Pediatric Residency Programs w/ D.O. bias?

[AmyO]

Hi. I'm a 3rd year medical student looking to go into a pediatric residency program after I graduate. I was curious if any of you on the interview trail or via personal experience have run into any pediatric residency programs that have a blatant D.O. bias....as in, programs that will not rank D.O. students b/c they are D.O. (if they have deficiencies or aren't as stellar as the other candidates, that's another story). The reason I ask is because I was recently told by the academic coordinator at St. Louis Children's Hospital affiliated w/ WashU School of Med that they will not even accept away rotation applications from D.O. students (but they will for LCME US students AND Canadian students). If they won't let D.O. students rotate there, I'm pretty sure they're not going to be taking DO grads for residency spots. WashU doesn't post the names of their peds residents or what school they came from so I can't say for sure. I have heard similar stories from PCOM students about CHOP & Boston. I was pretty shocked, b/c although I knew this existed especially in more competitive fields, I didn't think this was still a big issue in Peds. I'm hoping this is just an isolated issue w/ just a few "big-name" schools. Has anybody else run into this problem at other programs? If so, which ones? Thanks! Btw, I have taken the USMLE step 1 and did extremely well so I am willing to play by the allopathic rules but I don't want to be excluded from consideration just b/c of the initials behind my name.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[WestcoastMedicine]

I pm'd you a more in depth answer and also with my personal experiences while currently applying.

This is not necessarily the case for all of those places. See if there are DOs currently in the programs, also ask if any have been there recently. Regardless, they may take DOs, but have not gotten many applications. Areas where there are not many DOs practicing or DO schools may receive few if any applications from Osteopathic Students. I interviewed at a place that told me they don't receive many and thus don't currently have any Osteo residents. Also, if they receive few applications and don't have any DOs there, they may have NO idea how to interpret the COMLEX.

Some institutions create those policies and not necessarily the programs themselves. I had a friend denied a rotation at UTennessee because they were not an LCME student, yet UT has DOs in several of their programs as well as sponsors an Osteopathic Internship and Family Medicine Residency program...


Basically, what I am saying is do more research as you look at places you might want to apply. Just because there is not a DO there does not mean they wont consider you/interview you/rank you.

 

[jonb12997]

I was told by WashU something along the lines of "currently don't have any residents that are graduates of osteopathic medical schools"... that being said, my understanding is that programs like WashU, Boston, CHOP can choose to be picky, not because they don't like DO's, but because they get enough applications that they can be. This is my take on this, however, I'm completely open to being disagreed with on this...

 

[AmyO]

Thanks for the replies so far!! I certainly agree that the top programs are going to be hard for anybody to land just wanted to get a feel on programs that aren't open to the idea of having DO residents