Interesting thread, here's my experience with this issue:
Students who matriculate to DO schools only because they didn't get into an MD school end up being very frustrated and unhappy with their overall educational experience. They view learning OMM as a burden, they feel "brainwashed" by the primary care emphasis and holistic osteopathic approach to patient care, they dislike the traditionally community-based medical education settings compared to the larger university-based settings more common in allopathic institutions. They develop a chip on their shoulder.
As a consequence of these feelings, these "MD-wannabe's" isolate themselves from the rest of the class. They don't get involved in national osteopathic student activities, clubs, or local student government. They don't attend Convocation or SOMA conventions; they just sort of fester in the back of the room bemoaning their osteopathic education. I've seen this scenario play out over and over again. It is so predictable for certain kinds of premeds that it is almost like watching the natural history of a disease unfold right in front of your eyes.
The best advice I have for premeds (ironically premeds who are at highest risk for experiencing this *REFUSE* to listen to or understand my advice) is that if you can not approach applying to osteopathic schools on an equal footing with allopathic schools, then don't apply at all. You *WILL* be miserable. You will hate your situation and medical school is hard enough without having to deal with feeling second-rate all the time and wishing that you were at the MD school down the street.
That's not to say that one has to be a "gun-ho" D.O., it just means that you have find value in the osteopathic approach to patient care, utility in the osteopathic social movement in health care, and feel proud of the osteopathic heritage as a unique branch of American medicine in order to sustain yourself through a very gruelling process. If you do find yourself feeling like an "MD-wannabe" there is an antidote---get involved in the profession! Force yourself to meet prominent D.O.'s in your community or school. Force yourself to go beyond the basics and really *LEARN* something about OMM or the history of osteopathic medicine or the process of becoming a doctor. Run for class president and try to locally affect something that is really bugging you. It's not easy, but it is better than just sitting in the back of the room and snickering, rolling your eyes, and wishing you were some place else.
Anyway, that's my two cents...
