Question about MD/DO merger

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I'm not sure if the reverse discrimination aspect of DO programs is something to be concerned about especially since it's apparently rare among ex-AOA programs (as noted below):



Top programs like NYU can do whatever they want since they know they'll get a lot of applications from strong applicants and can afford to be selective.
There are strong DO applicants too lol! They will never know this bec they filter them out before looking at everyone else. Stop being a dirtbag
 
If there's a merger, it should go both ways.

It's not a secret that DO schools are now created to take students who aren't competitive for MD schools. No offense... I mean, the corollary is that I'm sure that plenty of DO students had a hell of a lot more fun in college than I did. But college =/= medical school - I have nothing against DOs, and I have no intention of discriminating against DOs if/when I have a say.

Regardless, if MD residencies are opening up as a rule to DOs, DO residencies should open up as a rule to MDs.
Except that they aren’t « opening « up. The DO merger will benefit MD students moreso than DO students. There are still. Many MD programs that openly discriminate against DOs (Jefferson, Mass gen, NYU) than there are DO specialty programs that discriminate against MDs.
 
There are strong DO applicants too lol! They will never know this bec they filter them out before looking at everyone else. Stop being a dirtbag
I think you misunderstand him. NYU gets applications with everything these DO students get AND they didn't go to a questionable school so they don't need to interview DOs at all. There is nothing wrong with that. The issue is really when **** MD schools are matching well above the local DO schools with equal students. Happening in my state. That's an actual issue.
 
There are strong DO applicants too lol! They will never know this bec they filter them out before looking at everyone else. Stop being a dirtbag

Nice shade throwing. The point stands that top residencies can afford to filter out applicants however they see fit and even take the chance of weeding out the strong DO applicants. It's no cost to them to do so since they still have a large pool of strong MD applicants to select for interview and ranking.
 
I think you misunderstand him. NYU gets applications with everything these DO students get AND they didn't go to a questionable school so they don't need to interview DOs at all. There is nothing wrong with that. The issue is really when **** MD schools are matching well above the local DO schools with equal students. Happening in my state. That's an actual issue.

There's also this disturbing problem of some programs in some specialties choosing Caribbean MDs over US DOs. This is the anti-DO bias that should be focused on, not the elitism of top programs that are already extremely difficult to get into.
 
DOs can’t expect to ever be treated equally if this type of behavior is allowed on either side of the fence.
Here’s the problem. MD programs can and will be able to discriminate because they use the stupid excuse of « taking the best candidates possible » when we know this isn’t true (they filter out all DOs, IMGs-except from European programs). Don’t tell me there isnt a DO capable of NYU lol. Of course eventually they will probably take a token DO every decade. In any case, it is hard to prove that they are discriminating so they will be allowed to get away with it bc they have for so long. DO programs on the other hand will have a more difficult time proving that they are not discriminating against MDs Bc when they don’t have don’t have any on their roster..well..everyone starts asking questions bc of course DOs are « inferior » and how is it you can’t receuit one gold star MD..?
 
Nice shade throwing. The point stands that top residencies can afford to filter out applicants however they see fit and even take the chance of weeding out the strong DO applicants. It's no cost to them to do so since they still have a large pool of strong MD applicants to select for interview and ranking.
Nope. I’m calling it what it is..discrimination.. I repeat ...DO schools have strong candidates too.
 
Nope. I’m calling it what it is..discrimination.. I repeat ...DO schools have strong candidates too.

You're missing the point. Yes there are strong DO candidates but it doesn't matter to programs like NYU because they already have a large pool of MD applicants with strong applications to choose from. This is also coupled with the fact that top programs are notorious for inbreeding and like to interview/rank students who went to NYU and other top MD schools. They aren't losing anything from filtering out the DO applicants.
 
Nope. I’m calling it what it is..discrimination.. I repeat ...DO schools have strong candidates too.

How many DOs at your school have 250+ and multiple quality publications in real medical journals? 1 or 2 who took a year off to do it? ya well at some MD school's that is their average student.

Its not discrimination. DO schools have less resources, which means their students have less impressive CVs. Boards are not everything, and unfortunately, at 95% of the DO schools (unless you take a year off and go elsewhere for research) all you will have is boards on your CV. Don't like it ? Don't go to a DO school. Can't get into an MD school? Then you should just feel lucky you have a chance to be any kind of doctor.

PS: Family med is low key the best move in medicine if you go rural. Dont @ me.
 
Reading must be hard, unless you intentionally skipped the entire part where I explain it's a mandate from the school that every residency program they support has to comply with. Ortho? OMM. ENT? OMM. General surgery? OMM. These specialty programs do the bare minimum to comply with the osteopathic recognition requirement and then ignore it for 99% of residency. The school has that requirement because they created the residency programs to train their own grads, the requirement offers even more protection in that regard. Is it kinda dumb? Sure, but it's not hard to see why they did it.

