Will this merger create a significant difference in competition for DO?

[TurkTurkleton92]

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I think the title asks my question, and although I'm sure no one has a definite answer, I'd like to read what everyone else has to say.

As someone who prefers DO over MD, I'm worried that my chances will decrease significantly, and my list of schools is going to have to be reconsidered greatly.

 

[IMDoc607]

No I don't think so. Those that wanted the MD will still want the MD. The only people it might bring back is some questionable carribean applicants who at most are bordeline to low quality DO applicants.

 

[TreadLightly]

Not in the slightest.

 

[Mehd School]

Getting into medical school? I doubt it. Getting that ortho residency? Nobody knows yet, but I'll go out on a limb and say probably.

The MD's that really want Ortho, ENT, Derm, etc will probably "stoop down" to old AOA residencies to fulfill their goals rather than switch over to IM or something less competitive. At least that's what I'd do.

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

Dramatically? No, but can I see a 1 or 2 points increase in osteopathic mcat averages? Yes. I think it'll mainly come from people who won't want to reapply MD that will feel okay as long as they are assured their training will be ACGME.

 

[EMDO2018]

Honestly though, if you are a DO student who is not great at standardized test and wants to match into a surgical specialty, derm, rad onc, or something lie that, this is bad news for you.

 

[gocougs339]

Getting into medical school? I doubt it. Getting that ortho residency? Nobody knows yet, but I'll go out on a limb and say probably.

The MD's that really want Ortho, ENT, Derm, etc will probably "stoop down" to old AOA residencies to fulfill their goals rather than switch over to IM or something less competitive. At least that's what I'd do.

My thoughts exactly, luckily I want to do FM but I'd have my concerns as a DO that would want to specialize in something competitive.

 

[BestDoctorEver]

Getting into medical school? I doubt it. Getting that ortho residency? Nobody knows yet, but I'll go out on a limb and say probably.

The MD's that really want Ortho, ENT, Derm, etc will probably "stoop down" to old AOA residencies to fulfill their goals rather than switch over to IM or something less competitive. At least that's what I'd do.

I agree...There will be fierce competition for DO students who are going to aim for ROAD...

 

[edgerock24]

I agree...They will be fierce competition for DO students who are going to aim for ROAD...

I agree except for gas. It's become significantly less competitive over the years and very attainable for DO's.

 

[user3]

I agree except for gas. It's become significantly less competitive over the years and very attainable for DO's.

same goes for radiology and opthalmology, which have dropped substantially in competitiveness. Derm is still very competitive though.

 

[IslandStyle808]

Honestly though, if you are a DO student who is not great at standardized test and wants to match into a surgical specialty, derm, rad onc, or something lie that, this is bad news for you.

It won't make a difference for rad onc, if anything it may help (that is if your step scores, clinical grades, and research is good).

 

[Bacchus]

This is about residency training. People are still going to go to the school that is the best fit for them. If I'm a Harvard UG with an MCAT of 38 and 3.97 GPA I'm not going to apply to a DO school. People of "academic prowess" aren't going to apply to DO schools just so they can do better than the rest of their classmates.

 

[NontradCA]

Dramatically? No, but can I see a 1 or 2 points increase in osteopathic mcat averages? Yes. I think it'll mainly come from people who won't want to reapply MD that will feel okay as long as they are assured their training will be ACGME.

Assured the training of ACGME? How many premeds are informed about what constitutes good residency training? Maybe I'm oblivious, but I only have the gist of it from being on SDN. I think most premeds think doctor=good/money/prestige and these people still will go for whatever's more competitive. But who knows, AACOM will be under ACGME now so maybe well see similar admission standards at the undergraduate level.

Edit. Wizard above me.

 

[DrEnderW]

Honestly though, if you are a DO student who is not great at standardized test and wants to match into a surgical specialty, derm, rad onc, or something lie that, this is bad news for you.

Why is it bad news? It was bad news if you had a poor board score and wanted rad onc or ACGME derm or surg subspecialties before too.

It's not like you saw unqualified DOs matching these spots before today. You don't see many MD students with low board scores doing that either. The AOA surg subspecialty programs have very high COMLEX averages. All this does is allow people to take a chance on some current ACGME programs instead of pulling out for AOA spots. Do you think DO PDs that faced serious bias in their days and have been training DOs in their programs for years are going to take less qualified MDs over qualified DOs?

