What is the AOA trying to accomplish?

[Morphy]

Martin Levine (AOA pres.) gave a lecture at my school today. It was definitely interesting to hear the latest rhetoric coming from the AOA, which sounded like, "osteopathic physicians are better than their allopathic colleagues."

It didn't sound like the "separate but equal" drivel that I am used to hearing. This line of thinking has to be incongruous with the rest of the osteopathic community, right? Won't this public espousal of superiority only serve to alienate the D.O. community?

I left out some of the context, but the message is still the same.

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[Rollo]

AOA reminds me of those poor nerds in high school. They were the inferior kids at first who were picked on for their weird glasses and greasy hair, then in high school/college they started demanding being treated like normal human beings, and then finally in real world they act like they're the next best thing since sliced bread.

 

[bleeker10]

AOA reminds me of those poor nerds in high school. They were the inferior kids at first who were picked on for their weird glasses and greasy hair, then in high school/college they started demanding being treated like normal human beings, and then finally in real world they act like they're the next best thing since sliced bread.

It's not just the AOA that gives me this opinion. I have noticed it from some practicing physicians as well. I have heard physicians say there are better than MDs because DOs have more tools (OMM) so we are automatically better.

 

[chup12682]

I don't understand your analogy. Are you saying that people don't change from who they were in high school? Or are you saying that DO's are nerds?

I'm a DO student and I don't think Dr. Levine is promoting that osteopaths are better, nor are they separate but equal. However, I believe that Dr. Levine promotes that DO's can have a different perspective when it comes to the care of a patient, and acknowledging that the extra skill set we learn has an impact on that care is what makes us valuable members of the healthcare system.

 

[Morphy]

I don't understand your analogy. Are you saying that people don't change from who they were in high school? Or are you saying that DO's are nerds?

I'm a DO student and I don't think Dr. Levine is promoting that osteopaths are better, nor are they separate but equal. However, I believe that Dr. Levine promotes that DO's can have a different perspective when it comes to the care of a patient, and acknowledging that the extra skill set we learn has an impact on that care is what makes us valuable members of the healthcare system.

An argument could be made that most physicians are nerds.
How can you not think that he/the AOA wants to maintain, even augment, our separateness from the rest of the healthcare system? Take OTM as an example, they are all for research and "proving it," but they don't want to have to adhere to the scientific method to come up with this data (just an example). This... stubborness alienates the AOA from the whole scientific community.

 

[MedicinaeDoctor]

An argument could be made that most physicians are nerds.
How can you not think that he/the AOA wants to maintain, even augment, our separateness from the rest of the healthcare system? Take OTM as an example, they are all for research and "proving it," but they don't want to have to adhere to the scientific method to come up with this data (just an example). This... stubborness alienates the AOA from the whole scientific community.

they don't want to? what? no. it is extremely difficult to apply double blind studies for uhh, "OTM."

 

[123165]

they don't want to? what? no. it is extremely difficult to apply double blind studies for uhh, "OTM."

Not just blinding though, the results are so subjective.

 

[Morphy]

they don't want to? what? no. it is extremely difficult to apply double blind studies for uhh, "OTM."

Uhh, can you explain why? OMM needs to be tested as a procedure, simple as that. You need to quantify how much effect is from the actual procedure or from placebo.
What's the point of doing research if it isn't empirical?

 

[Rollo]

Gonna play the devil's advocate here and point out that learning the basics about OMM and acquiring the skills can be done by an MD quite easily if they set aside couple hours every week for few months to attend some workshops and slowly integrate it into their practice.

But if AOA admitted that that could be possible, then they would have no real justification to maintain their existence.

 

[123165]

Gonna play the devil's advocate here and point out that learning the basics about OMM and acquiring the skills can be done by an MD quite easily if they set aside couple hours every week for few months to attend some workshops and slowly integrate it into their practice.

But if AOA admitted that that could be possible, then they would have no real justification to maintain their existence.

I don't really agree with this. I think it would take at least a year to be competent. Not that I really care though.

You have to get your hands on a lot of patients to practice OMM. Just learning the skills is not equal to being able to treat

 

[Instatewaiter]

I don't really agree with this. I think it would take at least a year to be competent. Not that I really care though.

You have to get your hands on a lot of patients to practice OMM. Just learning the skills is not equal to being able to treat

So basically you are saying that 1 out of your 4 years of medical school is spent doing OMM?

 

[Velocity]

Martin Levine (AOA pres.) gave a lecture at my school today. It was definitely interesting to hear the latest rhetoric coming from the AOA, which sounded like, "osteopathic physicians are better than their allopathic colleagues."

