why the f*ck dont DO's do more research!!!

[tigger0821]

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I have to say Im ashamed of the DO field...have you guys ever looked through the new england journal of medicine, or any major medical publication? how many DO's have you ever seen listed...I have been reading the journal for months and have yet to see a single freakn DO in it. and frankly its damn emberassing. Most people are impressed with our philosophy of patient care. and looking to reduce medications...but when it comes to research we are so lagging Im emberassed. I chose a DO school, because I thought the students are less compettive and more friendly, the staff are more reasonable to deal with I got the grades and a very high GPA- bit i liked my school and wanted to live on the west coast- which is near impossible to get into a MD in the west coast coming from the east...well so far the first two turned out very true. I like the kids, and i think our MCAT scores and GPA's our rising every year. My school has a 9 avg MCAT which is comparable to about ten MD schools...so I look at DO schools as just more med schools, to fill the need for more physicians ...esp. in Internal med and family practice. its special that so many DO schools involve themselves in rural areas and poor areas. how many MD's focus on those. but g-ddamnit if you ever want to be taken seriously do research! how many DO's have won NIH grants. how Many DO's have won the NOBEL- not a single one!!! there are nobel laureates who teach in carribean schools, thats pathetic! Im so tired of seeing MD's quoted in every journal , every TV programs, every paper, I never see a fellow DO. im sorry if i seem on a rant. but I strongly hope this generation will start to get involved in research. I interviewed at 7 DO and 4 MD schools. and it seems that most of the schools are building research dept. thats great so start gettin on the band wagon. I have been published twice in a major cardology jornal. and was part of a poster presentation at a major conference. There are a myriad of oppurtunites out there. MD's respect DO's just the same, and are welcoming us to any field of medicine- except the bastards of the American Dermatology Association, which doesnt recognize the DO clerkships "pimple poppers- jerry seinfeld"
so get involved. attend the MD conferences as well as DO, join the AMA and AMSA, if you separate yourself to the point were you think "oh Im a DO were special- we have our own clubs, conferences" well your bull s***ting- and you hurting yourself.,
MD's have been around since the 1600's maybe they weren't called MD's. but the general practice has been around, they have been around longer and we can both learn from eachother. they have better residencies, more established hospitals, and more oppurtunities for research- which is the frontier of medicine, if you lag behind in research your hurting yourself and patients. I want to see more of my fellow classmates in the journal and publications in general.
and how the hell can we be taken seriously with cranial sacral?- do you really think you can treat a damaged nervous system as present in cerebral palsy with this!? are you kidding me? it sad, really sad.
shape up and get out there,
and last how freakn bad is the PR of DO's we have been around since the civil war! 130 years! and only 10% of the country knows who the hell we are. how sad....this hurts us, if a patient looked for a Dr and saw DO and MD who do you think they are going to choose? the geinuses of the AOMA should have called us MDO so people would know we are medical dr's. can you perform surgery? can you prescribe meds? im so tired of hearing this i cringe. MD PHd's called themselves MD! phd's not some other ambiguos **** i know so many kids who went overseas to the carribean and Mexico simply because they were emberassed of being called a DO - because they wanted their patients to not know what they are? are you an optometrist, are you an oral surgeon?
get it together, I am going to get the word out. I plan to. i plan on going to meetings. getting published, attend major conferences and presenting...and to be a professor of medicine. My friend went to a DO for a infection and he told her to lye on the floor and do all these strange things with her mouth and reposition her torsoe. come on! she was so struck back, she was uncomfortable, she just wanted/needed antibiotics, so she had to go to a MD physician and got the treatment she deserved and it was she needed. what f the infection spread, thats dangerous. there is a reason only 20% of DO's practice OMM after med school. and thats 20% of mainly primary care. so thats .2 X .6 only 12% what a waste....
I like our philosophy, I like our attiutde I had the grades for MD school. had the scores, but I liked the quality of people, but I hate OMM like many DO students, besides the lower back pain its been in the new england journal and othe major publications and shown to be an effective treatment, but the rest is a farce and emberassing. if you really think it works support it with data..and if you want to tell me it has been send me the link to the sites. is it in med line, pubmed? i doubt it. you think OMM cures the flu, pneumonia? cures cerbral palsy!!! thats not just shameful but damn near deadly...how would you feel if you were a parent of a child and you got false hopes. I know a thing or two of neurology. I worked along side my step grandfather a world famous parkinsonim expert at RUSH unversity one of the top hospitals, named top 20 in 12 fields including neuro- he worked alongside Dr oliver sacks with L-Dopa, and he laughed and was sad to hear that ridiculos treatment.
do your research and take the USMLE and ace it, show those MD's that DO schools are equivalent to theirs but focus on patient care- bt get in evry other major field we are not just in primary care, we must be brain surgons, derms, opthamiligistm orthopedic surgeons.
and besides the lower back pain, refer to OMM as physical therapy and a fancy massage, nothing else. and someone win the g=d damn NOBEL prize.

