think of England.

This is the tax you pay for not getting into an MD school.
 
shotgunlagoon said:
Looked it up, it literally looks like the reflexology quackery that acupressure and acupuncturists are on about. What the hell. This is considered scientifically sound medicine??? How do schools of osteopathic medicine promote this stuff with a clean conscience??? I was expecting OMM to be mostly physical therapy type stuff, not straight up quackery.
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Some is, some is stuff used by other modalities such as PT, massage etc. I agree with the thought that some of the old stuff needs to go. However, not saying this to be mean, but your signature says you're an ORM from cali, you should probably find a away to be okay with it. There is a significant possibility that it will be in your curriculum.

Goro said:
Suspend your disbelief, try to learn something useful, and work on your palpatory skills.

Failing that, close your eyes and think of England.

This is the tax you pay for not getting into an MD school.
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I've seen these 3 responses to very similar posts several times from Goro on this subject. It's the truth, all of it. If you can't do those things, use it as time to catch up with your classmates.

This won't be the last thing you'll have to do in your career that you think is pointless.

This isn't even the worst part of going to a DO school. Let's talk about taking 2 sets of boards and often still looked at as not equal to MD counterparts by residencies.
 
Unsolicited protip for practicals BTW: If you get asked to diagnose your partner's sacrum, you always diagnose forward sacral torsion and treat with IT spread. There's no nitpicky hand placement crap they can dock points for.
 
arjusmc said:
Some is, some is stuff used by other modalities such as PT, massage etc. I agree with the thought that some of the old stuff needs to go. However, not saying this to be mean, but your signature says you're an ORM from cali, you should probably find a away to be okay with it. There is a significant possibility that it will be in your curriculum.
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Yeah, I know I'm most likely going to end up going DO, and definitely plan to take Goro's advice on trying to get what I can out of it. Still frustrating though...

I was more okay with OMM when I didn't know as much about it...

Goro said:
Suspend your disbelief, try to learn something useful, and work on your palpatory skills.

Failing that, close your eyes and think of England.

This is the tax you pay for not getting into an MD school.
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Good point about the palpation skills. Hopefully I can learn at least a couple useful things. Worst case scenario, I have weird stuff to show my MD friends at the end.
 
Jackaleauxpe said:
It evaporates from the curriculum after 2nd year. You never see it again except for cramming it 4-5 days before COMLEX.
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Cornfed101 said:
I’d say it’s closer to 10-15% reasonable but yeah mostly nonsense. Also, that 10-15% is already done by PTs so we don’t really need to do it
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And this is what separates DO and MD schools. Does anyone else see the absurdity of our system?
 
I've never seen a DO use OMM in real life. If you have the option I would say go to a school that has as little of it a week as possible. It help with anatomy and palpation, I can give decent massages now but CS and chapman are so much annoying memorization its crazy.

Like Goro said its the tax you pay, but also realize its a pretty minor tax to pay. the parts that show up on boards are laughably easy, you literally just have to know your rights and lefts.

just take Step and if anyone gives you ish just say you took and passed the MD boards and they can go kick rocks.
 
howdoiknow said:
Wrong. What separates the two is the fact that MD schools have 6-10x the # of faculty, hundreds of millions of research dollars (collectively all DO schools have like <50m while one school alone like Hopkins can have $700m, umich $500m, even "Low-tier" MD schools have 40-80m/year.

I've absolutely hate research but I am amazed by the projects my classmates are all working on and not solely focusing on boards (and still performing DOs)
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yeah when you think about it, kinda alarming that DO students literally have nothing to do but study for step 1 since there is not any money to research, no big hospital connections to shadow/mentor at and they still have only like 25-50% of the classes take them and always average less than a 230

sheesh it gets worse and worse the more I think about it
 
howdoiknow said:
If we're going to be fair there is no DO school with a >230 USMLE average while the vast majority of MDs are consistently averaging >230
The closest I can recall is KCU-COM with a 228 one year but only like 2/3 of the class took it. Had everyone taken it the average would probably fall to the 210s. Even "top" schools like Rowan and MSUCOM only average ~215-218 most years and only 50-60% of students at these schools take USMLE Step 1.

So it is unfair to pretend like "taking two sets of boards" is somehow equivalent of performing at the same caliber of (most) MD students. Now, there are some rockstar DOs out there with 250+, several pubs, etc but they are the minority and P/F Step 1 will hurt them. When these students apply to historically DO-friendly residencies that take rockstar DOs the PD won't know if this is a 250+ DO or a 205 USMLE DO and will likely default to assuming the latter since that is more common (had all DOs taken USMLE)

When I Interviewed at one DO school the M2s gave us a tour and the other applicants were asking them about boards and what not. The M2 goes "well I don't really think it's important to take USMLE like I just have been doing the bare minimum and so have all of my friends because we can just take COMLEX and we'll be fine *giggle giggle*" and then she didn't have the answer to other school-specific questions which I answered (As an applicant who did 15 minutes of research prior to the interview)

