Wow, I just join, and can't help but get myself into the middle of this "debate". First of all,
"That is what counts. What your patients think of you. Not what some silver spoon-fed, daddy bought my acceptance, I am a premed who drives a benz, pot-smoking, girl-loving but none-getting, arrogant, uninformed, and closed minded fool thinks. So as NIKE says "JUST D.O. IT". Peace out. "
What an absoloute rediculous statement. I hear a lot on this site about equality and practicing side-by-side. Statements like this would indicate to me that DOs, not MDs are the perpetrators facilitating the barriers. MD students are nothing like this. In fact, with regards to your play on being rich, if I am not mistaken DO schools are quite a bit more expensive than public allotahic schools. So, lets just put that one behind, chalk it up to ignorance or rage, and move on.
My opinion of osteopathic medicine is a good one. I have done a great deal of work in practices with DOs, granted they are mostly internal medicine and family practice, but I have no reason to think it would be different across specialities. I think they are fabulous doctors. Why didn't I go to a osteopathic school? Well, to be honest, I really don't see the merit or evidence-based proof that manipulation works. There are studies that indicate it does, but many more in which placebo effects are equally as effective. That being said, I didn't want to spend time learning something that in all likelihood I would not use, I chose to spend that time working with patients instead. Does this have anything to do with the quality of a physician, absoloutely not! There is such diversity even among physicians within a given modality. For example, one doc may be intent upon using celebrex as 1st line therapy for inflammation while another may choose vioox, yet the osteopath may choose manipulation and aspirin. Are any of these correct or incorrect, not a chance, the success is mesured in the patients recovery.
Am I naive enough to think that side-by-side medical practices are a reality, judging by the tension in this thread, I suppose not anymore. I think that there are many benefits to each program. Is it easier to graduate with an MD degree or DO degree, I don't think so, last time I checked there was not a great deal of variation in human anatomy, physiology, and pathology to the extent it can be taught better in one environment than another.
To the osteopaths who swear by manipulation, I am sorry, the evidence just isn't there at this point. But, I don't think it is an area which should require your defense, and certainly not an area that should elicit degredation from MD colleagues. Does manipulation define who one is as a doctor, NOPE, no more than prescribing medications defines an allopath. Being a doctor is much more about caring, compassioin, and the treatment of your patients. Alright, making a little money on the side is nice.
With regards to board scores and residency, this could be debated until we are all dead, someone is always going to have some obscure example of how one or the other was not accepted into some program based on their undergraduate medical training. The point is, DOs take heat from MD students primarily because their scores and stats prior to admission are generally lower (as a class), who cares, seriously there are so many people out there that would make great doctors but fall short on the "statistical" spectrum. I salute people who find a way to practice medicine at all costs. 10 years from now, in fact, probably already, nobody even cares about how you did on the MCAT or why you got that C in organic chemistry. The point is, everyone is in medical school to learn medicine. How we get there is of little importance once we are there. My last bit before I step off my pedastal and tackle the limbic system is this: Intelligence is only once component of being a physician, and cannot be measured soley by objective means, I know a great number of people who rocked the MCAT who don't know **** about medicine or what it takes to be a doctor, but they do tend to boost the averages and usually end up at great schools, and eventually become the doctors that everyone complains about after leaving the clinic. Stats mean very little. Personality, integrity, compassion, and desire are true measures of a quality physician. Unfortunately, until someone comes up with an objective way of measuring these qualities, I am afraid that heat will always be borne by the schools whose intelligence statistics fall short of the norm. Sorry🙂 Just ignore it, if people need to remind themselves how smart they are by degrading those who are "statistically" weaker then life holds in store for them great disappointment, beyond the field of medicine completely.