 

[tigger0821]

also dont bother being a smart asss about my typos.

 

[Shinken]

To the OP: I haven't read the entire original post (too long, all one big paragraph), but basically DOs do a lot of research (at least in my school). The thing is that the research isn't published by the allopathic journals very frequently.

You seem to be angry for no reason at all. Give it some time and you'll realize the worth of our profession. Research isn't everything. There are plenty of allopathic schools that don't do much research. The main research published comes from a handful of institutions, not from all 110 or so allopathic schools.

Chill out and don't sweat these details. Besides, an important question would be: What are YOU doing about your anger? Are you participating in your school's research? Are you active in a research organization or thinking about research your first summer after MS-I?

 

[Taus]

While I don't agree with everything that you said, most seems on point, whether or not I like to hear it. I chose DO for the same reasons that you did and actually have seen OMM used effectively for several different pathologies, but of course it was in conjunction with standard medicines (I agree- screw cranial...). The one example you used for the infection cure seems to be pretty wierd, and not a very common approach. The only thing that I think you're missing is the value of our extra understanding of the relationship of the musculoskeletal system and form/function.

Regardless of what I said above, and whether or not I agree with all that you said, we do need more people like you in our field to head up research projects. I know it is on the rise at several DO schools, but it is definitely an area that is lagging. Take your angst and put it to use. Good luck to you.

 

[San_Juan_Sun]

I have to say Im ashamed of the DO field...have you guys ever looked through the new england journal of medicine, or any major medical publication? how many DO's have you ever seen listed...I have been reading the journal for months and have yet to see a single freakn DO in it. and frankly its damn emberassing.

What you've got to realize about us DOs is that we're lazy. And stupid. But mainly lazy.

At first, I thought that you wouldn't fit in, seeing your long post and all. But then I read part of it (too lazy to read it all) and I realized it was just a crazy rant. So you're in luck. Crazy fits into the DO world right next to Lazy. Hey, maybe you should run for AOA President.

 

[MikeyLu2010]

i feel your pain, i myself love doing research...

i have yet to attend DO school, im applying to 12 now tho, have 1 publication in AAMC (antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy) .. and have another being submitted for another publication.. anyways i am a big research fan, and a strong advocate of evidence-based medicine..

i will definately be taking the USMLE...just to keep my options open in the futuure..i agree that i rarely see DO's out there in the publication world..but hopefully i will contribute later in my career..

the compassion you have is understandable, and yes..you can definately make a difference!! gl!

 

[drusso]

Have you contacted the national Osteopathic Research Center to inquire about research opportunities?

http://www.hsc.unt.edu/orc/default.asp

 

[dr.z]

Well, there are a lot more MDs than DOs to start with. Chances are you'll see more MDs into research than DOs just by number.

 

[Dies Irae]

What you've got to realize about us DOs is that we're lazy. And stupid. But mainly lazy.

At first, I thought that you wouldn't fit in, seeing your long post and all. But then I read part of it (too lazy to read it all) and I realized it was just a crazy rant. So you're in luck. Crazy fits into the DO world right next to Lazy. Hey, maybe you should run for AOA President.

Oh Good Lord!

 

[Dies Irae]

OP, if the outlook of the profession is so grim to you, why did you choose to become a DO? There are plenty of MDs who use a holistic approach to patient care, and many MD schools are starting to integrate it into their curriculum.

 

[me454555]

To the OP:

I wish there were more people out there who thought like that. While I have no interest in research whatsoever, it does get very dishearteining to see so many brilliant DO's at my hospital and not one in NEJM or other major publication. NEJM may be an allopathic journal but in order to earn respect we must work w/in the system, not against it. I too hate the separtion of DOs from MDs b/c I think it casts us in a the wrong light. We should not be fight to keep ourselves separated, we should try to incorporate more of our philosophy into the mainstream medicine and world of MDs and research.