Last but not least, most DO schools have a 24+ month preclinical period and plenty of time to study for Step 1 (which is what you should focus on and then cram savarese for COMLEX). My MD schools and several others have 12-18 month pre-clinical and still perform far better on USMLE
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ohmanwaddup said:
yeah when you think about it, kinda alarming that DO students literally have nothing to do but study for step 1 since there is not any money to research, no big hospital connections to shadow/mentor at and they still have only like 25-50% of the classes take them and always average less than a 230

sheesh it gets worse and worse the more I think about it
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Look we get it. DO school is a joke to get into. Most DO students are far less qualified than Md students, but not all. Some, like myself, just don’t care about the clout. I’m a married non-traditional student and it has changed my perspective a lot. Blows my mind how many people in medical school base their self worth off of their research, residency, income, grades, etc. A lot of unhappy, self conscious, people going into medicine to “help people” when the reality is they just want the power/respect.

Get a hobby and enjoy life.
 
hfiso said:
Look we get it. DO school is a joke to get into. Most DO students are far less qualified than Md students, but not all. Some, like myself, just don’t care about the clout. I’m a married non-traditional student and it has changed my perspective a lot. Blows my mind how many people in medical school base their self worth off of their research, residency, income, grades, etc. A lot of unhappy, self conscious, people going into medicine to “help people” when the reality is they just want the power/respect.

Get a hobby and enjoy life.
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I've got hobbies fam. I don't think DO school is always a joke to get into. a 3.5 science GPA and 505 MCAT are my schools typical stats. That def isnt "easy" to do.

I hate traditional research

But if we wanna be considered equal we should all be taking and passing the step exams. There just really is not an excuse to not be taking it. Imageine if step 1 had 50ish questions seeing if patients can tell their left from their right. Itd be a joke and you wouldnt be able to trust the pass rate. how many are squeeking over a 400 and passing because of these bogus omm questions.
 
howdoiknow said:
a 480 correlates with barely passing USMLE (and a few low-performing DO schools average around 480-500) so all of these low 400 scorers worry me. Anyone can memorize a few B&B videos, do a bit of UFAPS for a few weeks and get a 400 without understanding the underlying mechanisms
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Your point is well taken. However, even if their entire pre-clinical education consisted of "a few B&B videos [and] a bit of UFAPS for a few weeks", they still have 7+ total years of training, including an ACGME accredited residency.
 
hfiso said:
Oh my goodness. OMT is absolute quackery. Maybe 1-2% of the techniques are worthwhile, but overall a complete and utter joke. We would do ourselves a favor as a profession if we reduced the nonsense. I don’t need to go poking my partners pubic symphysis to figure out that it is tender. Of course it hurts when you poke a finger above their genitals. Oh and lifting their thigh will cure their pain with a “counterstrain technique.” Sure it feels good on some areas of the back, so let’s simplify and cut out some of the ridiculous variants of these techniques
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Has any one gone on an away at Massage Envy?
 
howdoiknow said:
If we're going to be fair there is no DO school with a >230 USMLE average while the vast majority of MDs are consistently averaging >230
The closest I can recall is KCU-COM with a 228 one year but only like 2/3 of the class took it. Had everyone taken it the average would probably fall to the 210s. Even "top" schools like Rowan and MSUCOM only average ~215-218 most years and only 50-60% of students at these schools take USMLE Step 1.

So it is unfair to pretend like "taking two sets of boards" is somehow equivalent of performing at the same caliber of (most) MD students. Now, there are some rockstar DOs out there with 250+, several pubs, etc but they are the minority and P/F Step 1 will hurt them. When these students apply to historically DO-friendly residencies that take rockstar DOs the PD won't know if this is a 250+ DO or a 205 USMLE DO and will likely default to assuming the latter since that is more common (had all DOs taken USMLE)

When I Interviewed at one DO school the M2s gave us a tour and the other applicants were asking them about boards and what not. The M2 goes "well I don't really think it's important to take USMLE like I just have been doing the bare minimum and so have all of my friends because we can just take COMLEX and we'll be fine *giggle giggle*" and then she didn't have the answer to other school-specific questions which I answered (As an applicant who did 15 minutes of research prior to the interview)

Last but not least, most DO schools have a 24+ month preclinical period and plenty of time to study for Step 1 (which is what you should focus on and then cram savarese for COMLEX). My MD schools and several others have 12-18 month pre-clinical and still perform far better on USMLE
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Pretty loaded response. I'll clarify my statement, a DO with a 235 on step 1 is viewed as less than by many program directors than an MD with a 235 on step 1.

Your statements about P/F step 1 are false until(if) step 2 becomes P/F.

Your experience at a DO school interview is n=1........ aren't you MD students supposed to be the research experts?

