Some thoughts from someone who considered DO but ended up in MD

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Telekinesis said:
C'mon guys... Mewtwo😀
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KYL50.jpg



🙄
 
I like the pictures, helps break up the bickering.

The troll won. Look at you guys. I hate you all.

I think that given the chance, some 90% of us would rather go MD. It's just the way it is, why WOULDN'T you? The other 10% would choose DO for reasons like location, family, etc. Now, how many of us can actually go to MD given our lifestyle choices, poor undergraduate experiences, or less than stellar MCAT scores? Career changers, non-tradiationals. D.O. gives us the chance to redeem ourselves and still fulfill dreams.

We haven't chosen D.O. as a backup, because there is no backup. D.O. is our first choice because it is the only choice available to us. I would rather be a D.O. knowing that I might be at a slight disadvantage in some areas of medicine than not be a physician at all. I know you all would agree with me on this.

The whole point is that the OP comes here thinking he's preaching some wisdom that we don't already know. Anybody who's anybody on these forums has done the research and fully understands what being a D.O. will bring (and not bring) to the table. If you don't know, then I suggest you start reading.
 
11-28-2011, 07:14 PM * #187
pinipig523
I like my job!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by zma21
You said ask anything, and I'm surprised it took this long but..

"Are you seeing more and more of a prevalence in DO's that go into emergency medicine? I've worked in an ER the past three years on and off (love it by the way) and have noticed each time I go back there are more osteopaths popping up. I've asked around and this seems to be the trend in my area.
Your being in Chicago, I already assume there's quite a showing of them, but I was just curious."


pinipig523

"Dude.. I love DOs. At first I thought they were "inferior"... just because of my lack of experience/stupidity with them and from reading all those threads on SDN. However, DOs are every bit as good as MDs are in my experience. We've had DO chief residents and several of the faculty including some of the best ones are DO.

Love DOs."
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Sorry for the bad copy/paste. Stinking iPad again. Just wanted to post this quote from the thread on the Pre-MD forum.

As said above, we all make our choices for our own personal reasons. Having all the facts to make those choices is grand, but make sure they are facts and not personal opinions/bias.
 
Thanks for that link, that thread is so awesome. I can't believe he takes the time to answer all our annoying questions.
 
this thread, as expected, has officially turned to crap
 
DrWily said:
I like the pictures, helps break up the bickering.

The troll won. Look at you guys. I hate you all.

I think that given the chance, some 90% of us would rather go MD. It's just the way it is, why WOULDN'T you? The other 10% would choose DO for reasons like location, family, etc. Now, how many of us can actually go to MD given our lifestyle choices, poor undergraduate experiences, or less than stellar MCAT scores? Career changers, non-tradiationals. D.O. gives us the chance to redeem ourselves and still fulfill dreams.

We haven't chosen D.O. as a backup, because there is no backup. D.O. is our first choice because it is the only choice available to us. I would rather be a D.O. knowing that I might be at a slight disadvantage in some areas of medicine than not be a physician at all. I know you all would agree with me on this.

The whole point is that the OP comes here thinking he's preaching some wisdom that we don't already know. Anybody who's anybody on these forums has done the research and fully understands what being a D.O. will bring (and not bring) to the table. If you don't know, then I suggest you start reading.
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See this is the mentality that I hate! People describe their own situations and then say all DO students are like that! You haven't even been to your school's orientation and you are pre-judging all your classmates and future colleagues based on your situation and 10-20 people who post on SDN. Where do you get these numbers (90%/10%)?

There are many of us in DO schools who had very good undergraduate experience/grades at very good schools, great MCAT scores with MD acceptances who chose to go to DO for various reasons. Are there people who chose it because they couldn't get into MD, yes, and they are the ones who are miserable for four years and usually end up in a crappy residency because they spent their time b**ching about DO instead of actually getting things done!

If you are not from the big states (NY, CA, MA, IL, etc.) getting into your state MD school is not that hard (relatively speaking)! There are many state MD schools which have lower or equal admission standards than my DO school!

DO schools are known to be more forgiving of your past mistakes, if they think you will be a good physician; but that doesn't mean everyone who goes there had to have something to be forgiven.

Anyways, good luck to everyone.
 