 

[beastmaster]

OP, you make many valid points.

I can't find a single DO with a publication in the most prestigious journals (NEJM, Science, Nature). There may be a couple of PhDs, publishing FROM a college of osteopathic medicine, but I haven't seen DOs (from any setting) publish. It could be a result of self-selection, DOs being in such small number as it is, made even smaller by students with little interest in rising through the highest ranks of research. Of those remaining with a genuine research interest, it may just be a matter of time.

There shouldn't be any embarassment, however, about the DO degree. It is a prestigious, professional degree, yet it is spit on like an associate degree from a community college. Professions evolve. Students shouldn't be afraid of debate and discussion on the direction of the osteopathic profession.

 

[chaser]

I, for the most part, agree with the OP. I havent even started school yet and I already feel frustrated. Back in April I called my school and tried very hard to get a research project going that lasted up until school started in the fall. I also offered to work for free, just volunteer my time. They couldnt comprehend the fact that I wanted to do research before med school started. I did 2 years of undergrad research and co-authored 2 papers. I plan on doing a competitive residency and research is a very important part of that plus I actually like doing it. Oh well, F@ck it. Next summer I will participate in the university of chicago's summer research program where people are actually serious about research.

 

[wook]

I agree research is important. Start doing research while you are in school. I don't know about OMM, but I recently did a literature review for Emergency Medicine and saw that some DOs had done research. If you want to get a better representation of how many DO's are doing research, you may want to do a medline search. I don't know how many DOs you may find, but you will probably be pleasantly surprised. More research is done than that listed in just NEJM or JAMA.

Wook

 

[docbill]

hopefully this situation will improve.

Lots of DO applicants have a grad degree of some sort. So the fruit of this will show in the future.

The main reason DO schools don't do much money is because they are mostly private schools. And comparing DO schools to MD schools, MD schools are part of a University and have hospitals associated with them... where people can do research (or on campus).

I hope to be a future DO clinician/scientist. But, I earned my grad degrees before starting DO school so they can't take credit for that.

Plus, final note. Research is not in the traditional phil in the primary care role of Osteopathy.

 

[macman]

There are a number of issues we can bring up that tend to frustrate soon to be as well as younger DOs.

We would all like to see more research, some of us would like to see a combined match, some folks want others things changed in the profession.

The older generation had different battles to fight and were largely preoccupied with legal battles to get the profession on an equal footing in terms of opportunities to practice and train.

Hopefully our generation will use the collective frustration about things like lack of research to motivate us to take the D.O. degree to a new level. There are resources within the profession to help you, but largely we may have to clear our own path rather than wait to be mentored in this regard.

I would say to those interested in academic medicine that you should take advantage of the resources of major medical centers for rotations, research, and residency training. When you are searching for a position after residency/fellowship, people will put a lot more stock in where you trained than where you went to med. school.

 

[bobg504]

Well, I am one DO student that is serious about research. I just finished doing summer research at Mayo Clinic and can tell you that there are a lot of DOs doing great research there. If you want to do research you can. Have you ever thought that alot of DOs prefer patient care?

 

[tigger0821]

