The fact that there is this trend of opening new osteopathic schools is troubling. Half of the schools present now have been around for no more than 10 years, yet we have branch campuses opening under the name of these young schools.
What will this lead to is a logical question, and is the very one posed by MacGyver. Ostensibly this will only lead to a watering down of our education, much like the watering down of Major league baseball by expansion. Take for instance the new Bradenton school. Last time I checked, there was no large hospital in Bradenton, and in fact, most of the major hospitals in Florida are used by the current medical schools in the state (UF has Shands, USF has tampa gen, Miami has Jackson, NSU has Broward general and Mt. Sinai). Even FSU is fighting for good clinical spots. What situation does this leave these new students in? From all that I have spoken with, the clincal education is the most important in determining the outcome of one's education. For these new Bradenton students, their clinical future looks bleak, unless they are to be shipped across the country for a decent hospital.
What we should be looking at is the greed of these schools and the greed of the AOA. Clearly the biggest joke in osteopathic education is the post graduate training, or lack thereof. Very few AOA residencies provide one with adequate post graduate training, and this problem will only be compounded by opening new schools. Each issue of the DO, and the JAOA has something in it about osteopathies waning identity. All I have to say to these people is what do you expect? Keep opening schools and driving new graduates into allopathic programs (not that that is a bad thing, as I have alluded to, these are by and large superior programs) and soon the supposed identity of osteopathic medicine will indeed be lost. They keep pumping this seperate but equal slogan into our heads, and they do crap like opening these schools which only compounds the problem.
We as students should be ashamed of the lack of progress that our governing committees present us with. Unfortunatly, I don't share the optimistic view of Slickness when it comes to opening new schools, I can only hope he is right.
BTW, how are you going to tell me that Touro, having only graduated what, two classes, is going to opening up a branch campus.