Practical Differences between MD and DO after Residency

[LikeDaniel]

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Hello,

After looking at the philosophy of osteopathic medicine, I find myself really liking it and agreeing with it. However, my exposure to doctors has always been allopathic doctors and I don't want to find myself in an occupation other than the one I am trying to aim for.

Everywhere I have looked has been incredibly vague or obviously biased (usually toward the D.O. side) in the techniques available to the MD/DO (either saying "they're basically the same except for approach/philosophy" or "D.O.'s are trained in everything MDs are with the addition of..."). I don't want to spend 11 years of training just to find out that allopathic medicine teaches a particular subset of techniques that I would find fascinating and now could not really justify pursuing.

Could someone please tell me the practical differences or direct me to a contrasting list of the differences between an allopathic doctor/surgeon and an osteopathic doctor/surgeon AFTER residency?

Thank you very much,
-LD

 

[FrkyBgStok]

None if you don't use OMM.

 

[LikeDaniel]

Thank you for your reply. Is it merely that osteopathic medicine is less mainstream (and thus arguably gets a stigma, and obviously accepts more GPA-risky students) then that causes most to go allopathic? It seems to me that more techniques at your disposal would make for a better doctor.

 

[TUVIX]

Thank you for your reply. Is it merely that osteopathic medicine is less mainstream (and thus arguably gets a stigma, and obviously accepts more GPA-risky students) then that causes most to go allopathic? It seems to me that more techniques at your disposal would make for a better doctor.

The reason DO schools have lower GPA students is mainly a supply and demand issue. There are far less applicants to DO schools. DO school averages are creeping up slowly and some have even entered into the MD range. The other factor is that DO schools want to accept people who are interested in being DOs and not just using DO school as a backup. So it's a balance. This is why some high stats applicants who apply very late get rejected from DO because the schools know they are just using them as a backup. Osteopathic medicine is "less mainstream" in that there are far fewer DOs practicing. There is no practical difference after residency unless you use OMM a lot in your practice. For example, I work with several DO's that are surgeons and their career is 100% the same as the MD surgeons I work with. 100%..... seriously 100%. No difference. None. Even in primary care, and even if the DO uses OMM, it is basically the same career but with an added treatment modality. For example, my FM doctor is a DO and I see him how you would see any PC physician. Sometimes he does OMM on me, sometimes he doesn't. The pay is the same, the hours are the same, the lifestyle is the same...the list goes on and on.

 

[TallPreMed]

 

[Azete]

I was accepted to both MD and DO, and researched this topic ad nauseam. I chose DO because my spouse was more comfortable with the location, and I expect my decision to limit my residency opportunities. For me, though, I have no desire to ever live in an urban area, and thus 95%+ of the top tier residencies that would reject me due to DO bias I would have no interest in anyway. After residency, hell even during residency, MD/DO is exactly the same.

The DO school I am attending has high quality rotation sites (identical to the local MD school as they are shared) and many research opportunities, so I expect the quality of my education to be virtually the same. There are huge disparities in the quality of DO schools though -- much more-so than MD schools -- so be careful to research the program extensively before applying. I won't name them, but there are certain DO schools that consistently churn out completely unprepared residents and thus give the entire profession a worse reputation and justify the continued bias that exists.

Also, it's not entirely true anymore that DO schools take students with lower stats than MD. As a whole they do, for sure. However, some DO programs have higher MCAT & USMLE averages than several MD schools, so the gap in this regard is closing rapidly.

 

[Doctor Bob]

pictures

Ahahahaha... brilliant.

 

[Ho0v-man]

Edit: wrong thread lol

 

[costales]

 

[cliquesh]

I don't think there is much of a difference. Most of the attendings I worked with on medical school rotations were MDs and most the staff where I am now for residency are MDs. So I'm basically a DO being trained by MDs, which I think is true for most osteopathic students.

 

[LikeDaniel]

Thank you very much for your insight and help Tuvix, Azete, and Cliquesh. I really appreciate it. Everything I had found to this point (and i have read a lot on it) left me feeling like something was being left unsaid or that they were only talking about during medical school/residency, which is not my question. Hearing it from people who are really, day-to-day exposed to it is really encouraging.

As I mentioned already, I really favor both the philosophy and additional tool(s) that the DO path gives. Assuming it was true that the two jobs are the same (as you have verified), DO is definitely my top pick.

Just to be clear, I might have mispoke or been misunderstood in regards to the DO GPA. (Whether it's true or not) I didn't mean to say that DO programs accept more low-GPA applicants, but that they are willing to accept more classes toward one's sGPA as well as only count the most recent grade in a given course. I think this is intelligent, but I could grant that it is riskier than only accepting those who have never had an issue with their GPA (or worked incredibly hard to repair it) as it seems to me the allopathic system does.

Thank you again for your help and hospitality.

