Why are DOs never portrayed on TV?

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mikemoudi

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everybody is an MD, FACS on shows like greys anatomy, scrubs, etc. lol
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Most of the people I interact with, who do not work in the health care industry in some form or fashion, think DO's are some type of chiropractor. People are ignorant, just say you are a medical student or physician when you graduate because if you try to provide any granularity, people will make incorrect inferences.

PS) For that matter, even some allied health professionals I have interacted with over time, do not know what a DO is. These individuals should have no excuse for being ignorant, but they are.


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RogerDOC said:
Devils advocate: maybe she means literally a "medical degree" as opposed to a Doctor of Medicine degree. Most of the people in my hometown referred to their doctor as "my MD" and it was almost always a DO
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Agreed. Plenty of people subconsciously conflate "MD" with "physician". My sister still colloquially says things about when I'll be a "MD" even though she knows I'm at a DO school. I only corrected her once. Many people just use the terms interchangeably whether or not they are ignorant of the DO degree and correcting them usually only makes you look insecure.
 
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Yea I've seen DOs on real documentaries just never on shows like Chicago med or greys anatomy or scrubs. Etc. they're all MD, FACS. And stuff like that lol
 
IslandStyle808 said:
Yeah, and nearly all the people on there are from Harvard, Yale, Hopkins, Columbia, Stanford or some random made up school.
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That's a typical doctor-show trope: the leads always have impeccable credentials and are the greatest minds in their fields. Why not show average doctors, or even bad ones? Would be more interesting (albeit maybe scarier).
 
Señor S said:
That's a typical doctor-show trope: the leads always have impeccable credentials and are the greatest minds in their fields. Why not show average doctors, or even bad ones? Would be more interesting (albeit maybe scarier).
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Ah, yes. I can see it now: "Caribbean M.D.", episode 1, season 1 (drama): Dr. Steve Jones, MD, recent IMG from Windsor SOM at St. Kitts, arrives on his first day of PGY-1 at a community family medicine residency in rural Alaska, only to discover that he lacks the basic pre-clinical training needed to be a competent physician.
 
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zukunft195 said:
Ah, yes. I can see it now: "Caribbean M.D.", episode 1, season 1 (drama): Dr. Steve Jones, MD, recent IMG from Windsor SOM at St. Kitts, arrives on his first day of PGY-1 at a community family medicine residency in rural Alaska, only to discover that he lacks the basic pre-clinical training needed to be a competent physician.
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Hey some great docs came out of the Caribbean! The Todd went there!
o-SCRUBS-TODD-570.jpg
 
zukunft195 said:
Ah, yes. I can see it now: "Caribbean M.D.", episode 1, season 1 (drama): Dr. Steve Jones, MD, recent IMG from Windsor SOM at St. Kitts, arrives on his first day of PGY-1 at a community family medicine residency in rural Alaska, only to discover that he lacks the basic pre-clinical training needed to be a competent physician.
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If you are saying this, you are not watching enough TV. Guess who this guy is (you better not image search..)
Dave_malucci.jpg
 
AlbinoHawk DO said:
Not even for osteo-pathy? this guy must have a negative GPA
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Clearly a big Sopranos fan. I recently saw that scene again and cringed. There are DOs out there but they lay public doesn't know what they are so they say MD on the screen. If you are observant you will see DO on their coat.
 
Mr. Mojo Risin said:
There are quite a few DOs on Untold Stories of the ER.


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Yea I have noticed DOs on that show. Hence why I said the documentaries show more DOs cause they're more accurate than other shows like Greys or Chicago med or other shows like scrubs etc.
 
The real life physician that The Fugitive is based on was a DO, but they made Harrison Ford's character an MD in the movie.
 
Señor S said:
That's a typical doctor-show trope: the leads always have impeccable credentials and are the greatest minds in their fields. Why not show average doctors, or even bad ones? Would be more interesting (albeit maybe scarier).
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You missed "St. Elsewhere" and "Going to Extremes," I see.
 