Yes, OSU is run very similarly to state MD schools.

Says a lot about the profession when one of its central tenets is ignored due to its status as pseudoscience.
 
For those of
How many DOs at your school have 250+ and multiple quality publications in real medical journals? 1 or 2 who took a year off to do it? ya well at some MD school's that is their average student.

Show proof please!

Just to add - I know some well-rounded people at my "low tier" DO school with 260+ and several quality pubs incl Nature. Could not even get an interview at some mid tier MD programs.
 
You're missing the point. Yes there are strong DO candidates but it doesn't matter to programs like NYU because they already have a large pool of MD applicants with strong applications to choose from. This is also coupled with the fact that top programs are notorious for inbreeding and like to interview/rank students who went to NYU and other top MD schools. They aren't losing anything from filtering out the DO applicants.
We are going to have to agree to disagree here. You all are saying the we should open up the gates to our programs with "osteopathic recognition" yet you are ok with places like NYU continuing to filter out DOs. That's not how it works. The reason that programs have decided to go with osteopathic recognition is because they know in part that the discrimination will last beyond this merger.

Even on this forum, many of you hold bias and it shows. IT is easy for you to hide behind an anonymous profile because you can but there are people who have the ability to make decisions yet they still say stupid crap like DO schools don't have resources, etc. There are DO schools, not the majority of course, that have similar resources and even better rotation sites than some MD schools - yet their students will continue to match better, even with lower board schools and less appealing CVs. Their students will at least have a shot at an interview at NYU.
 
The biggest winners of the merger are non-US MDs, particularly Caribbean students. Based on what I've read, the old AOA match wasn't coming close to filling, and the Caribbean schools basically see those formerly unfilled spots as all theirs.
That was before the new DO school explosion
 
We are going to have to agree to disagree here. You all are saying the we should open up the gates to our programs with "osteopathic recognition" yet you are ok with places like NYU continuing to filter out DOs. That's not how it works. The reason that programs have decided to go with osteopathic recognition is because they know in part that the discrimination will last beyond this merger.

Even on this forum, many of you hold bias and it shows. IT is easy for you to hide behind an anonymous profile because you can but there are people who have the ability to make decisions yet they still say stupid crap like DO schools don't have resources, etc. There are DO schools, not the majority of course, that have similar resources and even better rotation sites than some MD schools - yet their students will continue to match better, even with lower board schools and less appealing CVs. Their students will at least have a shot at an interview at NYU.

Honestly, I'm really not sure whether you're missing the point purposely or accidentally. But one thing clear is that you're really underestimating the competitiveness of top programs as well as underestimating the strong applications of MD students. Sure there are strong DO students but they are drastically dwarfed in comparison by MD students in sheer volume with just as strong if not stronger applications.

There is anti-DO bias that needs to be considered but blaming it on top programs is absurd. The better focus would be to criticize and slam the programs that actively pick Caribbean MDs over US DOs.
 
Honestly, I'm really not sure whether you're missing the point purposely or accidentally. But one thing clear is that you're really underestimating the competitiveness of top programs as well as underestimating the strong applications of MD students. Sure there are strong DO students but they are drastically dwarfed in comparison by MD students in sheer volume with just as strong if not stronger applications.

There is anti-DO bias that needs to be considered but blaming it on top programs is absurd. The better focus would be to criticize and slam the programs that actively pick Caribbean MDs over US DOs.
I am not just blaming top programs. These are just examples that are well known to people on sdn. The bias is everywhere. There are a handful of programs that choose Caribbean MDs over DOs but not as many as the programs that filter out DOs. As for top MDs - they will do well and that is known. Lets talk about top DOs vs MD students that are in the bottom of their class. The MDs in the bottom of their class will almost always fare better.
 
I am not blaming top programs. These are just examples that are well known to people on sdn. The bias is everywhere. There are a handful of programs that choose Caribbean MDs over DOs but not as many as the programs that filter out DOs. As for top MDs - they will do well and that is known. Lets talk about top DOs vs MD students that are in the bottom of their class. The MDs in the bottom of their class will almost always fare better.

Then I'd agree there.
 
ust to add - I know some well-rounded people at my "low tier" DO school with 260+ and several quality pubs incl Nature
So you mean undergrad pubs... because there probably aren't ANY DO faculty members publishing in Nature let alone enough for multiple of your classmates to have multiples of them lol. Again, you are seriously underestimating the apps of the applicants to these programs.
Lets talk about top DOs vs MD students that are in the bottom of their class.

Yes lets, because you are completely wrong. Top DO students do, in fact, match better than MD students at the bottom of their class. The top people at DO schools frequently match plastics, IR, ortho, etc. The big difference between MD and DO students is seen when both are completely average.
 
