Prejudice facing DO's

[Beckesita]

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Are you worried that some immigrants would assume that the DO degree is the same as it is in their country?
For example I talked to my family physician about my thoughts on becoming a DO and he told me that DO's weren't "real" doctors and couldn't even prescribe medicine. I've done my research and know this is completely untrue, but I can't help but be worried about the prejudice facing DO's.

 

[docteur]

Don't know about the immigrant thing. I do know that DOs do work on an international level, and apparently American trained DOs are accepted as "real" docs in numerous places around the world. Another thing I have realized is that a large percentage of people who see DOs on a regular basis don't even know they're seeing DOs. My mom was one of them, she had a crush on her doc, who is a DO, for along time, and she always used to talk to him about me being a pre-med. After I expressed interest in pursuing a career in Osteopathy, she told him I wanted to be a witch doctor and practice voodo manipulation or something. She had been going to the guy for years, even been in his office with his diploma hanging on the wall.
She's no spring-chicken, I just think there isn't any physical difference between DOs MDs or NDs, it's just what they know and where they went to school.
The degrees matter more to you, what you want to know and how you feel you should be serving your patients best. And immigrants or not, your going to be seeing a full schedule of clients if your worthy of being called a doc, right? So forget about the prejudices, if you want to be a DO, then DO it!
One more word to the wise: find a doctor that knows what the hell he's talking about. :wink:

 

[docteur]

•••quote:•••One more word to the wise: find a doctor that knows what the hell he's talking about.••••I feel like an ass for my lack of respect in that last post, 1,000 apologies.
Here's the correction:

Find a doctor that knows what the hell she or he is talking about. :wink:

 

[Medic171]

No, don't really care what anybody thinks except for the patients I treat, my family, my friends, and God above.

 

[Test Boy]

Beckesita, wow, I can't believe your FP doc told you DO's can't prescribe medicine. He must either be about 100 yrs old or is a total quack. Is he living in the 1920's or something? Come on man, an FP who doesn't know about DO's, that's actually ironic.

 

[Dr JPH]

I know a pharmacist who has been filling prescriptions for years from several DOs and never knew what a DO was until I told him.

I would have thought that AT LEAST people in the medical and health professions would have a grasp on the concept of a DO, even if they really didn't know much about osteopathy itself.

The more the DO profession promotes itself in a positive light, the more DOs that interact with the public, and the more DO schools there are the better of we will all be.

Osteopathic medicine will develop more in the future. Have no fear. Remember...60 years ago DOs were sadistic faith healers who had no place in medicine. Now, DOs are found at every level of clinical and academic medicine, as well as administration and government.

Not bad for only a few generations.

 

[drchris33]

I'm not a bit worried about becoming a DO either. To me, we will be better physicians than MDs, since we will be able to do anything an MD does, PLUS OMT.
I know some of the theory sounds somewhat hokey, but I like to look at it in the idea that you are making patients feel better and helping them. Sometimes a patient might think you have done something just by performing a manipulation. You may have not cured the problem, but at least they might feel you have tried something.
I am really looking forward to becoming a doc.

Good luck to all

Chris
UHS Class of 2006

 

[Medic171]

I don't think it is fair to say that DO's are "better" doctors than MD's. I would have to say that depends on the person, not the letters attached to their name. OMT does provide us additional treatment options, but MD's can accomplish this by other means, for example referring the patient to a DO for OMT, to a P.T. who use similar techniques, or even(gasp) to a chiropractor, although the DC referral is controversial topic right now. Some MD's are even opting to learn some OMT after residency. I know that the OMM clinic here at MSU has a program that runs along with a docs residency that teaches at refines OMT skills. It is designed for DO's, but they told me that MD's can apply and they have had a few go through the program. I worked with an MD out of Detroit that went to a similar program after his FP residency, and he uses some OMT techniques. I let him have a "crack" <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" /> at me and he did pretty good, although I think DO's are more inclined to use it more often because they learn it from the first day of med school.