Too Many!!

[fuegorama]

Since my interview, I know of 6 schools that have opened/planned to open.
With the shrinking number of PG opportunities, limited clerkship spots, myopic view of litigation and decreasing numbers in the applicant pool, is this the time for an expansion?

Who is checking the quality of these new branch programs? The AOA?

According to Thomas, it takes only $5 million dollars to open a new site. No proof of clerkship spot security or relationship to a hospital is required.
Compare this to the minimum $150 million it takes to start an allo. school plus their requisite geographic and/or political relationship to major care centers and the differences in training become a little more apparent.

Scanning these boards and talking with PDs will highlight the fact that the vast majority of the major medical world see the DO as a fallback when the stars don't line up for a MD program. For greater than 50% of my class, including this writer, that's true. If we consider that greater than half of these folks failed at application due to circumstances outside of intellectual accumen (race/age/gender/geography) we still have a fairly competitive group.
What happens when the only applicants left REALLY lack the academic ability to "get medicine"? What will happen to the identity of the DO as it returns in fact and not just opinion to the identity of quacks and not-so-brights that dominated the profession just 30 years ago?

I have concerns that the desperation to gain enough applicants to fill the classes of these new branches will drag our degrees into a pit of distrust for our patients.

Fear? yep.
Snobbery? May be, but I have worked too stinkin' hard for my career to be endangered by a group of wannabes that just can't hang.
Anger? Hell yes! We have a governing body that can't control the growth of schools to which it grants accreditation!! This same body is focused on some netherworld where its metastic offspring can always get the post-graduate training they need. Of course this alternate universe doesn't include the current plane of the match, but hey! Live your ideal even when reality doesn't quite match up!

So what to do?
I know Start a poll and have 95% of current student participants give support. Present it at three different national gatherings, have deans from several schools and multiple state boards lend support and the clear voice of reason will win the day. The old guard will roll over and agree. This was so spectacularly successful with the joint match issue surely reason will win. Wait a second... Even when everything happened on the action side, nothing fazed the folks in Chicago.

So what do we do? What leverage does the student body have? We are obviously not listened to. Many of our student reps tried, but there is a heavy dose of family politics that spreads across generations in this little profession of ours. The kooky dedication to ATStilland as the zion of medicine is alive and well in SOMA and the body of student government presidents. We cannot depend on them to make the case.

Any real ideas?

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[fuegorama]

Hmmm. 78 views and no ideas.
Did I just waste a rant?

 

[(nicedream)]

Hmmm. 78 views and no ideas.
Did I just waste a rant?

I think it's just that there's been a million threads on this topic already.

 

[fuegorama]

I think it's just that there's been a million threads on this topic already.

Fair enough. I couldn't find a dedicated thread so I started one. I was hoping for some constructive ideas/plan/reaasurance that this educational odyssey won't be a loss.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

well, maybe everybody has gotten their ranting done, and it's just too depressing to continue to talk/think about. as for constructive ideas to stop these new schools from popping up every day, i don't think there are any. if the aoa continues to do nothing and has ridiculous requirements like only raising $5 million before establishing a new school, what can we do?

 

[(nicedream)]

Fair enough. I couldn't find a dedicated thread so I started one. I was hoping for some constructive ideas/plan/reaasurance that this educational odyssey won't be a loss.

Personally, while I think it's a reasonable fear and an important thing to think about, I don't foresee it being the downfall of osteopathic medicine. I think there are an over-abundance of qualified candidates (there are something like 120 allopathic medical schools, so I don't see how having 25 osteopathic ones is going to make such an enourmous difference in the "gene pool" so to speak) - the problem is that many of the qualified candidates apply only to allopathic programs, leaving the osteopathic schools, especially the newer ones, with a smaller pool of applicants.
In order to attract the higher quality applicants, osteopathic medicine must change its image. I'm a firm believer that image is everything - if the AOA would pull its head out of its ass and get in touch with reality, more undergrads would apply. There are enough 3.5+/28+'s to go around.

Oh, and I agree with you about the hospital affiliation issue as well - the 3 new schools the past couple of years, however, have been branch campus' that share the clinical affiliations with their home institutions.
As for GME, if the AOA wants to continue screwing themselves, the AOA primary care programs will be 6 feet deep - it doesn't matter how many of them there are.