It didn't sound like the "separate but equal" drivel that I am used to hearing. This line of thinking has to be incongruous with the rest of the osteopathic community, right? Won't this public espousal of superiority only serve to alienate the D.O. community?

I left out some of the context, but the message is still the same.

He gave us a talk, too, and I got a similar impression. Many of our hard-core OMM professors seem to have a similar opinion, as if the allopathic curriculum is so drastically different.

At the heart of it, I think there's a bit of defensiveness and an effort to change public opinion. Many people have no idea what an osteopathic physician is, or they assume that they're not equal to allopathic physicians. Some still associate osteopathic physicians with osteopaths (or worse, homeopaths) and have a negative opinion of them. The AOA is trying to establish osteopathic physicians as viable equivalents (if not a superior alternative) to allopathic physicians. Some of it may seem a little forced, and I don't know that many of us would agree with everything that they say, but you can't deny that their efforts are to our benefit.

 

[123165]

So basically you are saying that 1 out of your 4 years of medical school is spent doing OMM?

Did you even read the post?

OP stated a couple of hours a week for a few months. I said it would take a year of this to be at a level of confidence.

I dont know about your school, but we spend four hours a week, every week. A couple hours a week for one year would be 1/4 the time spent just in years 1 and 2 in med school on OTM, which seems reasonable to me.

A few months at a couple hours a week would be like 40 contact hours. I dont think this is enough, unless we are just talking doing a kville crunch or a lumbar roll on occasion.

I just started looking around, and massage therapy requires 500 hours in a lot of states . . .

 

[munchymanRX]

Martin Levine (AOA pres.) gave a lecture at my school today. It was definitely interesting to hear the latest rhetoric coming from the AOA, which sounded like, "osteopathic physicians are better than their allopathic colleagues."

It didn't sound like the "separate but equal" drivel that I am used to hearing. This line of thinking has to be incongruous with the rest of the osteopathic community, right? Won't this public espousal of superiority only serve to alienate the D.O. community?

I left out some of the context, but the message is still the same.

The AOA is phenomenal at alienating itself, and they'll maintain to the grave that the reason for their "separate but equal" philosophy is due to the expanded toolset that OMM and NMM gives us as physicians.

I think that's a load of crap. Any MD (and some do!) can pick up OMM in a few weeks of classes. From the AOA's point of view, it is pretty convenient to have an accreditation body that is the same as the profession's political lobbying bloc. The AMA and ACGME are separate entities, for a comparison. I'd be willing to wager that we're separate because the heads of the AOA want to remain the heads and rake in the dough rather than kowtow to the AMA, which wants to integrate.

 

[bleeker10]

Did you even read the post?

OP stated a couple of hours a week for a few months. I said it would take a year of this to be at a level of confidence.

I dont know about your school, but we spend four hours a week, every week. A couple hours a week for one year would be 1/4 the time spent just in years 1 and 2 in med school on OTM, which seems reasonable to me.

A few months at a couple hours a week would be like 40 contact hours. I dont think this is enough, unless we are just talking doing a kville crunch or a lumbar roll on occasion.

I just started looking around, and massage therapy requires 500 hours in a lot of states . . .

We also spend a couple hours a week in OMM lab. I can tell you that we weren't practicing for the entire 2 hours of lab. In fact, I'd say most of it was watching the prof teach the technique or sitting around after we had done it. I consider myself pretty proficient in it and I could easily pick it up doing the main techniques (ME, HVLA, myofascial, FPR, etc) a few hours a week for a few months. A lot of OMM lab was redundant and towards the end of second year we were just reviewing a lot of the techniques. Plus, what's the best way to learn OMM? By putting your skills into practice. So if a MD does OMM everyday, he/she will get very good at OMM in a reasonable amount of time. Also how many of the techniques that you learned in school, will you routinely use as part of your skillset? I would only use a few of them, which is another reason why a MD could pick up OMM quickly

 

[sanityonleave]

Martin Levine (AOA pres.) gave a lecture at my school today. It was definitely interesting to hear the latest rhetoric coming from the AOA, which sounded like, "osteopathic physicians are better than their allopathic colleagues."

It didn't sound like the "separate but equal" drivel that I am used to hearing. This line of thinking has to be incongruous with the rest of the osteopathic community, right? Won't this public espousal of superiority only serve to alienate the D.O. community?

I left out some of the context, but the message is still the same.

Politics, pure and simple.

The AMA has given lip service to integration in large part because they know two things: 1) any plan for integration would likely read as the AOA being subsumed by the AMA, not the other way around; and 2) the AOA is very unlikely to go for it because of the first point.

