why did you decide to choose DO rather than MD?

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DOs are better because we treat the whole person wholly without pumping them full of dangerous vaccines or offering dangerous surgeries like those wackjob MDs do. We are the whole physician and we have this extra room called OMM that allows us to move cranial bones and other wizardry.
 
AnatomyGrey12 said:
DOs are better because we treat the whole person wholly without pumping them full of dangerous vaccines or offering dangerous surgeries like those wackjob MDs do. We are the whole physician and we have this extra room called OMM that allows us to move cranial bones and other wizardry.
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Is the salary still as good?


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AnatomyGrey12 said:
DOs are better because we treat the whole person wholly without pumping them full of dangerous vaccines or offering dangerous surgeries like those wackjob MDs do. We are the whole physician and we have this extra room called OMM that allows us to move cranial bones and other wizardry.
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It hurts inside.
 
AnatomyGrey12 said:
DOs are better because we treat the whole person wholly without pumping them full of dangerous vaccines or offering dangerous surgeries like those wackjob MDs do. We are the whole physician and we have this extra room called OMM that allows us to move cranial bones and other wizardry.
Click to expand...

Bone wizards extraordinare!

Me personally, I went to DO school; because, I wanted to learn how to diagnose an MI by rubbing the patient’s back and treat a patient’s soul as well as their body. Either that, or DO is where I got an acceptance, and I wanted to be a doctor no matter the letters behind my name. It’s one of those two things. They let me stick needles and tubes in people and pay me for it, so what do I care?!
 
Coolee20 said:
what makes you better for DO than MD? after shadowing a DO and MD did you see any difference?
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A common theme of my students who chose DO > MD was that they had medical problems that weren't helped by MDs, but were by DOs.

Now before you all set the thread on fire and we get dumped into the SPF, I'm only reporting the news, not making it.

Second most common reason was "I like the philosophy".

Data may be skewed by the fact that we're west of the Missouri River, and the CA candidates seem to prefer to stay closer to home than go all the way to, say, Drexel, VCU, Albany, or Gtown.
 
Okay, this is absolute non sense (lets pretend these post are not sarcasm or satire bc lets face it, there are people that literally claim this stuff and are dead serious in real life. Just wait till you meet them.). Lets be real here.

I have worked with both MD's and DO's. I have met great DO's and great MD's that treated patients as a whole. It drives me up the wall when people start spouting non sense that characterized MD's as these clinicians that focus on the disease rather than the individual. Absolute nonsense because it all boils down to the individual who is the physician. Seriously, stop this circle jerk of philosophies.

Even during my interview, the dean of DO school tried to perpetuate this crap, and it infuriated me, especially considering he has MD's teaching his DO students. He used some example of how he was able to better treat a patient than an MD, and it was literally a story of him measuring his clinical skills and his metaphoric dong compared to another peer who had a different title. This dean clearly wanted his ego stroked when he asked, "is there a difference between DO's and MD's?". This just continues to differentiate the two professions that are almost exactly the same at the end of the day, and is probably a root problem that segregates the two titles and leads to unfair mistreatment and assumptions about many DO physicians that we see in residency match.

This reminds me when I was looking into PA school, and how there seemed to be a similar situation between PA Vs NP and MD vs DO. PA's are trained under the "medical" model of school that is focused on the "disease" while nurses are trained under a "nurse" model that is focused on treating the "individual". Are you saying PA's do not treat individuals? Are you saying NP's do not treat disease? After speaking to PA's and NP's, whom both agreed were stupid marketing terms, I believe the same applies to MD's and DO's.

Do not pigeon whole an entire profession, MD's, based on some bad experience with one. Whether or not you agree with OMM or OMT is a different topic. Some people pick DO because they truly believe in OMT often based on personal experience. Many pick DO's because that is there only option to pursue their dreams of becoming a physician.
 
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Geomamaearth said:
Okay, this is absolute non sense (lets pretend these post are not sarcasm or satire bc lets face it, there are people that literally claim this stuff and are dead serious in real life. Just wait till you meet them.). Lets be real here.

I have worked with both MD's and DO's. I have met great DO's and great MD's that treated patients as a whole. It drives me up the wall when people start spouting non sense that characterized MD's as these clinicians that focus on the disease rather than the individual. Absolute nonsense because it all boils down to the individual who is the physician. Seriously, stop this circle jerk of philosophies.

Even during my interview, the dean of DO school tried to perpetuate this crap, and it infuriated me, especially considering he has MD's teaching his DO students. He used some example of how he was able to better treat a patient than an MD, and it was literally a story of him measuring his clinical skills and his metaphoric dong compared to another peer who had a different title. This dean clearly wanted his ego stroked when he asked, "is there a difference between DO's and MD's?". This just continues to differentiate the two professions that are almost exactly the same at the end of the day, and is probably a root problem that segregates the two titles and leads to unfair mistreatment and assumptions about many DO physicians that we see in residency match.

This reminds me when I was looking into PA school, and how there seemed to be a similar situation between PA Vs NP and MD vs DO. PA's are trained under the "medical" model of school that is focused on the "disease" while nurses are trained under a "nurse" model that is focused on treating the "individual". Are you saying PA's do not treat individuals? Are you saying NP's do not treat disease? After speaking to PA's and NP's, whom both agreed were stupid marketing terms, I believe the same applies to MD's and DO's.

Do not pigeon whole an entire profession, MD's, based on some bad experience with one. Whether or not you agree with OMM or OMT is a different topic. Some people pick DO because they truly believe in OMT often based on personal experience. Many pick DO's because that is there only option to pursue their dreams of becoming a physician.
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My True Beleiver colleagues are especially fond of the "I diagnosed the patient correctly when all the MDs missed it!" meme.