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

Assured the training of ACGME? How many premeds are informed about what constitutes good residency training? Maybe I'm oblivious, but I only have the gist of it from being on SDN. I think most premeds think doctor=good/money/prestige and these people still will go for whatever's more competitive. But who knows, AACOM will be under ACGME now so maybe well see similar admission standards at the undergraduate level.

Edit. Wizard above me.

I don't think pre-meds know about the best residencies and what not, but I do know that almost everyone admitted to medical school tends to have a good GPA, MCAT, EC, etc. Is it really that far fetched to believe serious candidates will know something about ACGME vs AOA training? ****, I bet 90% of this thread are just pre-meds and they seem to understand it's a big deal.

 

[NontradCA]

I don't think pre-meds know about the best residencies and what not, but I do know that almost everyone admitted to medical school tends to have a good GPA, MCAT, EC, etc. Is it really that far fetched to believe serious candidates will know something about ACGME vs AOA training? ****, I bet 90% of this thread are just pre-meds and they seem to understand it's a big deal.

Yes it's far fetched. SDN is not the norm and if you venture to the pre Allo or Allo forums you can see the disinterest in DOs and not for reasons of lesser quality GME.

 

[pietachok]

Getting into medical school? I doubt it. Getting that ortho residency? Nobody knows yet, but I'll go out on a limb and say probably.

The MD's that really want Ortho, ENT, Derm, etc will probably "stoop down" to old AOA residencies to fulfill their goals rather than switch over to IM or something less competitive. At least that's what I'd do.

This is why I'm not so optimistic about this and think they should have announced this to begin with the class entering med school this fall.

The top of the crop of un-matched MD/ACGME applicants to very competitive fields are probably on average going to be stronger than bottom of the crop of matched DO/AOA applicants. It remains to be seen how the "AOA" programs will receive those new MD applicants. I fear the "ACGME" programs have a lot of old boys who are going to take a long time to warm up to applicants from DO schools and have nothing to gain from doing it, while the "AOA" residencies in competitive fields might have far more to gain from getting the absolutely strongest applicants than from showing any loyalty to the DO path. In that case, many MD applicants who would currently end up in their "back-up" specialty will get the "AOA" residency slots and the DO applicants will have to resign to a different field.

If I were a current MS III planning to apply to something like DO Neurosurgery (no clue if that's the best example), I would be really upset -- I'd have been planning for the past 3 years only to have the competitors changed at the last minute. While there is no reason osteopathic applicants can't have amazing scores, evaluations, grades, etc., allopathic students on average have greater access to research opportunities and influential letter writers through affiliation with more/higher-powered institutions, and those are so very prized in the most competitive fields. I worry that borderline competitive DO applicants are going to get pushed out of their fields while fewer borderline competitive MD applicants will be . . . and that's not what people signed up for when they picked their schools.

As a patient, I want the best applicants in the best training programs possible and will be glad to see silly philosophical distinctions get blurred. As a current student, I feel for my peers who are having the rules of this changed mid game.

 

[Bill Brasky]

This is why I'm not so optimistic about this and think they should have announced this to begin with the class entering med school this fall.

The top of the crop of un-matched MD/ACGME applicants to very competitive fields are probably on average going to be stronger than bottom of the crop of matched DO/AOA applicants. It remains to be seen how the "AOA" programs will receive those new MD applicants. I fear the "ACGME" programs have a lot of old boys who are going to take a long time to warm up to applicants from DO schools and have nothing to gain from doing it, while the "AOA" residencies in competitive fields might have far more to gain from getting the absolutely strongest applicants than from showing any loyalty to the DO path. In that case, many MD applicants who would currently end up in their "back-up" specialty will get the "AOA" residency slots and the DO applicants will have to resign to a different field.

If I were a current MS III planning to apply to something like DO Neurosurgery (no clue if that's the best example), I would be really upset -- I'd have been planning for the past 3 years only to have the competitors changed at the last minute. While there is no reason osteopathic applicants can't have amazing scores, evaluations, grades, etc., allopathic students on average have greater access to research opportunities and influential letter writers through affiliation with more/higher-powered institutions, and those are so very prized in the most competitive fields. I worry that borderline competitive DO applicants are going to get pushed out of their fields while fewer borderline competitive MD applicants will be . . . and that's not what people signed up for when they picked their schools.