So you mean undergrad pubs... because there probably aren't ANY DO faculty members publishing in Nature let alone enough for multiple of your classmates to have multiples of them lol. Again, you are seriously underestimating the apps of the applicants to these programs.


Yes lets, because you are completely wrong. Top DO students do, in fact, match better than MD students at the bottom of their class. The top people at DO schools frequently match plastics, IR, ortho, etc. The big difference between MD and DO students is seen when both are completely average.

Did you see the link i posted before showing US IMG preference over DOs in some specialties?
 
Did you see the link i posted before showing US IMG preference over DOs in some specialties?
I didn't look through it, is it just the PD survey? Because even for the ultra competitive specialties DO schools are a better option.
 
MDs might have access to top programs in the most desirable locales in the country. So what? We’re digging our heels into the second best city in Oklahoma!

Check and mate.

Come on man, that's not the point at all. It has literally nothing to do with that.
 
Yeah it's the PD survey. I'm hoping things changed for the better because that finding was annoying.

Yeah there are a lot of confounders in that survey. The main one being most of those specialties that have IMGs more than DOs are specialties DOs almost exclusively did through the AOA match.
 
Did you see the link i posted before showing US IMG preference over DOs in some specialties?
Well at least from what I've heard from the PDs at the residency programs associated with the only MD school in my state, our new DO school will offer better candidates than the IMGs they usually end up accepting into their programs.
 
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Here’s the problem. MD programs can and will be able to discriminate because they use the stupid excuse of « taking the best candidates possible » when we know this isn’t true (they filter out all DOs, IMGs-except from European programs). Don’t tell me there isnt a DO capable of NYU lol. Of course eventually they will probably take a token DO every decade. In any case, it is hard to prove that they are discriminating so they will be allowed to get away with it bc they have for so long. DO programs on the other hand will have a more difficult time proving that they are not discriminating against MDs Bc when they don’t have don’t have any on their roster..well..everyone starts asking questions bc of course DOs are « inferior » and how is it you can’t receuit one gold star MD..?

I agree with this. That is why our newly minted ACGME Derm Program cannot just take DOs only year after year without an "osteopathic recognition". We will get sued by disgruntle MD applicants for discrimination. MD Derm Programs can get away with it for the reasons you have stated.
 
So you mean undergrad pubs... because there probably aren't ANY DO faculty members publishing in Nature let alone enough for multiple of your classmates to have multiples of them lol. Again, you are seriously underestimating the apps of the applicants to these programs.


Yes lets, because you are completely wrong. Top DO students do, in fact, match better than MD students at the bottom of their class. The top people at DO schools frequently match plastics, IR, ortho, etc. The big difference between MD and DO students is seen when both are completely average.
Nope - actually you are completely wrong. Top DO students match into good programs that usually take a decent amount of DO students to begin with. But if we are talking top top programs - 1 maybe 2 a year will match. Overall an MD student near the bottom of their class will have a better chance of matching into a top program than a DO student at the top of their class.
 
Nope - actually you are completely wrong. Top DO students match into good programs that usually take a decent amount of DO students to begin with. But if we are talking top top programs - 1 maybe 2 a year will match. Overall an MD student near the bottom of their class will have a better chance of matching into a top program than a DO student at the top of their class.

agreed. I worked at a "top" EM program while in undergrad, the PD told me that he/she just clicks an electronic filter for step 1 and allopathic status.
 
There's also this disturbing problem of some programs in some specialties choosing Caribbean MDs over US DOs. This is the anti-DO bias that should be focused on, not the elitism of top programs that are already extremely difficult to get into.

I am not necessarily arguing your point here, but why do you feel that anti-IMG bias is more justified than anti-DO bias?

To play devil's advocate: students who go to either Caribbean or DO schools weren't competitive enough to get into US-based MD schools. And the IMG at least comes with an MD... and, for better or worse, an "MD" presents fewer question marks to some patients than a "DO" does.
 
I am not necessarily arguing your point here, but why do you feel that anti-IMG bias is more justified than anti-DO bias?

To play devil's advocate: students who go to either Caribbean or DO schools weren't competitive enough to get into US-based MD schools. And the IMG at least comes with an MD... and, for better or worse, an "MD" presents fewer question marks to some patients than a "DO" does.

Do programs understand foreign transcripts even with an MD degree? At least DO schools are a lot more familiar, and their grades and clinical experiences could be understood since it's all done in the US.

Also visa issues for IMGs. Not sure why programs want to take the chance unless the IMGs are really strong.
 
I am not necessarily arguing your point here, but why do you feel that anti-IMG bias is more justified than anti-DO bias?

To play devil's advocate: students who go to either Caribbean or DO schools weren't competitive enough to get into US-based MD schools. And the IMG at least comes with an MD... and, for better or worse, an "MD" presents fewer question marks to some patients than a "DO" does.
First and foremost, because residency programs are created with taxpayer money for US grads, not for foreign grads. There's a push going on right now supported by the AMA and the AOA trying to implement a rule that would require PDs to consider US grads before IMGs.
 