Flemon said:
Thanks for that link, that thread is so awesome. I can't believe he takes the time to answer all our annoying questions.
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Your welcome! I know there are many on Pre-DO that don't travel over there. He has been amazing and has not skipped one question. I hope a few of us do the same when our time comes. Invaluable info he has given us! Wish I had his PO Box, I would send him a Starbucks gift card, lol!
 
bala565 said:
See this is the mentality that I hate! People describe their own situations and then say all DO students are like that! You haven't even been to your school's orientation and you are pre-judging all your classmates and future colleagues based on your situation and 10-20 people who post on SDN. Where do you get these numbers (90%/10%)?

There are many of us in DO schools who had very good undergraduate experience/grades at very good schools, great MCAT scores with MD acceptances who chose to go to DO for various reasons. Are there people who chose it because they couldn't get into MD, yes, and they are the ones who are miserable for four years and usually end up in a crappy residency because they spent their time b**ching about DO instead of actually getting things done!

If you are not from the big states (NY, CA, MA, IL, etc.) getting into your state MD school is not that hard (relatively speaking)! There are many state MD schools which have lower or equal admission standards than my DO school!

DO schools are known to be more forgiving of your past mistakes, if they think you will be a good physician; but that doesn't mean everyone who goes there had to have something to be forgiven.

Anyways, good luck to everyone.
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And I'm sure mentality of separate but equal is pissing many people here off too. Anyways, even the best DO schools with 3.6/28s on average statwise than even most MD schools, save for the URM schools and the ones with like 100 priority applications ( Missouri).
 
bala565 said:
See this is the mentality that I hate! People describe their own situations and then say all DO students are like that! You haven't even been to your school's orientation and you are pre-judging all your classmates and future colleagues based on your situation and 10-20 people who post on SDN. Where do you get these numbers (90%/10%)?
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Nope, his statistic is right on the money. Source: Applicants to COCA-Accredited Osteopathic and LCME-Accredited Allopathic Medical Schools (p.5)

Of those accepted to both MD and DO.... MD = DOx9.3

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That's actually a pretty good charizard.

I can't believe how much they've ruined the series. The original pokemon were the best... now there's like 800. Where the f*** are they coming from?!
 
I have no idea where that comic is from, but it makes me happy.
 
............well sir congrats in getting into med school!
thank you for um....sharing ur thoughts with us. i would just like to add that "knowing the right people" also helps. i will be frank..the opening of all these new schools is certainly not helping the reputation of D.O.'s.
In other news, I told my uncle I wanted to be a D.O. He asked why I am going to medical school if I am going to become an eye doctor( poor guy confused O.D. with D.O.):laugh:
 
Pertinent to this discussion, I talked to a retired doctor (in his 70's) on the phone a few nights ago. In his day, he had been some kind of administrative big shot, maybe the head of the cardiology department or something, at Saint Vincent's Hospital in Bridgeport, CT.

He said that, when choosing between MD and DO, don't. Just go to the school you like best. Here is a doctor who is old enough to remember a time when the bias was actually prevalent, yet he has the right attitude. And here we are, 50 years later, and many of us don't have the right attitude, even if we claim that the two capital letters that will follow our name don't matter.
 
nerd alert! (you know who you are...):meanie:
 
Sure, but the statistic is only accurate for those who applied to both DO and MD schools. It may be possible that those who apply to both are hoping to get into MD and are applying to DO as back up. However, the ~1,000 that applied only to DO schools are evidence for the fact that not all of us wanted to go MD (myself being one!) I know the major argument to this is that some may have only applied to DO and because they had no chance at MD. While this may be true for some, we can not generalize by saying that 90% would go MD if they had the chance.
 
A pokemon representation of a med student having to choose between different specialties.

Eevee.jpg
 
IamKing said:
Sure, but the statistic is only accurate for those who applied to both DO and MD schools. It may be possible that those who apply to both are hoping to get into MD and are applying to DO as back up. However, the ~1,000 that applied only to DO schools are evidence for the fact that not all of us wanted to go MD (myself being one!) I know the major argument to this is that some may have only applied to DO and because they had no chance at MD. While this may be true for some, we can not generalize by saying that 90% would go MD if they had the chance.
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Seeing as the national average for DO matriculates is about 5 mcat points lower than MD.... I would say the majority of DO students ( ~70%) aren't significantly competitive for MD or had no chance and took DO and ran with it.
 