As a patient, I want the best applicants in the best training programs possible and will glad to see silly philosophical distinctions get blurred. As a current student, I feel for my peers who are having the rules of this changed mid game.

And as entering medical students, we might have to readjust our expectations of what is and isn't realistic to match into, even within what are currently AOA residencies. This sounds like a great thing in the long-term, but for those of us who will be matching within that 2015-2020 time period I am not so sure.

 

[DrEnderW]

If I were a current MS III planning to apply to something like DO Neurosurgery (no clue if that's the best example), I would be really upset -- I'd have been planning for the past 3 years only to have the competitors changed at the last minute. While there is no reason osteopathic applicants can't have amazing scores, evaluations, grades, etc., allopathic students on average have greater access to research opportunities and influential letter writers through affiliation with more/higher-powered institutions, and those are so very prized in the most competitive fields.

You do realize that all the DO program directors aren't suddenly going to get fired and retired, correct? Why would these PDs take MD students over DO students all of a sudden? They are DOs that have trained DOs for years. I don't think you appreciate how few AOA neurosurg spots there are and how qualified the residents are. We aren't talking about average DO students here and that's the misconception. The people crushing med school and boards are now going to have the exact same AOA options that are now ACGME accredited and additionally remove the gamble factor of applying to current ACGME programs they may be competitive for.

Furthermore, why would these previous AOA PDs start valuing things like basic science research over their current metrics when the programs don't even have the infrastructure to support that type of research? Why would a DO PD care if some chair from a state MD school wrote a LOR for an MD when his colleagues are writing perfectly fine letters for his residents already?

People that want academic NS residencies will go take those spots still. The top MD applicants aren't going to be competing for community programs. Top DOs can now broaden their base and apply to more programs. How is this a loss?

 

[johnnycage377]

As someone who plans on becoming a DO, this is good news.
But as a premed who is planning on applying to DO schools in June, I really wish they had delayed this announcement for a year. With more barriers being broken down between MD and DO, of course some people who were only going to apply MD will now also apply DO. And the thing is, there are way more MD applicants than there are DO applicants. Combine this with the fact that in general there are so few med school spots for millions of applicants that even if only a small % of MD applicants go for DO, it's going to have an effect for sure.

And as someone who is applying from California this just makes it even worse 🙁

 

[user3]

As someone who plans on becoming a DO, this is good news.
But as a premed who is planning on applying to DO schools in June, I really wish they had delayed this announcement for a year. With more barriers being broken down between MD and DO, of course some people who were only going to apply MD will now also apply DO. And the thing is, there are way more MD applicants than there are DO applicants. Combine this with the fact that in general there are so few med school spots for millions of applicants that even if only a small % of MD applicants go for DO, it's going to have an effect for sure.

And as someone who is applying from California this just makes it even worse 🙁

You are being paranoid

 

[pietachok]

You do realize that all the DO program directors aren't suddenly going to get fired and retired, correct? Why would these PDs take MD students over DO students all of a sudden? They are DOs that have trained DOs for years.

. . . Why would a DO PD care if some chair from a state MD school wrote a LOR for an MD when his colleagues are writing perfectly fine letters for his residents already?

Actually, the PDs are not all DOs, and that is one of the reasons I was wondering aloud if this will change the game a little. One of the intangibles in residency applications is connections -- who knows who, who has familiarity with your school, etc. Previously the MDs who are faculty at osteopathic programs could not advocate for MD applicants, and now they will be able to. Conversely, there will be no change to the status quo with regards to DO applicants to ACGME residencies, b/c they've been applying for years -- and at many places against a significant bias.

We aren't talking about average DO students here and that's the misconception. The people crushing med school and boards . . .
Furthermore, why would these previous AOA PDs start valuing things like basic science research over their current metrics when the programs don't even have the infrastructure to support that type of research?

I never said they were average. My understanding is they do they same things to make their applications competitive -- research, etc. Which would imply that the osteopathic residencies care about academic prowess. So applicants who were more readily able to participate in research will benefit, and that favors MD students as several DO schools have no home hospitals to arrange research in these fields and/or send their students from city to city in a way that makes the same type of research difficult to accomplish. The prior applicant pool was all functioning within these same limitations . . . now the applicant pool is going to include people who have fewer limitations.

People that want academic NS residencies will go take those spots still. The top MD applicants aren't going to be competing for community programs. Top DOs can now broaden their base and apply to more programs. How is this a loss?

