osteo-books

[RDO]

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Since I've decided to apply to medical school, I have been reading a lot of biographical accounts of people's medical school and residency experiences. These books are really great, but I can't seem to find any written by D.O.'s. I doubt their experiences would be much different than the MD experiences anyway, but I'm curious to see what small differences do exist between these two paths to doctorhood. Any book or author recommendations?

 

[jdaasbo]

I will recommend a book, even though it is written by an MD (also a Ph.D.)-in spite of the fact that he isn't a DO, he writes pretty well (smile). The book is "becoming a Doctor" and it is by Melvin Konner. He also wrote "Medicine at the Crossroads" and "The Tangled Wing." I highly recommend any of these books.

As far as the differences in educational experiences, i think that they would be negligable-both systems pride themselves on torturing their students and culturing unhealthy lifestyles and attitudes. Seriously, it isn't all that glum.

If you want a good history on osteopathy, check out Norman Gevitz's "The DOs: osteopathic medicine in American."

Johan

 

[DO DUDE]

I can higly recommend Konner's book as well. I've read his book a couple of times, mainly because he was a nontraditional student like me and his experiences were applicable. I also contacted him directly and asked about his opinion on the DO/MD issue. He basically told me what we all know--That the DO route may be better for primary care if that is your interest and the MD route may provide more research opportunities.

 

[Gregory Gulick]

Actually, there are a couple of autobiographies of DOs out there. The problem is that they are usually pretty rare and therefore not readily available for purchase. In addition, the physicians writing them have all retired and therefore the experiences they had don't compare to what the rest of us will experience in our lives.

Anyways, three books I have on my shelf are:

YOU MUST BECOME A DOCTOR by Carl Moore Cook, DO. This is the story of an osteopathic physician, from PCOM I believe, that went overseas and setup a practice in England.

A DREAM AND AN HONOR by Alan J. Snider, DO. This is the story of another PCOM graduate who went on to build an osteopathic hospital in Largo, Florida (now Sun Coast Hospital).

REMINISENCES OF A COUNTRY DOCTOR by Charles L. Judd, DO. Judd was a KCOM graduate that practiced in rural Missouri most of his life and these self-published book includes some of his experiences.

These books are interesting snapshots of early osteopathic training, but for the most part I'd stick with the more contemporary books regarding experiences in medical training. BTW, the book EMERGENCY by Mark Brown, MD was published in 1996. It is a compliation of ER stories by different physicians and many of them are DOs. This book should be at most bookstores.

Good luck.

 

[RDO]

Thanks for your input, guys. I've actually read the Melvin Konner book already. I appreciated it for its detail and personal touch, but I was also reading a couple other books at the same time (bad habit) that made Konner's account seem a little pretentious or something. It may have been because he wrote years after his experience and the other books were transcriptions of recordings that interns made during or after a night of being on call. I guess I'm just a product of the ER-Chicago Hope era! Anyway, if anyone is interested, a really good one of these books is The Intern Blues by Robert Marion, MD. He also wrote Rotations, which is the same idea--the experiences of three interns, but The Intern Blues is more interesting because it has a lot more of the interns' accounts than Marion's.