Question about D.O. school stats

[D.O. Guy]

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I'm new to the forum and have a few questions about osteopathic medicine. I started to research careers in medicine and became very interested in the d.o. approach to patient care. I prefer it to the m.d. approach and appreciate each programs differences. When researching schools I noticed that d.o. schools have shockingly lower admission standards than allopathic schools. Even the best d.o. schools have stats that only compare to the lowest m.d. schools in terms of gpa and mcat. I wondered why this was, as I would suspect each kind of school would have similar stats since the only difference between them is the approach. I study hard and have good grades, and I am afraid that for some reason students with lower stats are applying to d.o. schools even though they don't believe in the philosophy. Is this what explains the six point difference in average mcat and the large gap in gpa? I really want to go to school with motivated students and not ones that just found a backdoor into a career in medicine.

 

[Mike MacKinnon]

Hey 🙂

This has been talked alot about on the forum but I dont mind highlighting some of the info for you here.

1) regardless if you go MD or DO your still called Doctor and have 100% identicle privilages.

2) There used to be alot of odd animosity between MD and DO people, that was in the 70's and seems to have dissipated.

3) as far as practicle differences, DO programs do not always have slots in the highly sough residencies like Rad, surgery. This may require you to goto an MD residency. Some MD residencies (i believe) still require you to take the MD exams to enter but this is rare.

4) I attribute the lower GPA's and MCAT scores (i pasted averages below for DO school) to the name recognition of MD. You have to remember that 90% of people entering MD/DO school have never been in medicine. That being the case, they probably dont know much about DO's or think they are the same. All the popular TV refrences MD's never DO's. This causes people to apply MD. Which is cool. However, it dilutes the applicants who may apply DO. To some degree this causes lower GPA and MCAT as people really need to research DO to find out much about it.

5) DO school does have a holistic approach but it is important to remember that ANY physician can be holistic as it is a way of thinking which is established long before med school. That being said, at DO school it is prevasive enough to make it right to the admissions dept. That being the case, they will choose to accept applicants who have excellent resumes but might have made transgressions with GPA and not a perfect MCAT. DO schools will look more at the WHOLE applicant in that respect.'

as an exmaple for you. One of the best Docs i have worked with in my 10 yrs is a DO. He got a 17P on his MCAT and had a GPA of 2.8-3.0 i believe. There is no doubt that scores are no indicator of how good a Doc you may be.

I have a competitive resume and GPA and only now need to finish the pre reqs and MCAT. Assuming i do well on the MCAT then i would be competitive for MD programs as well. I choose to apply DO just because of my personal experiences with them and the fact that i recognize the holistic approach in my own practice.

Here are the stats from the AACOM webpage:

Admission to osteopathic medical school is competitive. For the 2005 application cycle, the average MCAT scores were 7.96 verbal, 7.77 physical and 8.32 biology. The average overall
grade point average was 3.38 and the average science grade point average was 3.25. Generally, MCAT scores and grade point averages are slightly higher for matriculating students than scores reported for the overall applicant pool.

 

[cfdavid]

DO schools seem to be getting more and more competitive these days. It's all a function of the huge numbers of students applying to medical school in general. Look at the numbers from like 1974, where there were only around 10K students applying for roughly the same number of slots that we have today (I'm sure there are a few more now given class size expansion etc., but not much).
Depending on the historic supply versus demand, you will see barriers to entry reflect that. MD or Do.

I had an interesting conversation with a DO buddy of mine yesterday. I was shadowing him as he was moonlighting in an urgent care office. I noticed he didn't really use OMT/OMM. When I asked why he said he only uses OMT when he has time, or is not that busy. Otherwise, it's just too easy to write a script. He indicated that the pressures due to HMO reimbursement are such that you really can't spend too much time with any given patient. OMM takes a bit more time and personal care etc.
This has simply become a fact of life, and most family practice docs will say the same thing.

By the way, he loves his job. He makes good money and has all the opportunity to work as much as he wants.

 

[mshheaddoc]

DO schools seem to be getting more and more competitive these days. It's all a function of the huge numbers of students applying to medical school in general. Look at the numbers from like 1974, where there were only around 10K students applying for roughly the same number of slots that we have today (I'm sure there are a few more now given class size expansion etc., but not much).
Depending on the historic supply versus demand, you will see barriers to entry reflect that. MD or Do.

I had an interesting conversation with a DO buddy of mine yesterday. I was shadowing him as he was moonlighting in an urgent care office. I noticed he didn't really use OMT/OMM. When I asked why he said he only uses OMT when he has time, or is not that busy. Otherwise, it's just too easy to write a script. He indicated that the pressures due to HMO reimbursement are such that you really can't spend too much time with any given patient. OMM takes a bit more time and personal care etc.
This has simply become a fact of life, and most family practice docs will say the same thing.

By the way, he loves his job. He makes good money and has all the opportunity to work as much as he wants.

Then again I know a DO FP who only sees 10-15 patients a day, and somehow makes a nice $200K living and is loving life. It all depends on where you are working and how things are going.

I also know a few instances from med students/residents where they were asked to use OMM on a patient in certain circumstances where there was no script available to help. 🙂

Mike put it nicely. Admission criteria shouldn't sway you. Just because some of us don't have the 3.9 and 37 MCAT doesn't make us good doctors. Usually above a 3.0 and decent MCAT of 24 + with the right characteristics you might have a chance somewhere depending on clinical experience. These ADCOM committees really know what they are looking for and honestly they see through alot of teh BS. I was surprised when I got to see how they operated.

with researching DO and I highly suggest you talk to some of the schools out there.

 

[Shinken]

Anybody want to go fishing with me? I've got my TROLLING motor ready.

 

[docbill]

Fishing would be fun... you should of called earlier

 

[EastCoaster78]

Anybody want to go fishing with me? I've got my TROLLING motor ready.

Oh hell yeah I'm in,
What do u think, should I wear my grey cammo trucker hat, or the bright orange one? C'mon, I need an unbiased opinion here.

 

[Shinken]

I need an unbiased opinion here.

Unbiased opinion? You came to the right place! There are no biases on SDN whatsoever.

 

[mstann]

Oh hell yeah I'm in,
What do u think, should I wear my grey cammo trucker hat, or the bright orange one? C'mon, I need an unbiased opinion here.

The bright orange one for sure... It'll bring out the fire in your eyes. ha!