When will they catch on? MD+DO?

[Slingblade the Surgeon]

When do you think the larger allopathic schools will begin to realize that they could dominate both worlds with very little extra investment? For example, Harvard could easily set up an OMT program and begin to offer both the MD and DO degrees. Wow, HARVARD D.O......I'd go there. Then there would be no "better than/worse than" debate, only a choice. If you like this philosophy, choose this. If not, choose this one. I think this could be in the future. The costs would be minimal compared to the increased market share (med student monies). I believe this would truly level the playing field and promote more cooperation between the two. Only danger I see might be an eventual melding of the two, and since MD is larger, DO could become a subspecialty of the MD. But my darwinian approach to this says that the superior system will prevail so it could be that the MD would simply cease to exist. hmmmmmm

Any thoughts?

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[Optimistic]

When do you think the larger allopathic schools will begin to realize that they could dominate both worlds with very little extra investment? For example, Harvard could easily set up an OMT program and begin to offer both the MD and DO degrees. Wow, HARVARD D.O......I'd go there. Then there would be no "better than/worse than" debate, only a choice. If you like this philosophy, choose this. If not, choose this one. I think this could be in the future. The costs would be minimal compared to the increased market share (med student monies). I believe this would truly level the playing field and promote more cooperation between the two.


I agree.

 

[rickmyster78]

Interesting! But that'll be when pigs fly.

 

[realruby2000]

actually michigan state has omt in their MD program...

 

[Slingblade the Surgeon]

Would that be pigs flying under thir own power or would catapulted pigs qualify?

 

[rickmyster78]

The ones with wings. Or the flying pig on one of The Simpson's episodes...you know the one where Lisa becomes a vegetarian and, of course, Homer (being on the opposite spectrum of Lisa) has a meatfest barbeque...

 

[pyoj]

I think the AOA has enough governing power to prevent the AMA from tapping into our uniqueness. OMM is what makes our profession and puts us one up on the number of treatments we can provide our patients. allowing MD schools to access OMM would mean the end of ostopathic medicine (hmm...i guess i mean in specific reference to the existance of DO schools). as DO students and professionals, we have to fight to preserve and take pride in our identity. (ha ha, i sound like i'm about to run for AOA president )

although you are right in saying that MD schools would profit GREATLY with integrating OMM into their curriculum. as far as the michigan state thing, it's interesting how they have both an MD and a DO program at their university.

finals are a bitch...we got 5 in the next 9 days...enjoy your winter break!!
~pyoj
COMP '05

 

[Amra]

IMn-HO the AOA should spend some marketing $$ to educate the public..

 

[turtleboard]

Originally posted by pyoj:
•as DO students and professionals, we have to fight to preserve and take pride in our identity.•••

As a child I remember watching television one day and a commercial for the new Mercedes-Benz came on. The company's head guy in engineering safety devices explained why, after Mercedes-Benz developed one of the industry's safest airbag deployment systems, did the company NOT patent the technology. His answer, simply, was effectively when you engineer something that is expected to save the lives of millions, you can't put a price tag on it and you can't keep it a secret. It's not right.

Thus is the problem I sometimes run into with the hard-core osteopaths who see the co-existence of MDs and DOs as an "Us vs. Them" kind of thing. If you are an osteopathic medical student and your sole interest in being a physician, whether MD or DO, is to help those who need help, why keep OMT to yourselves? Why state pride in and preservation of your profession as reasons to keep MDs from learning another thing that could help people? Does it occur to you that with 45,000 DOs and more than 600,000 MDs that the delivery of OMT could be greatly mobilized by training MDs to do it? Does it occur to you that maybe by teaching the 15,000 MD students in this country the value of OMT and the techniques of OMT that "What is a DO?" will not be such a difficult question to answer?

I realize that the history of the relations between the allopathic and osteopathic professions has never been rosy. The rivalry between the two is akin to that of the Yankees and the Mets -- friendly disdain for one another. The greatest exception, however, is that since the 1960s, the allopathic profession has slowly opened its doors to those of the osteopathic community who are want allopathic training through our residency programs. The allopathic profession has really done nothing but embrace the osteopathic profession, but any hint of reciprocation is not in the horizon. And, of course, it's only the AOA brass whom we can thank for that.

•(ha ha, i sound like i'm about to run for AOA president )•••

If you ever become AOA president, I'd urge you to seek out a more friendly relationship with the AMA. I think that society can benefit greatly from an alliance of the two professions, but not necessarily a unification -- afterall, they are separate and distinct professions.

 

[Slingblade the Surgeon]

Personally, I'll take pride in whatever craft I learn. Ideally (In my mind) there would be one all encompassing system of medical training world-wide. The higher calling of medicine would transcend the limitations of politics, religion and her (no wait thats a song). There would be effective internal regulation and no governmental regulations. There would be one universal doctor of medicine degree denoted by a highly recognizable symbol rather than letters so that a practitioner is instantly recognizable anywhere in any language. All modalities of treatment would be incorporated into the training including eastern med stuff (acupuncture, acupressure, etc), herbal and OMT. All of the subfactions of medicine that we have today would be consolidated and fall under the one symbol as a subspecialty (such as Optometry, Podiatry, Pharmacy, Dentistry, and any others that are same but different). There would still be assistants to physicians to help lighten the load somewhat. Right now I think there are way too many letters that make up the academic portion of medicine. MD, DO, OD, DPM, PharmD, DMD, DDS, BSc, BMedSci, NMD....and I'm sure there are others that I don't know.