-LD

 

[QueenJames]

Only difference is OMM. The DOs I shadowed simply said they never have used OMM in their practice and it's just another hoop to get through. They were doing the same thing that the MDs I shadowed were doing... (After comparing like vs. like given that the docs I shadowed were in the same specialty at two different hospitals in the area)

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Thank you very much for your insight and help Tuvix, Azete, and Cliquesh. I really appreciate it. Everything I had found to this point (and i have read a lot on it) left me feeling like something was being left unsaid or that they were only talking about during medical school/residency, which is not my question. Hearing it from people who are really, day-to-day exposed to it is really encouraging.

As I mentioned already, I really favor both the philosophy and additional tool(s) that the DO path gives. Assuming it was true that the two jobs are the same (as you have verified), DO is definitely my top pick.

Just to be clear, I might have mispoke or been misunderstood in regards to the DO GPA. (Whether it's true or not) I didn't mean to say that DO programs accept more low-GPA applicants, but that they are willing to accept more classes toward one's sGPA as well as only count the most recent grade in a given course. I think this is intelligent, but I could grant that it is riskier than only accepting those who have never had an issue with their GPA (or worked incredibly hard to repair it) as it seems to me the allopathic system does.

Thank you again for your help and hospitality.

-LD

If you have the chance to go MD, do it. Don't go DO for the "philosophy", or for OMM because you can learn that afterwards if you desire to. It just makes life easier. And I say this as someone who has extensively researched the DO path and will be applying to almost exclusively DO schools.

 

[QueenJames]

Yeah.. to second what he/she said above... the hierarchy is always as follows - US MD > US DO >>>>>>>>>>US IMG>>>>>>>>>>>>>> FMG.

You don't know what specialty you want. You will have more pick of the litter than us DO folks. That's just how it is. It could be much worse though. There is nothing really uber special about the DO pathway except the OMM stuff (which is a total PITA or a godsend depending on who you ask.... I don't have any personal opinion yet but know that I will not really use it in my future practice. Just another hoop to jump through if that means I get to stay in the states and not worry about being stuck on an island somewhere.. 😉).

So if you have the chance, definitely go MD. But also apply DO. Good luck!

 

[igor_raptor]

Yeah.. to second what he/she said above... the hierarchy is always as follows - US MD > US DO >>>>>>>>>>US IMG>>>>>>>>>>>>>> FMG.

You don't know what specialty you want. You will have more pick of the litter than us DO folks. That's just how it is. It could be much worse though. There is nothing really uber special about the DO pathway except the OMM stuff (which is a total PITA or a godsend depending on who you ask.... I don't have any personal opinion yet but know that I will not really use it in my future practice. Just another hoop to jump through if that means I get to stay in the states and not worry about being stuck on an island somewhere.. 😉).

So if you have the chance, definitely go MD. But also apply DO. Good luck!

So I plan on doing military medicine and from those I've known in my enlisted career and from the docs I've seen on SDN, OMM is potentially useful for these patient populations (chronic mid/lower back pain is common amongst combat arms). So I'm pretty excited to learn OMM and that is part of the reason I chose DO. I get that a lot of DO grads won't use OMM or care to use it in practice, but I thought I'd offer a different perspective for the OP.

 

[TheOther]

Thank you very much for your insight and help Tuvix, Azete, and Cliquesh. I really appreciate it. Everything I had found to this point (and i have read a lot on it) left me feeling like something was being left unsaid or that they were only talking about during medical school/residency, which is not my question. Hearing it from people who are really, day-to-day exposed to it is really encouraging.

As I mentioned already, I really favor both the philosophy and additional tool(s) that the DO path gives. Assuming it was true that the two jobs are the same (as you have verified), DO is definitely my top pick.

Just to be clear, I might have mispoke or been misunderstood in regards to the DO GPA. (Whether it's true or not) I didn't mean to say that DO programs accept more low-GPA applicants, but that they are willing to accept more classes toward one's sGPA as well as only count the most recent grade in a given course. I think this is intelligent, but I could grant that it is riskier than only accepting those who have never had an issue with their GPA (or worked incredibly hard to repair it) as it seems to me the allopathic system does.

Thank you again for your help and hospitality.

-LD

First of all, define "subset of technical skills". Post-residency, the only subset of skills that you'd find yourself limited in obtaining as BOTH an MD/DO are the fellowships you don't pursue. OR. The specialty you didn't pursue for residency. That's really it (apart from OMM).

I know you're asking about the differences after residency. Given that you're still a pre-med student, before worrying about practicing post-residency, I'd bear in mind the limitations you'd face simply matching INTO residency programs as a DO vs MD given the single-accreditation process. We have no idea how this will impact DOs. There's a lot of speculation - whether this will simply open doors for DO applicants or corner them into primary care. Though there is no real practical difference between MD/DO right now, this may not be the case for you and the future of osteopathic medicine. Don't mean to sound doom and gloom, but things are just very uncertain.