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So how do you account for those DO applicants that made up the high side of your stated "average"? They would have been within the MD average. They ALL could not get into MD and ran to DO?
 
serenade said:
Seeing as the national average for DO matriculates is about 5 mcat points lower than MD.... I would say the majority of DO students ( ~70%) aren't significantly competitive for MD or had no chance and took DO and ran with it.
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Last time i checked formally (3 years ago, full disclosure) the avg was 30 and 27. That's more like 3 not five. Then again, outdated datum being referenced.

Still, im okay with your larger analysis.
 
OzelloPiRat said:
So how do you account for those DO applicants that made up the high side of your stated "average"? They would have been within the MD average. They ALL could not get into MD and ran to DO?
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Low gpa, subpar interviewer, applied regionally only, applied without safety net schools, has leprosy (no one likes leprosy)

That should account for most everyone with the strong mcat, with a few exceptions here and there.
 
DocEspana said:
I actually rather liked it. But I'm a sucker for stats, cold hard admissions, and somewhat controversial opinions being stated clearly and with tact (agree with it or not). But it misses a key point. 50% of students are going to match into primary care. Thats true of MD schools (46% last time i checked) and DO schools (52%). So those less competitive specialities mentioned are where 1 out of every 2 people are going anyway. Regardless of degree.

And lets call a spade a spade. DO schools create equally good students at the top of the class when compared to any MD school... but we create worse students at the bottom of the class. Its just an easy observation to make. Our qualified students match wherever they would have matched regardless of degree and our less qualified students match where they can.

with 50% of students matching pimary care regardless of anything going on.... the DO match provides a nice little advantage to a person like me: I have a strong score, but not an elite score. I'd be somewhere just below the mean for urology/ent/etc. But I am near the top of the heap for the DO residencies in the same fields (my comlex score was roughly equivalent to my USMLE). It takes a lot of stress off the shoulders of students who are excelling that they have multiple outlets to match through. Plus these are the same students who do end up being the DO IM resident at hopkins or the DO gas resident at mayo clinic or the urology resident at Emory or the trauma fellow at Maryland Shock Trauma. So they have choices. Would they be even more well off if they went to Columbia? Sure. But the same can be said for person from <random MD school #72> who would be better off at Columbia. Thats a "name value of the school" argument, not a degree argument, at that level of success.

TL;DR: DO for excellent students (and despite what we think, only 15% or so of us are this) is a great way to get hard to reach residents
DO for most students, no different since they'd be matching FM/IM/Peds/ER/Psych/Neuro anyway. If you're closer to the top of the "middle 50%" then you prob go to ACGME programs. Near the bottom of this band you prob go AOA. Either way the final result is you get into the type of program you would have if you were an MD graduate anyway.
DO for the bottoms of the class, if you're here its bleak. Thats just being honest. Work harder.
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Wow great post. Thanks for your input here.. there are some advantages to be do and md (difference between do and md), not only disadvantages.

I also think that the diferences in the hospital are actually much different than on a forum here. In the real working world, what matters is what you deliver. If you're good, you get hired, if you're not performing well, you get fired.

It is as simple as that. The MD advantage is small and often wishful thinking.. Hiring managers want the most able and talented people. Don't think two letters will give you a big advantage if your DO competitor is a bigger fish than you.
 
The md "advantage" isn't small. When applying to moderately competitive fields a md applicant with the same scores as a do applicant will get roughly 2x the interviews and at better programs. That's just the way it is. After the match, however, do or md doesn't matter too much. Where you did your residency and how hard you will matter more.
 
You know, when I was in 7th grade I played pokemon. I think I was like 149/151 or whatever, almost got them all...

Then my mom let my sister play and she saved over my game with a new game.

FFFUU---.jpg
 
I think a useful statistic that will benefit this conversation is how many med school students from each side prefer skinny jeans

I think its 28% MD vs 21% DO, hence DO>MD. And there's your answer
 
rafman said:
I think a useful statistic that will benefit this conversation is how many med school students from each side prefer skinny jeans

I think its 28% MD vs 21% DO, hence DO>MD. And there's your answer
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Well that's enough for me. DO clearly wins.
 
rafman said:
I think a useful statistic that will benefit this conversation is how many med school students from each side prefer skinny jeans

I think its 28% MD vs 21% DO, hence DO>MD. And there's your answer
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Yes, but 32% of DO call it "pop" instead of soda, and only 27% of MD call it "pop." So that's unfortunately a point for MD.
 
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