Dr. Levine's rhetoric is purely because the AOA needs grounds to oppose integration, and OMM is probably (for the reasons others have mentioned) not enough in and of itself. Thus, as the president of the AOA, Dr. Levine is coming out with the idea that osteopathic medical education is "better" than allopathic in certain intangible qualities (cura personalis, etc) to give a stronger argument against integration.

Politics is an ugly business.

 

[Rollo]

What I want to know is where are all the students/residents from our generation who are gung-ho like mad devils about OMM and "separate but equal" philosophy?? More than likely, these are the same people that will likely be in AOA politics and will keep the AOA going in the future.

And thus the cycle will continue!

 

[Bacchus]

What I want to know is where are all the students/residents from our generation who are gung-ho like mad devils about OMM and "separate but equal" philosophy?? More than likely, these are the same people that will likely be in AOA politics and will keep the AOA going in the future.

And thus the cycle will continue!

Attending SAAO/UAAO meetings.

 

[Velocity]

What I want to know is where are all the students/residents from our generation who are gung-ho like mad devils about OMM and "separate but equal" philosophy?? More than likely, these are the same people that will likely be in AOA politics and will keep the AOA going in the future.

And thus the cycle will continue!

They're out there. I haven't met any that are my age, but some attendings that I'd place in their early to mid 30's have a fairly hard-core mentality about it. It seems like a large part of what drives it is perceived discrimination from allopathic physicians. I would guess that most of those who discriminate are the "ancient" physicians, but we'll all probably get it at some point. When that time comes, some will shrug it off, while others will take that "us vs. them" attitude.

 

[DocEspana]

They're out there. I haven't met any that are my age, but some attendings that I'd place in their early to mid 30's have a fairly hard-core mentality about it. It seems like a large part of what drives it is perceived discrimination from allopathic physicians. I would guess that most of those who discriminate are the "ancient" physicians, but we'll all probably get it at some point. When that time comes, some will shrug it off, while others will take that "us vs. them" attitude.

ive said it before, and ill say it again. People who think that the AOA will change any time soon and deviate from their "us vs them" undertones (you didnt, but other people do) are living in a dream world. As you seemed to be aware of, the AOA is a self-sustaining beast. Enough generations of physicians who desire to foster a DO superiority/individuality that the entire society is chock full of these people from top to bottom. Sure the students often put out well intentioned resolutions to try to encourage integration, but they are always shot down.

Think about it. If a society has one dogmatic opinion. If more moderate opinions are shot down legislatively. And if upward mobility requires working (and perhaps garnering support from) the higher ups, then no one climbs up the ladder except the few from the student section who have views logically consistant with the rest of the leadership. There are no "old coots" running the AOA. Everyone in it is, to some level, part of the mindset, and they'll simply become the new 'old coots'.

This is why I decided to go all out with the AMA. If DO's want to really make a difference they need to make their splashes in the organization that recognizes all physicians. Victory there is the sweetest thing because not only are you performing the legislation through a larger and more influential organization than the AOA, but you're also doing it as an equal with every physician out there. And DOs have had some real successes at state levels. Specifically, I know that NY almost broke their election bylaws to allow a certain DO to be the president twice. They ended up not going forward with it, but he's considered among the best of the modern era presidents of the society.

Integration of AOA and AMA can never happen for the reasons someone else mentioned before (it would be the AMA absorbing the AOA, and it would put the AOA out of business as a company), but making DOs an active part of the AMA is almost as good.

 

[123165]

We also spend a couple hours a week in OMM lab. I can tell you that we weren't practicing for the entire 2 hours of lab. In fact, I'd say most of it was watching the prof teach the technique or sitting around after we had done it. I consider myself pretty proficient in it and I could easily pick it up doing the main techniques (ME, HVLA, myofascial, FPR, etc) a few hours a week for a few months. A lot of OMM lab was redundant and towards the end of second year we were just reviewing a lot of the techniques. Plus, what's the best way to learn OMM? By putting your skills into practice. So if a MD does OMM everyday, he/she will get very good at OMM in a reasonable amount of time. Also how many of the techniques that you learned in school, will you routinely use as part of your skillset? I would only use a few of them, which is another reason why a MD could pick up OMM quickly

I agree that you could pick up a few techniques here and there, and be relatively proficient, but not nearly as proficient as an OMM specialist; ie the population doing most of the OMM in the first place.

 

[HM3]

This reminds me of multiple convos I've had with Osteopathic PDs(although I won't say where). They always said DOs gave superior care and were "trained" that way. However when I asked what the difference in Residency was, the answer was always NONE.

You're talking about the rhetoric of suits..what do you expect?