Which Osteopathic School has best Residency Specialty Match?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

Thorgan17

Full Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2023
Messages
79
Reaction score
53
What Osteopathic school historically has the best residency matches with specialties / offers the most support for students to specialize. Also, what school has the best residencies with major hospital networks?

Members don't see this ad.
 
any DO program with state funding and or an attached teaching hospital
 
  • Like
Reactions: 4 users
Usually the established schools have better match rates. OSU I believe has in house residencies. PCOM, LECOM, AT STILL, Desmoine, and the other established schools match well.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 users
Members don't see this ad :)
Usually the established schools have better match rates. OSU I believe has in house residencies. PCOM, LECOM, AT STILL, Desmoine, and the other established schools match well.
Does KCU COM compare to the ones you listed?
 
I believe KCU has a good match list similiar to other established schools. Most established schools have a good regional reputation, so many match regionally.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
What Osteopathic school historically has the best residency matches with specialties / offers the most support for students to specialize. Also, what school has the best residencies with major hospital networks?
You still have to keep at the back of your mind that matching is more on the student, rather than the school
 
  • Like
Reactions: 5 users
If you are a resident of Ohio, OU-HCOM has a strong partnership with Ohio Health. They have a strong preference for the school's students.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 users
Depending on what field you are looking at, it can vary by school. However, a lot of it depends on the student and their performance, board scores, etc. I wouldn't put all my stock in a school just based on their match results for one or two years.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
You should go to an established school if you are able to, It really makes very little if any difference to graduate from PCOM vs vs KCU vs ATSU. It will all come down to how you individually perform. The only difference will come from regional reputation making it much easier to match closer to where these schools are, but that's it. You need to keep in mind that DO schools don't only have a higher match list for primary care because it's difficult to match a specialty, but they also have them because there's a larger number of people wanting to go into primary care or have already accepted that as their pathway. You'll see people that want specialties more likely in MD school not only by scores but by persistence also of applying into them because they have that intention. Many people in DO school already know it's a harder road to specialty, so they won't bother to try. Many others put their bets on doing IM subspecialties since it's more viable than other specialties
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
The Osteopathic School Guide I posted lists schools with affiliated residencies/teaching hospitals etc.

I just finished going through the NRMP Data. It blows my mind that residencies can be federally funded and leave positions unfilled rather than take DO’s. I would take a look at your prospective school’s match list to see if they perhaps have any pattern of sending students to places you might want to go.
 
Last edited:
The Osteopathic School Guide I posted lists schools with affiliated residencies/teaching hospitals etc.

I just finished going through the NRMP Data. It blows my mind that residencies can be federally funded and leave positions unfilled rather than take DO’s. I would take a look at your prospective school’s match list to see if they perhaps have any pattern of sending students to places you might want to go.
No surprise. DO bias is still a thing, despite the merger. Many programs still don't think training DOs is part of their mission. It's much better now than it was 10 yrs ago and will continue to slowly improve. Docs of my vintage can remember seperate DO and MD hospitals, with neither allowing staff privileges to doctors from the other hospital. I witnessed this in the small town I grew up in.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
No surprise. DO bias is still a thing, despite the merger. Many programs still don't think training DOs is part of their mission. It's much better now than it was 10 yrs ago and will continue to slowly improve. Docs of my vintage can remember seperate DO and MD hospitals, with neither allowing staff privileges to doctors from the other hospital. I witnessed this in the small town I grew up in.

Wow I really can’t even imagine it. I hope to help change things further in my generation. It’s a very elitist thing to do and there should be some legal recourse for it, especially because we are looking at major physician shortages in the future. It will never make sense to me.
 
As more schools open up, residency matching will only get worse. When they make Step 2 P/F, which will not happen for awhile, school name, teaching hospitals, home programs and connections will be even more important for the competitive/prestige/location matches.
 
As more schools open up, residency matching will only get worse. When they make Step 2 P/F, which will not happen for awhile, school name, teaching hospitals, home programs and connections will be even more important for the competitive/prestige/location matches.
Gosh I hope Step 2 doesn’t become P/F. I think it was a mistake for Step 1 to become P/F.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Wow I really can’t even imagine it. I hope to help change things further in my generation. It’s a very elitist thing to do and there should be some legal recourse for it, especially because we are looking at major physician shortages in the future. It will never make sense to me.