 

[OSUdoc08]

Fair enough. I couldn't find a dedicated thread so I started one. I was hoping for some constructive ideas/plan/reaasurance that this educational odyssey won't be a loss.

There are spots unfilled in many AOA residencies every year. As long as you aren't concerned as to what specialty you will go into, then it shouldn't make a difference.

You can also go with the philosophy that if you outperform your neighbors (MD & DO), than you can get any ACGME or AOA residency that you want.

 

[Echinoidea]

There are spots unfilled in many AOA residencies every year. As long as you aren't concerned as to what specialty you will go into, then it shouldn't make a difference.

You can also go with the philosophy that if you outperform your neighbors (MD & DO), than you can get any ACGME or AOA residency that you want.

I hear what you are saying, and all in all, you are correct. My biggest beef with the way the AOA is handling this issue of GME is that currently, a large part of the collective DO GME is done by the grace and goodwill of the ACGME in allopathic residency positions.

Now, imagine that in the future, with the continued pace of new schools opening, that the overall quality of the osteopathic medical graduate begins to decline because there just are not enough well-qualified applicants to fill up the classes anymore. Entrace stats get lower and lower as more and more private schools open. What happens when allopathic residency directors start to feel (fairly or not) that the osteopathic education is falling behind? What would happen if a trend began whereas more and more residencies reverted back to being (for all intents and purposes) closed to DO's?

Herein lies the truly frightening part: we, as current and future students, would all be screwed because under the current, AOA sanctioned system, we NEED allopathic medicine to support us. The AOA claims there are enough osteopathic GME spots to support us all. I don't buy that. When you consider quality, location, reputation, and stability, osteopathic programs don't hold a candle to the allopathic world.

My point here is this: osteopathic medical education has come to rely on the majority of DO grads entering allopathic residencies. We exist under a system that implores us to keep our "osteopathic identity" but fails to provide the resources for us to do this.

It's a sad state of affairs when the AOA is completely impotent to control the flood of new schools, but they seem to be quite able to rally the faithfull base of old-school DOs to fight any effort on our part of to push a combined match.

 

[(nicedream)]

I hear what you are saying, and all in all, you are correct. My biggest beef with the way the AOA is handling this issue of GME is that currently, a large part of the collective DO GME is done by the grace and goodwill of the ACGME in allopathic residency positions.

Now, imagine that in the future, with the continued pace of new schools opening, that the overall quality of the osteopathic medical graduate begins to decline because there just are not enough well-qualified applicants to fill up the classes anymore. Entrace stats get lower and lower as more and more private schools open. What happens when allopathic residency directors start to feel (fairly or not) that the osteopathic education is falling behind? What would happen if a trend began whereas more and more residencies reverted back to being (for all intents and purposes) closed to DO's?

Herein lies the truly frightening part: we, as current and future students, would all be screwed because under the current, AOA sanctioned system, we NEED allopathic medicine to support us. The AOA claims there are enough osteopathic GME spots to support us all. I don't buy that. When you consider quality, location, reputation, and stability, osteopathic programs don't hold a candle to the allopathic world.

My point here is this: osteopathic medical education has come to rely on the majority of DO grads entering allopathic residencies. We exist under a system that implores us to keep our "osteopathic identity" but fails to provide the resources for us to do this.

It's a sad state of affairs when the AOA is completely impotent to control the flood of new schools, but they seem to be quite able to rally the faithfull base of old-school DOs to fight any effort on our part of to push a combined match.

I agree with you in principle, but how could the AOA improve GME? They're not going to be building any new big academic research centers any time soon. The fact is the ACGME has the established esteemed hospitals and the AOA does not. Suppose the AOA decides to expand its GME - there would be no reason to think the quality is any better than the existing ones.
Now let's suppose the AOA puts a stop to new schools opening because of a fear of insufficient GME - that still doesn't make the existing GME any better.
As for the ACGME deciding to stop accepting DOs - there is an over-abundance of primary care ACGME programs. When 50% of a programs class is FMGs, you can bet that not many US MD grads are applying. No matter how many new DO schools open up, it would take a lot for their standards and esteem to fall below that of foreign schools - so I can't see ACGME programs ever preferring FMGs to DOs (obviously specialty programs are a different matter).
In the end, I think you'll simply see a stratification of DO graduates - the better ones entering ACGME programs and the rest being left with AOA ones.