Hi,
I wrote my last post at 200am so looking it over it was a little harsh, but it definitely caught your attention, and many of you seem to agree of the need for more DO's to distinguish themselves not just as clinicians but as scientists and professors, whether that be at MD or DO schools. It shouldn’t matter because 99.9% of our science should be and is the same. I so glad many of you share similar beliefs.
I definitely believe students who attend DO schools will be more open minded and have a slightly different approach to medical care because of the environment which they have been brought up in, and the way people have treated them...just look at the models of evolution we studied about the birds from both sides of the grand canyon- (divergent I think) after such a long period of time two genetically equivalent mammalians became so different based on a slightly diff. environment that they could not longer mate...I hope we decide to work parallel to each other. If any of the two branches of medical education have shown greater flexibility, reasoning, and growth it is not the osteopaths, but the allopaths. Sorry to say.
If any of you saw a Dateline special about Harvard University in 1998 trying to teach their students how to empathize with their patients by having first years visit AIDS patients, the elderly, cancer patients etc. You would see that MD schools have learned a system of logic that greater patient care leads to less recovery time, less meds, and better treatment. Numerous studies mostly MD fueled have proven this. Sure we knew it from the beginning from simple logic, instinct and heart. But they have adapted.
Do any of you remember the movie "The Doctor" with William Hurt? I think in 1990...In short it was about a famous heart surgeon in San Francisco who was a little obnoxious, carefree, selfish etc. who was diagnosed by an even more brass and repugnant MD of throat cancer. He was facing losing his voice permanently...the experiences he went through, and the people he met along the way changed his life, perspective, and general approach to medicine. In a sense he became a DO lol. Because he now was very tough on his students to stop referring to patients as cases or diseases but recognizing their names, and being more kind, feeling and heartfelt. Because he saw the insidious nature of how some allopathic schools teach medicine as an institution, as a science without heart and care. He went so far as taking his residents clothes dressing them in gowns, and putting diseases around their neck on paper and declaring..." for the next week you will sleep in beds patients with each sickness, you will eat hospital food, and you will wear these gowns, and will experience every humiliation your patients do...so you will never forget their experience."
It was films like these and experiences like these that forwarded me in the direction of DO, and tipped the scales. But when it came to basic science, laboratory techniques, genetics, immunology, biochem, MDs are at an advantage. The USMLE extensively covers each of these topics, and the COMLEX ignores some almost entirely (ahem ahem…esp. lab techiniques).
Graduates of MD schools have more respect and acknowledgment in the general community. Can this change? Can we learn and adopt to displace are deficiencies as allopaths have in the last 20 years? Abso-fu**ing-lutely. ;-)
I am ready to do my part. I have already set up with two other students in my school to open the SIGN chapter. SIGN is the students association of the American Neurology Academy. It is a major chapter and almost every school MD/DO has it. Mine didn't, I was extremely upset, so I found two other students who wanted it and this year it’s opening. We are TEAMING up with UCLA, so they can advise us in setting conferences, shadowing etc. This one of many examples of how a simple student can make a splash in the sea of bureaucracy...
Good luck
I wish you all well

 

[dr.z]

hopefully this situation will improve.

Lots of DO applicants have a grad degree of some sort. So the fruit of this will show in the future.

The main reason DO schools don't do much money is because they are mostly private schools. And comparing DO schools to MD schools, MD schools are part of a University and have hospitals associated with them... where people can do research (or on campus).

I hope to be a future DO clinician/scientist. But, I earned my grad degrees before starting DO school so they can't take credit for that.

Plus, final note. Research is not in the traditional phil in the primary care role of Osteopathy.

I'm there with you.

 

[Elysium]

What you've got to realize about us DOs is that we're lazy. And stupid. But mainly lazy.

At first, I thought that you wouldn't fit in, seeing your long post and all. But then I read part of it (too lazy to read it all) and I realized it was just a crazy rant. So you're in luck. Crazy fits into the DO world right next to Lazy. Hey, maybe you should run for AOA President.

Post of the year. So true. I think we have another "Turtle" (aka George "the Penguin" Thomas in the works! The grammar and spelling errors are right in line with the overall accuracy of the DO world in general). Welcome to the club!

 

[!dr_nick!]

OP, if the outlook of the profession is so grim to you, why did you choose to become a DO? There are plenty of MDs who use a holistic approach to patient care, and many MD schools are starting to integrate it into their curriculum.

Dies! Come on! Nobody chooses the DO route except when they couldnt get into US allo and they dont want to carribean. 🙄

 

[raspberry swirl]

hmm i actually just read an article on hyponatremia in the NEJM written by a DO nephrologist and a DO internist, and some PhD. and i read another article, i forget which journal because my attending had printed it out for me, written by a DO internist on cocaine related chest pain. and i know that i have read others. anytime my attending prints out an article for my team to read, if it was written by a DO he usually underlines it, because he knows im always interested to see what DOs have written. to the OP, you must have missed an issue or two 😉

 

[Dies Irae]

Dies! Come on! Nobody chooses the DO route except when they couldnt get into US allo and they dont want to carribean. 🙄

The Don was accepted to 2 DO schools and 1 MD school. The Don cannot manage to be so far away from home to go to the MD school. The Don forsees that whether he is DO or MD, panties will be equally dropped. the Don chose to go to the DO school. 😀