Osteopathic Programs

[Atlas]

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Which D.O. residencies are non-competitive, generally?

 

[Atlas]

does anyone have an opinion?

 

[drvlad2004]

I think the question should have been "Which osteopathic residencies are competitive." The vast majority of osteopathic residencies are non-competitive. The competitive residencies are orthopedics, dermatology, ER, ophthalomology, urology, ENT, and rads. There are simply not enough osteopathic residencies in these fields and they are already hard enough to match into (MD or DO). Any of the primary care fields in DO residencies are non-competitive. Many do not even fill their spots because many DO programs are based in community programs as opposed to university programs. Thus, you see more DO students applying to MD residencies.

 

[Atlas]

Thanks for your reply. I appreciate it. But how competitive is competitive? My school, OUCOM, doesn't keep track of grades - we're on a pass/fail basis. Thus, how can they tell how competitive I am other than the obvious: board scores, research, etc.? I am interested in ENT, Anesthesia, IM, and EM. Any thoughts? Thanks.

 

[DO for ophtho]

I am also from OUCOM....if you were in the top whatever percentile (ranged from 10-25, I believe) for a given quarter, a letter was put into your file to that effect and will be reflected in the Dean's letter. If you scored High Pass on many of your rotations this will also set you apart. Board scores are huge at getting you in the door. If you are applying allopathically I would make sure you mention that High Pass is the highest you can go on our eval forms....many allopathic med schools have high pass as the runner-up to honors. Good luck in the match!

 

[drvlad2004]

I guess if I look at what you are interested in, which is a lot, I would say that ENT and EM are the most competitive. Eventually you will need narrow down to 1 or 2 fields that you want to go to. ENT is extremely competitive, more than probably ortho and rads. I think that your judgement is right in terms of what it takes to be competitive (i.e. board scores, clinical clerkship grades, research, etc.). Letter of recs are extremely important, especially from a reputable physician in the field that you are interested in. You really need to show the total package. Scoring well on the USMLE will be greatly increase your chances of landing a strong residency program in any of the fields you mention. Although I can't stand IM, I know that IM is non-competitive. Try to match in an IM program that has plenty of fellowships or gives you an excellent chance of landing one. The IM osteopathic programs are very weak.

For the past couple of years, anesthesia has been one of the most popular matches at my school, NYCOM. I've counted about 25-30 students per year matching into excellent anesthesiology programs throughout the country, such as NYU, Cleveland Clinic, Harvard, and Yale. Anesthesiology is now moderately competitives. Remember this, there are only about 2 anesthesiology DO programs. You'll need to apply allopathic. For ENT, apply both allo and osteo.

 

[Atlas]

Thanks for the reply, but I was wanting to focus my attention more on osteopathic programs and not on allopathic programs. I've been told that many of the more competitive programs in our hospital system, the CORE, are pretty easy to get into. Granted, I am playing only n the symantecs of what I hear. Also, there are more than 2 DO anesthesia programs in the country. I hope I am not misunderstanding you, but I know OUCOM's CORE has 3 anesthesia programs and I am familiar with other programs I believe in Michigan and Florida. Anyways, I was more interested in knowing how I might go about improving my application to the more competitive osteopathic programs such as ENT. I appreciate everyone's feedback.

 

[Atlas]

DO for Ophtho,

I am in the PCC. How will they rank us in terms of the CPC students considering we take different tests?

 

[DO for ophtho]

As far as I know, we are not ranked. For CPC, if your grades for the quarter landed you in the top 10-25 % of the class, then you got a letter in your file...I dunno if they did this for PCC as well or not? Do your best to kick ass on boards, rotate at the places you want to your residency, use the connections that you have and if you don't have any, start trying to establish some. Unfortunately I am not familiar with any of the ENT programs or docs....but keep asking around, you never know who you may meet who can hook you up. Best of luck with the application process!!

 

[DrQuinn]

DO programs are notoriously UNCOMPETITIVE. How can I quantify or qualify uncompetitiveness? Where I did my 3rd year rotations, there are 20 PGY-1 spots... I think they had like 35 applications for it. Something like EM, where there are about 15 or so programs (guesstimating), and between 2-5 spots a program a year, that's between 30-75 spots a year. There are what, 2000 osteopathic graduates a year? Roughly half go to MD institutions, so you have 1000 DOs who stick with DO residencies. = EASY

Q, DO

 

[Atlas]

I guess the real question is "Is it competitive where I want to apply?" because there are only a few hospitals in our school's system that I would want to go to (due to geographic factors) and they don't have the same residencies across the board.

