As a fourth year medical student doing a Neurosurgery rotation now at a large MD hospital I can honestly say that I am treated EXACTLY the same as the MD student. We're all treated like crap, we're med students what do you expect? Seriously though, I see many DOs here in practice in a wide array of specialty, and have had attendings of both degrees. I have found that there is no difference in respect between the two and have come to believe that those who really seem obsessed by this whole thing tend to be premed students. Its simply not an issue anymore. Scratch that, it is an issue for many who choose to make it one. I had an MD neurosurgeon tell me recently that DOs seem to have an inferiority complex while the vast majority of MDs find no decreased repect for them. So its the DOs that are keeping this fear of perceived disrespect alive, and not the MDs. My advice, dont worry about such trivial things.
I am preparing to match to Neurology and am applying to 21 neurology residencies across the nation. Every one of them is an MD institution and is universitty based. I believe the quality of MD residencies to be higher and more suited to my interest in research plus clinical pathology. My point...I have spoken to many residency coordinators and office staff about my being a DO and their perception of that fact. NOT ONE HAS HAS ANYTHING REMOTELY NEGATIVE to say and all have been friendly and encouraging. It may be because my stats are good, but I suspect that it is more that they simply dont care if a candidate is a DO or an MD.
I understand your fears. We all deal with them because we somehow keep pounding it into our heads through chats like these and in our profession that we somehow are inferior. We dont want to admit it to ourselves or others, but many of us feel as though we are not as good as the MDs even though the vast majority (esp younger_ MDs have no quarrel with us at all. It simply is not true that there is less respect available for a DO. And even if there were, this should make it more desirable for you to have the opportunity to change a situation and perception that is misguided. Be a pioneer if thats the way you need to look at it.
There are areas of the country where DOs are not as common and therefore less understood. This may be mistaken for less respected and may in fact sometimes be less respected. But this is the minority of cases and is decreasing steadily.
We all have ou reasons for going to DO school. Mine was a combination of factors. I had both the AMCAS and AACOMAS application in hand. I, like many was not confidant in my stats. In hindsight, they probably were "good enough" to go to many MD schools, but I didnt take the risk for the following reasons. 1)I am from California and went to college out of state. It is probably more difficult going to med school in CA because of huge demand for spots. Plus going to school out of state may have been a drawback. Schools elsewhere would not have been feasible since I didnt have state residency elsewhere and it would have placed me at a disadvantage. Lastly, the DO application process is quite clever. I had applied to several DO schools and was interviewed and even accepted before the deadline had even passed for AMCAS submission. I could not justify turning down a medical school acceptance in the hope of acheiving an interview elsewhere. So I decided to forego the entire AMCAS process and go to DO school.
As a pre-med, I was naive about the whole process and not as confidant in my abilities as I should have been. Its quite common I see from reading these posts. I would have been able to go to either MD or DO school, but the situation played for me the way it did and I have no regrets. You must do what is best for your situation, for it is unique for everyone. In the end, it simply will not matter. Its something you cant see at the stage yore at now, but will become abundantly clear as you progress in training. Good luck.
