What do MD's say about DO's?

[Doc Hef]

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Hey fellow students,

I'm just wondering if you all ever talk about "the other" doctors, us Osteopaths. If so, what is your perception of us as students/doctors? I've heard of some MD's wishing they could take some DO classes to get a more "well rounded" education. But I've also heard MD's say that DO's aren't even docs.
Just wondering how you perceive things...


Dave
MSII
LECOM

 

[Seaglass]

I think most MD's think of DO's as equals and colleagues. I personally have never met an MD who wished s/he went the DO route but honestly that's not a topic of discussion that comes up every day. There are good DO's and bad DO's, there are good MD's and bad MD's. It would be unwise to generalize beyond that.

 

[ddmo]

It's probably no different than what DO's say about MD's. Some are intelligent enough to realize they are both well trained in their own ways and respect that. While some trash on the other field because of their own inadaquacies, you know the "they aren't even real doctors," or the, "all they are is pill pushers." However, like Seaglass said, I have yet to heard an MD wish they were a DO. Meanwhile, I guess I have never heard a DO say they want to be a MD, but I don't have much exposure to them on a daily basis.

 

[Sweet Tea]

There are good DO's and bad DO's, there are good MD's and bad MD's. It would be unwise to generalize beyond that.

👍

 

[GoodMonkey]

 

[EvoDevo]

And your point is??? 😀 😀 😀


*Ducks flying rock*

 

[GoodMonkey]

And your point is??? 😀 😀 😀


*Ducks flying rock*

 

[Doc Hef]

It's probably no different than what DO's say about MD's. Some are intelligent enough to realize they are both well trained in their own ways and respect that. While some trash on the other field because of their own inadaquacies, you know the "they aren't even real doctors," or the, "all they are is pill pushers." However, like Seaglass said, I have yet to heard an MD wish they were a DO. Meanwhile, I guess I have never heard a DO say they want to be a MD, but I don't have much exposure to them on a daily basis.

To clarify, I've never heard a MD say that they wanted to be a DO, just that they would like to take some of the additional DO classes.

While some trash on the other field because of their own inadaquacies

Good point... or good point's.

 

[Sweet Tea]

Good point... or good point's.

like g$, this makes my inner grammar nazi cry.

 

[Doc Hef]

Shoot, I wasn't trying to start a thread on grammar... or upset any nazis... any comments about the original topic?

 

[care bear]

i remember asking my dad (an MD) about DOs back when i was about to go through the application process and i had just found out that DOs existed.

the conversation went something like this:

me: "daddy, did you know there is a different kind of doctor besides an MD? have you ever heard of them?"

dad: (condescending look regarding my ignorance) " you mean DOs? yep, i work with quite a few."

me: "well, i hear they learn different stuff. . .like more holistic stuff. . .should i apply to DO schools too?"

dad: (rolls eyes) "it's all the same really. i wouldn't worry about it. go study."


So, you can see that the one MD I have talked to about DOs seemed to have a very neutral stance, maybe not all that appreciative of the differences in MD vs. DO education. . .but no hostility or superiority complex or anything like that.

 

[ArmyDoc1999]

Here is something from a slightly different perspective. At my school (OSU-COM) we have an MD who lectures in Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine lab. She got involved with osteopathic medicine after she was in a serious automobile accident, and her MD had exhausted his/her options in treating her residual problems and chronic pain. She went to see a DO, and within 3 or 4 treatments with OMM, she was almost back to where she had been before the accident. The experience "made a believer out of me", she said. So she started attending CME courses on OMM. Now, she uses it in her pediatrics practice, with some pretty amazing results. Just for an example, she uses it to treat cholic in infants. Some are "cured" after just one session. She swears by OMM now. She is the only crossover MD, other than our founder Dr. A.T. Still, that I have ever heard of. Anybody else?

 

[rotatores]

Hey fellow students,

I'm just wondering if you all ever talk about "the other" doctors, us Osteopaths. If so, what is your perception of us as students/doctors? I've heard of some MD's wishing they could take some DO classes to get a more "well rounded" education. But I've also heard MD's say that DO's aren't even docs.
Just wondering how you perceive things...