Over the years I have seen fewer and fewer Koolaid posts in the pre-DO forum, so there is hope for the world. We just have to wait for the current generation of AOA elders to die off.
 
Goro said:
My True Beleiver colleagues are especially fond of the "I diagnosed the patient correctly when all the MDs missed it!" meme.

Over the years I have seen fewer and fewer Koolaid posts in the pre-DO forum, so there is hope for the world. We just have to wait for the current generation of AOA elders to die off.
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So they are all House, DO huh?
 
Goro said:
My True Beleiver colleagues are especially fond of the "I diagnosed the patient correctly when all the MDs missed it!" meme.
Click to expand...

One of the OMM profs my first year told us that she’d diagnosed an MI on a patient with chest pain by checking viscerosmomatics, then a few days/weeks later, same patient, the MD wasn’t sure, and she ruled it out, once again, by checking vicerosomatics. I thought that was so cool at the time. A few months later, the BS of all that ridiculousness started to become clear (honestly, it was cranial that really jarred me out of my love for OMM).
 
Angus Avagadro said:
Last I checked, my MD partners got paid the same as I did.
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That's just what they want you to think
 
I had a DO interviewer (alumni physician) straight out tell me don't come here if you get an MD acceptance. I'm now a physician (ok, resident with a DO). If I'm ever in the same position I'd still give the same advice (with that caveat of "all things being equal" and they never are...)
 
My undergrad coursework was mostly 5+ years old which was considered “expired” by my state MD schools. I don’t know if I would have gotten a high enough mcat to get accepted tbh bc there was never any real incentive to try. OOS MD and private DO cost the same so I was like “meh”.
 
I didn't choose the DO life, the DO life chose me. But I'm okay with it 🙂

I remember when I was interviewing, I said the whole BS "I want to learn OMM so badly and the holistic view resonates with me" and wouldn't feel good about that after.

After a couple of interviews, I changed my narrative to, "I am open to learning OMM because I see a potential benefit for it because I'm an athletically inclined person. I shadowed a few DO docs and they had an influence on me." That felt a lot better because it was honest.

Choose your narrative honestly
 
Go DO if you don't care about research opportunities. We spend more time learning clinical and interpersonal skills than our MD counterparts. At least that is true of my DO program. Also if you want ENT or ortho, run to your MD state school and beg for an acceptance.
 
PapaStill said:
Go DO if you don't care about research opportunities. We spend more time learning clinical and interpersonal skills than our MD counterparts. At least that is true of my DO program. Also if you want ENT or ortho, run to your MD state school and beg for an acceptance.
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My MD school spends a lot of time on clinical and interpersonal skills....
 
I am at a MD school, but the one thing that I remember from shadowing a DO was OMM and how the doctor said "it's a fantastic placebo". He knew it wasn't that much better than a sugar pill, still did it, and his patients loved him for that. I'm sure his HCAP scores were great. When it comes down to it, I think it's great that there can be this great convergence of the two professions that have very different histories and pathways but have reached the same point: EBM and similar training models. I think it's super important as a future physician to treat all colleagues (including DOs) with the respect they deserve. Medical school sucks in a way that pretty much no one can understand except those who have done it.

From what I've seen with friends who are at DO schools it can be even worse. I know at DO schools it can be even worse due to the added stressors of COMLEX, residency issues, rural locations, clinical rotations, lack of research, etc. But they've still gone through the grinder.

I had to go the ER about six months ago with some bad abdominal pain (ended up being appendicitis). The doctor that saw me was a DO. She took out the ultrasound and diagnosed it, then called the surgeon on call. It was bad***. If I had seen a PA that day I would've been livid and scared.
 
My clinical reason for wanting to go DO was because I originally wanted to go into ortho. I certainly didn't buy into a lot of OMM, but OMM does require one to have a stronger understanding of the musculoskeletal system including insertions and origins, soft tissue, and general force vectors of muscles in relation to the skeletal system. I thought that would help me when it came to performing surgery at the highest level. I do maintain that this could be a potential upside to learning OMM, but not a reason to choose DO over MD.

The main reasons I chose DO over MD were cost, geographic location (this was important for both myself and my wife in terms of her family and career), and fit. It was a multifactorial thing for me which had almost nothing to do with differences in the academic aspect of MD vs. DO.

fldoctorgirl said:
because my boyfriend gets a kick out of me learning how to "massage"
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This is a huge perk. Anyone that left OMM lab not feeling fantastic either wasn't doing lab right or had a partner who sucked at OMM.

NicMouse64 said:
I am at a MD school, but the one thing that I remember from shadowing a DO was OMM and how the doctor said "it's a fantastic placebo". He knew it wasn't that much better than a sugar pill, still did it, and his patients loved him for that. I'm sure his HCAP scores were great
Click to expand...

Had a very prominent MD come and teach board prep at my school who said he actually wished he knew OMM for this exact reason. When you perform OMM your patients will leave your office feeling better than when they came in. Even if it doesn't do anything to actually correct their condition they'll love you as a doc which is great for patient loyalty and getting patients referred to you. It's just a good business tactic, especially for those going into private practice.
 
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ciestar said:
My MD school spends a lot of time on clinical and interpersonal skills....
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I'm not trying to say that they don't by any means. And I realize that I'm stereotyping all MD schools as research powerhouses, I know. I'm saying that our bread and butter is interpersonal and primary care clinical skills. That is just specifically our emphasis.
 
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