There are still some program directors, maybe at the more elite residency programs, that still have a bias towards MD.…and they seem to want to preserve that.
 
As more schools open up, residency matching will only get worse. When they make Step 2 P/F, which will not happen for awhile, school name, teaching hospitals, home programs and connections will be even more important for the competitive/prestige/location matches.
I felt like Step 1 going p/f really was a huge hit to all students. Now you have to wait until step 2 scores are released to see if you are even competitive enough to match. This means all of your research in neurosurgery, etc, goes out the window if you get a 230. I think going to a graded curriculum DO school will help a little since step 1 is now p/f but yes i think if step 2 goes p/f then it will push DO's out of non-primary care specialties :(
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
The Osteopathic School Guide I posted lists schools with affiliated residencies/teaching hospitals etc.

I just finished going through the NRMP Data. It blows my mind that residencies can be federally funded and leave positions unfilled rather than take DO’s. I would take a look at your prospective school’s match list to see if they perhaps have any pattern of sending students to places you might want to go.
some programs fo unfilled for good reason tho, they are toxic af and should be avoided at almost all costs
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Maybe controversial, but I think comlex pass rates are better metrics.

Match lists are like tea leaves. I know plenty of people from med school who could have specialized that ended up choosing rural FM. They came in wanting to do it and did it. It’s hard to imagine on sdn where everybody seems to want derm and ortho. But there really is a sizable chunk of students at every school that actually want to do primary care. There used to be a frequent poster on here with 250+ step1 who chose IM, specifically community IM.

Conversely, everyone knows people who weren’t successful in the match because they had absolutely no business applying to that specialty. People with board scores below the 50th percentile, no research, mediocre clinical grades, and a generic letter of rec from a community preceptor will just apply ENT or ortho every year. I promise no one told them that was a good idea. Then they soap into FM.

In both of these examples, students ended up in rural primary care programs and it had nothing to do with the school.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 3 users
Maybe controversial, but I think comlex pass rates are better metrics.

Match lists are like tea leaves. I know plenty of people from med school who could have specialized that ended up choosing rural FM. They came in wanting to do it and did it. It’s hard to imagine on sdn where everybody seems to want derm and ortho. But there really is a sizable chunk of students at every school that actually want to do primary care. There used to be a frequent poster on here with 250+ step1 who chose IM, specifically community IM.

Conversely, everyone knows people who weren’t successful in the match because they had absolutely no business applying to that specialty. People with board scores below the 50th percentile, no research, mediocre clinical grades, and a generic letter of rec from a community preceptor will just apply ENT or ortho every year. I promise no one told them that was a good idea. Then they soap into FM.

In both of these examples, students ended up in rural primary care programs and it had nothing to do with the school.
Agree with the above.The #1 in my class wanted to do FM from the start. I think he remembered everything he ever read. He would call up oncologists and challenge their chemo regime for his patients. He loved FM and the patient's stories.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
I felt like Step 1 going p/f really was a huge hit to all students. Now you have to wait until step 2 scores are released to see if you are even competitive enough to match. This means all of your research in neurosurgery, etc, goes out the window if you get a 230. I think going to a graded curriculum DO school will help a little since step 1 is now p/f but yes i think if step 2 goes p/f then it will push DO's out of non-primary care specialties :(
P/F Step 1 was probably a bad idea, but you would need to be pretty oblivious to not have a rough idea of your competitiveness going into ERAS season, there are always the few surprising exceptions. I would push back hard on any graded curriculum, especially given how unimportant it ultimately is for residency and how bad didactic years are across the board, MD and DO. There's still plenty of assessments with scores that are highly validated; CBSSAs, UWorld, etc.

I agree with @Ho0v-man, 1st time board pass rates compared to national average are a much better barometer of a school, though given multitude of inputs and relatively tight band of outcomes, it is also unlikely to be statistically significant.

Trying to choose a school based on hard metrics is really hard because each of them will get you to a high minimum proficiency, this is the main difference of med school vs all other health professions. It is much more important to find a school that fits your needs and will allow you to fulfill your maximum potential.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Top