Congrats on not having to slum it with the DO students though!!!!!
 
howdoiknow said:
I have "DO stats" but I got into an MD school (ORM). I think the people above are missing the point. I believe neurosurgery attending MD=DO (obviously it's much harder to get into a competitive specialty as a DO). Contrast that to many of my classmates mocking DOs or looking at me weird when I told them I had applied to DO schools. I have several DO friends who barely squeaked a 400 by memorizing savarese in a few days and it doesn't do the profession any good when these mediocre students start rotations and later become FM/IM attendings (they tend to be mediocre clinically as well).
They did all have 3.5 and <500 (attending low-tier DO schools) and they all cheated through college (It's much harder to cheat a 3.9+)
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You can’t pass comlex by just memorizing green book. There simply isn’t enough OMM to do that. I do agree comlex should be abolished and everyone takes steps. You can and will be a good clinician as a DO if you care about putting in the work in residency. That’s really where you become a physician. Med school is a means to an end. People should go to the best med school they can because it leaves the most doors open. You will not automatically be a better physician because you are a MD or you won’t automatically have better bedside manner because you are a DO. Everyone has to put the work in. Besides who even cares anymore? *yawn* Don’t worry healthcare administration will **** down your throat the same despite being MD or DO.
 
ohmanwaddup said:
I've got hobbies fam. I don't think DO school is always a joke to get into. a 3.5 science GPA and 505 MCAT are my schools typical stats. That def isnt "easy" to do.

I hate traditional research

But if we wanna be considered equal we should all be taking and passing the step exams. There just really is not an excuse to not be taking it. Imageine if step 1 had 50ish questions seeing if patients can tell their left from their right. Itd be a joke and you wouldnt be able to trust the pass rate. how many are squeeking over a 400 and passing because of these bogus omm questions.
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When you get to be a doctor, you'll find that you ARE equal to the MDs. At that point, no one will care about your degree. They'll care about your area of specialty. And you as a DO attending will make the same salary as your MD peers.
 
Goro said:
When you get to be a doctor, you'll find that you ARE equal to the MDs. At that point, no one will care about your degree. They'll care about your area of specialty. And you as a DO attending will make the same salary as your MD peers.
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Exactly my point. It’s primarily med students that carry this perception that MDs are automatically better than DOs. As an Ortho PA for 4 years I can tell you first hand there are numerous MDs and DOs that shouldn’t have a medical license. Every doctor within a healthcare system knows who the good physicians are and the ones to avoid. It’s no longer a title thing.
 
howdoiknow said:
Wrong. What separates the two is the fact that MD schools have 6-10x the # of faculty, hundreds of millions of research dollars (collectively all DO schools have like <50m while one school alone like Hopkins can have $700m, umich $500m, even "Low-tier" MD schools have 40-80m/year.

I've absolutely hate research but I am amazed by the projects my classmates are all working on and not solely focusing on boards (and still performing DOs)
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Lol I mean yeah duh... I'm saying OMT is the primary differentiator when it comes to practice and tradition and is what DOs hang that their hat on to say they're unique. Thanks for telling me Hopkins has more money than my school I had no idea.
 
Goro said:
When you get to be a doctor, you'll find that you ARE equal to the MDs. At that point, no one will care about your degree. They'll care about your area of specialty. And you as a DO attending will make the same salary as your MD peers.
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Oh of that I have no doubt. I do not think that MDs are better than me. Typically If you make it you make it. I'm just pointing out that the exams are in no way equal and there is a lot of gimmie questions on Comlex through OMM that boils down to knowing your lefts and rights and could stop someone from failing. Cannot really think of the equivelent on the step exams I took.

boards scores do not make a doctor, but I think passing them both is important to display the minimum amount of knoweldge necessary. I don't know if people getting sub 450s on comlex and not taking/passing step are displaying that, but what do I know.

I think some of these DO schools are pushing the envelope it when it comes to meeting requirements. I know for sure that if I did not want to do primary care my 3rd year was 100% lacking
 
hfiso said:
Oh my goodness. OMT is absolute quackery. Maybe 1-2% of the techniques are worthwhile, but overall a complete and utter joke. We would do ourselves a favor as a profession if we reduced the nonsense. I don’t need to go poking my partners pubic symphysis to figure out that it is tender. Of course it hurts when you poke a finger above their genitals. Oh and lifting their thigh will cure their pain with a “counterstrain technique.” Sure it feels good on some areas of the back, so let’s simplify and cut out some of the ridiculous variants of these techniques
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It only serves to hurt the profession from within. Regardless of what people from the outside think, forcing us to learn all these garbage techniques that will never be used is not helpful to our education or patient care. They need to drastically reduce the curriculum where we learn only the most established techniques including those that can be realistically used in clinic. If they did this, I think more DO students would be open to learning and using in clinic. Leave all these "advanced" bull**** practices to people that do NMM residency
 
As the "old guy" of my class I can honestly say I suck at OMM and I am pretty decent at the normal med school things. Not top 10 in class but good. I wonder if it has to do with being treated with OMM.
 
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