 

[volvulus]

Question...can MD's apply for DO residencies? For example, can an MD apply for a DO derm, optho or rads residency? If they can't, isn't this reverse discrimination. I mean when do you use OMM for derm, optho or rads.

 

[Atlas]

No. MD's can't enter DO residency programs.

 

[Atlas]

Quinn,

Thanks for your reply, but I'm not sure I understand exactly how these programs are uncompetitive. I must be slow or something. Anyways, from what I gathered from your post, there are 1000 applicants to DO programs and 30-75 EM spots total. Those numbers still seem rather competitive because there are still more applicants than spots, especially in the more coveted fields like Derm, Ortho, etc. I group EM in there too. I wish there was a way you could quantify competitiveness, too. I guess one way is by numbers (which you sort of did) because as the saying goes "the numbers don't lie". I've been searching the internet for hard stats on osteopathic programs (openings, filled, unfilled, etc) and there isn't much. I found the ACOFP website to have stats on FP programs, but I'm not really interested. I figure that if I wanted to do FP I'd probably go to an MD program anyways. Thanks for your replay.

Atlas

 

[volvulus]

SO then if MD's can't apply for DO residencies why should DO's be able to apply for MD ones? It seems pretty staright forward to me.

 

[Teufelhunden]

Originally posted by volvulus
SO then if MD's can't apply for DO residencies why should DO's be able to apply for MD ones? It seems pretty staright forward to me.

The answer is because of numbers.

There aren't even enough DO residencies for DO grads (DO residencies can only accomidate ~ 1/2 of DO grads). So, DO programs obviously can't open their doors to MDs until they have enough slots to accomidate their own.

Converesly, there are far more MD residencies than there are U.S. MD grads, hence the additional room for IMGs, FMGs, and DOs to fill their spots.

Also, a weak argument could be made that MDs couldn't function in an osteopathic environment d/t their lack of OMT; however, most of us know that's b.s. as no one really ever does OMT after the 2nd year of DO school anyway.

 

[Atlas]

I know people who use OMM as an integral part of their practice...at least the "true" osteopaths do anyways. Of course, those "wanna-be MD's" who go to osteopathic school will not use the OMT techniques primarily for identity reasons. They wish to be identified as MD's instead of unique osteopaths. What ever their reasons may be, they should not feel like they can't use OMM past the second year, especiallty at a DO hospital, such as Cuyahoga Falls General Hospital (Summa). I think in many specialties it is hard to incorporate it, I'm sure. But the fact is, I think that alot of DO students have a negative attitude towards OMM. Granted, this post is not intended to be a discussion of OMM. I just wanted to make a point that you can use OMM in any DO hospital (and many MD hospitals too...as long as it's ok with the attending) after your second year.

 

[DOnut]

Originally posted by Atlas
...at least the "true" osteopaths do anyways. Of course, those "wanna-be MD's" who go to osteopathic school will not use the OMT techniques primarily for identity reasons. They wish to be identified as MD's instead of unique osteopaths.

🙄 🙄

Do you think a trauma surgen is really going to be concerned about a patients rotated transverse process?

 

[Atlas]

No. Of course not...if you read my post, I said that I can understand how some specialties may not rely on OMM as much as others because it can be hard to incorporate it into their practice. For the most part, considering MOST DO's go into primary care (and not trauma surgery), there becomes a potential for the osteopathic physician to use OMM as a treatment modality.

 

[DigableCat]

Originally posted by Teufelhunden
The answer is because of numbers.

There aren't even enough DO residencies for DO grads (DO residencies can only accomidate ~ 1/2 of DO grads). So, DO programs obviously can't open their doors to MDs until they have enough slots to accomidate their own.

Converesly, there are far more MD residencies than there are U.S. MD grads, hence the additional room for IMGs, FMGs, and DOs to fill their spots.

If this is in fact the situation, doesn't this make a case for DO schools decreasing their numbers of graduates? A class of 250 is overkill...or are they doing it with the intentions of knowing that most will go into allopathic residencies anyway? And if that is true, what does that say about the philosophy of why people chose DO versus going into an allopathic medical school?