And what about the several MD applicants who want *any* residency in the field and just barely missed matching by NRMP? Why do you think they are unwilling to take these "community" spots. Top DOs were able to apply to the ACGME programs already . . . no reason to believe that PDs who weren't open to them before will be open to them now.

By no means can I predict what will happen or am I claiming to be fully informed on the intricacies of this. I am just positing that this could potentially hurt some students who are already knee deep on some very carefully planned, difficult paths to these competitive residencies/fields, and that I think the risk of this hurting those individuals is great enough that they should have been given lead time to make an informed decision -- i.e. it shouldn't apply to the current 3rd year students. Maybe (hopefully!) I'm going to be completely wrong, but since AOA/ACGME probably don't know for sure, either, I don't know if I like the way they did this.

 

[wjs010]

bottom line, it still seems to me like an above poster said: is an MD applicant who can't match ACGME ortho going to go into IM just so he/she won't have to go to an AOA residency? Hell no. They will swoop right in and take the next available spot that allows them to math ortho...which will indeed force that DO ortho applicant to switch fields..that is the only really scary thing to me about this merger. everything else seems fine, but this doesn't.

 

[StarFall]

So what I'm getting from this merger is that MDs can now apply to DO residency positions and vice versa. This means more competition across the residency positions, thus meaning there are no more empty residency spots like there was in the past.
Although DOs now have more opportunities, doesn't it also mean that MDs can use the DO residencies as a "backup" and take away those spots from DOs?

I'm taking this as a bad thing but I'm still not sure..

 

[wjs010]

So what I'm getting from this merger is that MDs can now apply to DO residency positions and vice versa. This means more competition across the residency positions, thus meaning there are no more empty residency spots like there was in the past.
Although DOs now have more opportunities, doesn't it also mean that MDs can use the DO residencies as a "backup" and take away those spots from DOs?

I'm taking this as a bad thing but I'm still not sure..

Exactly... It basically sounds like DO will have less chance of matching that ROD specialty. Of course the extremely high scoters will, but seems to me there will be less matching for DO's wanting those specialties.

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

bottom line, it still seems to me like an above poster said: is an MD applicant who can't match ACGME ortho going to go into IM just so he/she won't have to go to an AOA residency? Hell no. They will swoop right in and take the next available spot that allows them to math ortho...which will indeed force that DO ortho applicant to switch fields..that is the only really scary thing to me about this merger. everything else seems fine, but this doesn't.

Calm down. That's a potential downside but not a sure one. Remember, AOA will now be all over ACGME boards. Imagine if constantly statistics come in saying that the one guy with a 260 USMLE didn't match into Stanford Internal Medicine was the DO but every MD with 240 or higher got in? The ACGME will be forced to open doors to DO graduates to maintain peace within the ranks. Trust me, MDs have been salivating at consuming the DO profession for decades.

 

[wjs010]

Calm down. That's a potential downside but not a sure one. Remember, AOA will now be all over ACGME boards. Imagine if constantly statistics come in saying that the one guy with a 260 USMLE didn't match into Stanford Internal Medicine was the DO but every MD with 240 or higher got in? The ACGME will be forced to open doors to DO graduates to maintain peace within the ranks. Trust me, MDs have been salivating at consuming the DO profession for decades.

That last part was my point lol... Won't they now have more of a chance than ever? Yes your point is true, and I understand that. There are definitely good and bad things about it. But i think the one thing that trumps ALL is to be able to apply to one match and not have to be paranoid and drop out of ACGME

 

[StarFall]

Exactly... It basically sounds like DO will have less chance of matching that ROD specialty. Of course the extremely high scoters will, but seems to me there will be less matching for DO's wanting those specialties.

This is a scary thought..
Sure, there will be biases for spots, but for now, I think I'm going to take this as it's a bad thing for DOs.
I think the only good thing from this merger is that it sort of "levels the playing field" between MDs and DOs. We're moving towards equality (sort of)!

 

[StarFall]

.

 

[SurgeDO]

bottom line, it still seems to me like an above poster said: is an MD applicant who can't match ACGME ortho going to go into IM just so he/she won't have to go to an AOA residency? Hell no. They will swoop right in and take the next available spot that allows them to math ortho...which will indeed force that DO ortho applicant to switch fields..that is the only really scary thing to me about this merger. everything else seems fine, but this doesn't.

literally lol'd.