You would think that the AOA would want to retain a great PR firm and try to lobby to have a DO written into a network TV show, even if just a minor character, to introduce "DO" to the public, but alas, the AOA and their PR gurus have settled on "Doctors that DO" ad campaign on the sides of busses, and in Mens Health magazine.
 
The fact of the matter is most Americans have no idea what so ever that the DO degree exists. There's no reason beyond that.
 
Tom Cruise talks about Osteopathy. In that movie, Tom cruise is a physician and he refered his millionair patient to the osteopath to fix his shoulder. I am talking about the movie with Tom Cruise and nicole kidman.
 
Butterfly23 said:
Tom Cruise talks about Osteopathy. In that movie, Tom cruise is a physician and he refered his millionair patient to the osteopath to fix his shoulder. I am talking about the movie with Tom Cruise and nicole kidman.
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Eyes wide shut
 
FWIW, one of my brothers-in-law recently told me with a grin, "so we figured out that you're a DO doctor. A doctor who DOes things" in a sly paraphrase of the ad campaign. I actually appreciated it a whole lot more than my other brother-in-law who, after I had explained that I'm basically the same as an MD, responded totally credulously, "yeah I have a friend who's a chiropractor and he said that his school is essentially the same thing as med school as well."

ortnakas said:
Because both Shonda Rhimes and the general public think doctor means MD.

AOA should ditch their osteopathic distinction campaign and bribe ABC to have the next new character on Grey's have DO on their coat. (Kidding... mostly)
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Do schools should be terminated
 
ortnakas said:
Because both Shonda Rhimes and the general public think doctor means MD.

AOA should ditch their osteopathic distinction campaign and bribe ABC to have the next new character on Grey's have DO on their coat. (Kidding... mostly)
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... you shouldn't joke about those things. Because that's such a better option than the dumb campaign now.
 
In an early episode of Grey's, Christina makes a reference the "party will be DO-dying"
 
ortnakas said:
Because both Shonda Rhimes and the general public think doctor means MD.

AOA should ditch their osteopathic distinction campaign and bribe ABC to have the next new character on Grey's have DO on their coat. (Kidding... mostly)
Click to expand...
This is the kind of brillance I come to SDN for. Unfortunately the AOA will be too busy trying to make us sound like Naturopaths to think of something as simple and effective as just putting a DO as a main character on Grays.
 
I see DO's all the time on non-fiction shows. And commercials.
And the news.

But not fictional tv either. As other said, fictional medical people always went to the best schools in the nation.
 
cryhavoc said:
I see DO's all the time on non-fiction shows. And commercials.
And the news.

But not fictional tv either. As other said, fictional medical people always went to the best schools in the nation.
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What? But my fictional DO character did her DO at PCOM before completing her AOA OMM only residency at MSU! Thats like the Harvard of DO! She can cure cancer with her hands!

Edit: And don't forget her Cranial Fellowship at TCOM!
 
Does Dr. Will from Big Brother count as a character? He was a caricature at least. DO from Nova, now a dermatologist in CA.
 
It's not because no one knows what a DO is.

It's because no one cares.
 
Saw two news articles on physicians this week and both were described as Dr. XYZ. I googled both of them out of boredom and they were both DOs with no mention of anything DO in the articles. First was the trans plastic surgeon speaking against trump. Second was the OB doc who was a patient getting ready to give birth but delivered another patients child as there was no other physician in house at the time.


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The best spot is on Bob's Burgers - when Louise has the sleepover and the boring girl's parents have the most boring job they could think of - osteopaths
 
Because those TV shows are all shown outside the US, but the DO degree is only in the US. Osteopathy in Canada is more naturopathy/unregulated. Everyone would assume they aren't a doctor, because osteopath isn't a doctor outside the US.

Probably not the reputation you want spreading anyways
 
ConfusedChemist said:
Because those TV shows are all shown outside the US, but the DO degree is only in the US. Osteopathy in Canada is more naturopathy/unregulated. Everyone would assume they aren't a doctor, because osteopath isn't a doctor outside the US.

Probably not the reputation you want spreading anyways
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DOs have full medical practice rights in Canada
 
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