To my DO fellows

[Ponderer]

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we constantly hear some of our obnoxious 'DO counterparts' bashing about us not able to consolidate our philosophy and/or identity. well, my response to those messages was 'screw you, you guys were the ones who couldn't defend the medical professions and let those mba or ba people get on top of our heads and control our destiny. now we all have to serve our patients faster than serving fast food at the local burger stores in order to survive.'

nullanyway, what i'm trying to get at this is to ask my DO fellows about what do you think that we need to change in order to improve DO profession in the future?

honestly, i believe there are many areas that need to be changed or improved such as establishing stronger DO residency programs or to identify the significance and effectiveness of DO philosophy.

it's not impossible, but we, as future DO physicians should work closer together. we'll need to improve, then implement a greater profession that will better serve our people.

 

[muonwhiz]

Your suggestions are good. There is a need for more and better osteopathic residency opportunities. Also the schools should constantly evaluate the clinical experiences offered with a view to stay abreast and constantly improve the opportunities for students. Those two steps would enhance opportunities for all DO's as visibility increases. As is discussed under the unified medical profession thread, there is question as to whether the osteopathic philospohy has now been adopted by the allopathic world and whether it is presently distinct.

 

[Ponderer]

i pesonally do not think osteopathic medicine is a distinct profession to allopathic medicine. in some ways, or many ways, we're quite similar. but i do think that we need to clarify or explain what exactly osteopathy is. saying it's same as what md's do or focusing on musculoskeletal sytems aren't just convincing enough.

imagine if you're explaining to your patients or colleagues about osteopathy, what will be the most simple, precise, and acceptable definition? it's funny that how some die hard patients of other distinct professions such as chiropractic, acupuncture, herbal medicine are able to defend or explain the medical treatments that they seek. i hope one day, our patients will be able to do the same with osteopathy, rather than just looking at us as available doctors because there're no other docs around.

i personally chose DO over MD (touro vs chicago med) was first simply the location and environment. but i also saw the potentials and 'opend mindedness' in the medicine in which it's willing to abstract and combine western medicine and other alternative methods to provide the best care for the patients, at least that was my original impression of DO medicine.

if i ask a question to my DO colleagues here in this forum, what is osteopathic medicine? imagine i'm patient with this simple question, can we all come up with an explanation by consensus?