Dave
MSII
LECOM

Pretty much the vast majority of MD's know that DO and MD training are for the most part equivalent. But there are still plenty of MD's who think they're a cut above DO's, in a manner somewhat similar to how many US grads think they're a cut above foreign grads (although not to the same extent). You'll find that there are a lot of big ego's in medicine!

edit: I'm not rotatores, but this computer won't let me log him out.

 

[Shinken]

Thank you for helping us with the do's and do not's of the apostrophe. I think MD's and DO's alike could benefit from more of these do's and do not's. Although MD's and DO's receive excellent training in basic sciences's finer points, neither MD's nor DO's receive adequate preparation in punctuation's finer points.

 

[Doc Hef]

She is the only crossover MD, other than our founder Dr. A.T. Still, that I have ever heard of. Anybody else?

We have a handful of MDs that teach at LECOM, and yeah... it is funny to hear each of their stories of how they came to appreciate and even practice OMM. Most of the stories are the same though: a patient wasn't responding to the surgery, medication, and everything else they tried... and then this DO came along and did some "magic"...
I wasn't even a true believer of manipulation until I saw the results. All I can say is, if you're an allopathic doc and things aren't working like they should - keep your mind open. Even if a doctor isn't able to help the patient heal with the OMM, they are usually much more comfortable and have much less pain than they did before the OMM. But most of the time... as the pain goes away, you will watch in amazement as the patient recovers. Most will laugh when they read this, but I hope that you can just witness it once, and then you'll understand.

 

[Finally M3]

I think most of the hangups between DO v MD are from allopath/osteopath MS applicants.

Once you get into the hospital, not many people give two sh*ts as long as you do your job well.

OMM would be a pretty good arsenal in a outpt PM&R practice....but like a couple of attendings have told me, it's more cost efficient to be doing EMGs or injections than taking 15-20 minutes performing OMM. 😀

 

[Adcadet]

I've been through a year of med school, did a year in a specialty addiction clinic, and shadowed a bunch in the ICU and in a general internal medicine clinic. The only time it came up was when I asked the attending in the addiction clinic. He's also a scientist, and didn't have anything good to say about the training in general (sortof along the lines of "you want to be a real doctor"). But I kindof expected that. It never came up otherwise.

I did notice that one of the residents in the Dept. of Medicine at my school is a DO - I could tell 'cause that's what his white coat said, even though his name tag sad (name), MD. From what I've surmised, your judged based on your ability to practice medicine, just like if you did med school anywhere else (Carribean, Mexico, India, US, etc).

 

[DOtobe]

I think most of the hangups between DO v MD are from allopath/osteopath MS applicants.

Once you get into the hospital, not many people give two sh*ts as long as you do your job well.

OMM would be a pretty good arsenal in a outpt PM&R practice....but like a couple of attendings have told me, it's more cost efficient to be doing EMGs or injections than taking 15-20 minutes performing OMM. 😀

Regarding the first two sentences - exactly! 👍 MD vs DO is premed stuff.

And the last part of this post reminded me of a doctor I just worked with on my current rotation. I just finished working with a DO FP who does a lot of trigger point injections. When I asked him if he ever did OMT on trigger points, his reply was, "Nah, that takes too long."

 

[nutmegs]

My roommate and best friend go to an osteopathic school, while I'm doing the allopath thing. It never really gets brought up at my school, by the faculty or by my classmates. However I feel (and my friend agrees) that they are really being taught to have a chip on their shoulder. I've seen MD bashing in their student publications, and he's mentioned a few times that their lecturers kind of promote an MD stereotype and go out of their way to publicize differences. Whatever, I think it's dumb, I know the stuff they're learning is cool and I love when they practice on me. A lot of my classmates don't even really understand what a DO is, but they also don't have anything against them whatsoever.

 

[DrMom]

I've been subjected to some of the MD bashing (doesn't occur frequently at my school, but there is a single major offender)...all it really leads to is a lot of eyerolling by us and decreased attendance at that lecturer's classes.

I think this'll become less of an issue with upcoming DOs. We may be exposed to DOs with the chipped shoulders, but those that I talk to can't relate & think it's silly.