First and foremost, because residency programs are created with taxpayer money for US grads, not for foreign grads. There's a push going on right now supported by the AMA and the AOA trying to implement a rule that would require PDs to consider US grads before IMGs.

Probably the only thing the AOA stands for that makes 100% sense.
 
First and foremost, because residency programs are created with taxpayer money for US grads, not for foreign grads. There's a push going on right now supported by the AMA and the AOA trying to implement a rule that would require PDs to consider US grads before IMGs.
I don't think much energy will need to be spent in that as eventually IMGs will be pushed out with the exception of European/and probably some south Asian schools. There is too much growth in MD and DO schools that there just won't be enough room for everyone.
 
Overall an MD student near the bottom of their class will have a better chance of matching into a top program than a DO student at the top of their class.

Not unless they come from a top 10 school.... Are you seriously trying to argue that an MD student at the bottom of their class from your average MD school has any sort of a chance at a top program? Lol.
Nope - actually you are completely wrong. Top DO students match into good programs that usually take a decent amount of DO students to begin with.
I mean, our top applicants matched plastics, ESIR at Baylor, and before that IR at a very DO unfriendly place and ACGME Derm... not many DOs in those programs... and it doesn't matter if it's a former AOA program, an ortho/ENT match is still an ortho/ENT match. I'm not talking tip top programs, the top DO students match competitively i.e. specialties, and sometimes even programs, not really open to bottom of the class MD students.
 
I'm not talking tip top programs, the top DO students match competitively i.e. specialties, and sometimes even programs, not really open to bottom of the class MD students.

I guess we should as the MD students on this forum what they have experienced. They are probably more the experts than we are when it comes to who from their school matches where.
 
Yup - I've seen it...

Right. What school, field, and general tier of program.
I guess we should as the MD students on this forum what they have experienced. They are probably more the experts than we are when it comes to who from their school matches where.

You act as if none of us know any MD students.... or have ever looked at an MD match list....
 
First and foremost, because residency programs are created with taxpayer money for US grads, not for foreign grads. There's a push going on right now supported by the AMA and the AOA trying to implement a rule that would require PDs to consider US grads before IMGs.
Guess what? They already do.
 
Not regularly you haven't. To get into the top IM programs you need a step score >240, pubs, rotation honors and either AOA or to be from a top 20ish school.
You are right..N=2 for me. But I can tell you what you said ^ is not the rule for MD students.
 
Right. What school, field, and general tier of program.


You act as if none of us know any MD students.... or have ever looked at an MD match list....
You might be an "expert" on SDN and have a few MD friends but it is different when you don't go to their school. So no, you don't know like students who are actually MD students. I can tell you, a lot of the crap that people talk on SDN about the school I attend is just junk. But I know since I go there. It is easy to sit in our armchair as DO students and guess at what is going on.
 
I've been looking at residency programs on Freida with close to 50% IMGs. Not all places consider US grads over IMGs.
Some of the PDs come from international or offshore schools so they have bias towards their own and some do it for whatever reason. Everyone on IMG forums knows Conrad Fischer and that his IM program is bias towards IMGs. He even teaches at a DO school but his program does not have any DOs from what I heard. It is what it is. Until the AOA or some authority puts their foot down, this is the way it will be for the future.
 
Anyway, I'm checking out. I think it says a lot when it is only DO students on this thread debating this issue. You don't see tons of threads on the MD forums about why someone from a mid tier school can't match into a top/well known program. You do however see thread upon thread in the DO forum about why a good student can't match into a top program. Yes there are like 2 people from PCOM or NYIT that matched plastics, etc, but not a lot. Just leaving this here. Good night
 
Guess what? They already do.
I was just casually reading this thread all stoic deep in meaningful thought and then i read your username and just about laughed my a$$ off. 11/10 needed that thank you
You might be an "expert" on SDN and have a few MD friends but it is different when you don't go to their school. So no, you don't know like students who are actually MD students. I can tell you, a lot of the crap that people talk on SDN about the school I attend is just junk. But I know since I go there. It is easy to sit in our armchair as DO students and guess at what is going on.
So your n=1 is more powerful than other peoples n=1? You do realize youre arm chair posting on sdn just like anyone else? Not to mention its quite provable to make an argument against your statement if you just cherry pick the top 5% of matches from the DO schools and compile them onto a list and compare them to the bottom quartile students from a low tier MD school? No ones trying to say DOs match better than MDs on average, but cherry picking top DO students 260+ multiple pubs and a smart app? Yeah they can match quite well, they cant match anywhere. But they still match very well

Edit: oop sorry just noticed your post above, didnt mean to keep jarring ya on after signing off
 
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