 

[automaton]

wow the people that lecture DOs make comments about them? that's so rude.

 

[DrMom]

wow the people that lecture DOs make comments about them? that's so rude.

They're isolated incidents. The vast majority of DOs who teach us don't have this issue.

 

[Ypo.]

i remember asking my dad (an MD) about DOs back when i was about to go through the application process and i had just found out that DOs existed.

the conversation went something like this:

me: "daddy, did you know there is a different kind of doctor besides an MD? have you ever heard of them?"

dad: (condescending look regarding my ignorance) " you mean DOs? yep, i work with quite a few."

me: "well, i hear they learn different stuff. . .like more holistic stuff. . .should i apply to DO schools too?"

dad: (rolls eyes) "it's all the same really. i wouldn't worry about it. go study."


So, you can see that the one MD I have talked to about DOs seemed to have a very neutral stance, maybe not all that appreciative of the differences in MD vs. DO education. . .but no hostility or superiority complex or anything like that.

Ha! When I asked my mom (an MD) about applying to osteopathic schools- she said-don't do that-you don't need to. (?) She admitted she didn't know much about them except that at one point-they were saying that every medical problem is caused by "lesions". But that was like a hundred years ago.

Recently she said she wished she knew how to do OMT, as she refers some of her patients to a DO for that.

 

[Ypo.]

Here is something from a slightly different perspective. At my school (OSU-COM) we have an MD who lectures in Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine lab. She got involved with osteopathic medicine after she was in a serious automobile accident, and her MD had exhausted his/her options in treating her residual problems and chronic pain. She went to see a DO, and within 3 or 4 treatments with OMM, she was almost back to where she had been before the accident. The experience "made a believer out of me", she said. So she started attending CME courses on OMM. Now, she uses it in her pediatrics practice, with some pretty amazing results. Just for an example, she uses it to treat cholic in infants. Some are "cured" after just one session. She swears by OMM now. She is the only crossover MD, other than our founder Dr. A.T. Still, that I have ever heard of. Anybody else?

Yeah, theres a lot of these crossovers in michigan. They offer CME courses in OMT all the time, the biggest takers of the classes are MDs and physical therapists.

 

[azcomdiddy]

My father is an M.D. When I was a kid, he used to bash D.O.'s. I had a friend whose father was a D.O. and he used to refer to him as Dr. Smith, the D.O. And I wondered what the hell a D.O. was? This was in 1990. He made D.O. sound like this foreign thing. My dad graduated from medical school back in 1965. Around 1996, he started to change his tune. Around 1999, he was like: "DO is as good as M.D.." My father is a surgeon too so he isn't a family practice doc who worked alongside many DO's his entire life. I was really suprised by his change in attitude. I think a lot of docs like my dad just didn't have experience with DO's and thus characterized them as being really different. Once he got to work alongside DO's, he realized there was little if any real difference. In my experience, the people who have issues with DO's are pre-meds, 1st and 2nd year medical students and older docs like my dad. Nearly every current physician who graduates from medical school or docs who are under the age of 40 have no real issues with DO's.

 

[Doc Hef]

As you guys probably learn at AZCOM, the 60's were a pretty hard time for DO's, so I can understand your dad's point of view. That's awesome that he has changed his tune. What does he think about you doing DO?

 

[watchdog069]

notice how most of the people replying to this most are do's or soon to be do's... apparently it matters more to them than mds.

 

[bobby6]

There isn't much of a difference in education I don't think. MDs and DOs are treated the same but let me say this. For different specialties, especially the competitive ones like Plastics, Dermatology, ENT, Ortho, Optho, as a DO graduate it is going to be extremely difficult to almost impossible to match into these fields. If you are dead set on doing primary care, then it shouldn't matter, however, if you intend on going into a competitive specialty I would definately not go the DO route.

 

[Ypo.]

notice how most of the people replying to this most are do's or soon to be do's... apparently it matters more to them than mds.

I am an MD and what I have to say about DOs is this...@(&*@#%*&%@($*&^!^*!&@^*&%^(^$@!!!

J/K (about both statements).