Aren’t DOs also Doctors of Medicine? Do they have the same years of training as what MDs have?

I thought they could do everything an MD can do (even surgery) but they just pay more attention to the whole person rather than just treating a hurt arm (for example).

How is being a DO less prestigous than an MD?

Excuse me…How does being a DO have “NOT THE SAME RING” than an MD?

Does it really matter whether he’s a DO or an MD? What matters most is his heroic acts. People don’t care whoever you are when you save their lives. They see the person in YOU!

The tags after your name is irrelevant if you haven’t done any good to mankind.

The myth is perpetuated by anonymous 10:57.

D.O.s are Doctors of osteopathy, which is the only other significant school of western medicine to have survived the efficacy shakeout of the early 20th century. The other group is allopathy, which is more commonly known as the school of practice associated with schools granting the degree Doctor of Medicine also known as Medical Doctor, M.D.

Yes, now the curriculum is virtually identical. This is not surprizing because the organism they treat is the same; there is a natural convergence of the science and practice of medicine dictated by the natural biology involved.

Now the myth busting. D.O. do not as a group do anything more holistically than M.D.s It’s all marketing that they’ve managed to perpatuate. With a little fun with numbers (lies, damn lies, and statistics) they try to support this supposition by observing that a greater percentage of graduates are in primary care. This in itself means nothing. It is also true that physicians born in India are more likely to be in primary and rural practice than U.S. born physicians, but this describes nothing about the holism or their practice.

What the hell is holist medicine anyway. You have to define it first before you can determine whether someone does it more.

The D.O. school is an alternative pathway to becoming a physician for those who
were not accepted to M.D. school. In their curriculum, the D.O.’s are also taught spinal manipulation which is not in the M.D. curricullum. M.D.’s are more nerdy than D.O.’s. and for this reason it is more probable that a D.O. will risk his life to save his comrades in the battlefield because an M.D. brain thinks of all the possibilities,risks and benefits in the short term and long term, and will consider that his own survival is more important for the long term survival of the human race because his nerdy DNA has to be passed on to future generations. Warrior DNA’s are easier to propagate than nerdy DNA’s. – Anonymous M.D.

I don’t think the original post was in any way suggesting D.O.’s are inferior to M.D.’s actually. He was pointing out that Newsweek made an error in assigning credentials. And the reason they may have intentionally done this is because of the lack of public awareness about D.O.’s (mainly realizing that they are in fact physicians and surgeons too). People either don’t know what it is at all, think that they’re optometrists (I’ve heard this one a lot- “isn’t that doctor of optometry?”) or think they’re some kind of mid-level (P.A., N.P.) or ancillary provider (D.C’s, etc).

I don’t fully agree with the idea that oseopathic schools are for people who can’t get into allopathic schools. Yes, the average GPA and MCATS of entering classes are typically lower on the whole but

a.) there are around a dozen or so osteopathic schools (11? 14?17? something like that) and allopathic schools number in the hundreds.

b.) a lot of children of oseopaths intentionally seek out the D.0. degree over the M.D., as do a few others who want the OM training or agree with some aspect of the osteopathic philosophy

c.) perhaps the most well-qualfied, ambitious applicants purposefully only consider allopathic schools because D.O.’s are less well known and therefore are often just perceived to have less prestige

Its a self-perpetuating cycle- until the brightest students go there, it won’t be more well-known or respected, but until it is more well-known and respected, the smartest students probably won’t want to go there.

Anonymous M.D.- given that you do not hold a D.O. degree it is probably safe to assume you have not gone through osteopathic training, so therefore I’m not sure what basis you really have to comment on the content of the curriculum, philosophies of the instructors, etc. D.O.’s do still remain significantly different in some respects- the most major of which have been mentioned (O.M. and osteopathic internships.

- anonymous med student (allopathic)/ daughter of a family practice D.O.

that should be “dentists”, of course

You know what, your’re right Anonymous M.D.- that comment should have been directed to Gasman’s post (about not teaching or practicing holistic medicine), not your’s. My apologies.

anonymous med student (allopathic)/ daughter of a family practice D.O.

If I was a D.O., I would have no problem naming the blog Kevin, D.O.

Thanks,
Kevin

Anon 250, your dad will still be proud of you. I’m sure your Mom is proud of you too.
-Anonymous M.D.

But on the battlefield, I’ll have a D.O. anytime. He/she may not be able to save your life in the hospital, but he/she will risk his/her life for you.

My mom had a Dr. for years that she worshipped. There could be none as good as him. My mother had always thought osteopathic Drs. were almost the same as chiropractors.

One day I went to the Doc. with her and noticed the initials “DO” on the sign. She must not have ever paid any attention. When I told her she had been going to an osteopathic Dr. for years she couldn’t believe it. She then knew that there was really no difference in the way they treat patients from an MD. They are both medical Drs…

People show their ignorance when they think there is some big difference or that MDs are superior.

How do you know the manipulation stuff they do is just BS? You are an MD so where is your experience to make such a claim about a practice you don’t participate in?

No need to bash DO’s. You think just because a doc has an MD automatically makes him superior? Do you realize there are plenty of allopathic schools that have lower stats than osteopathic schools? I’m thinking you, Harvard med school graduate, probably think all the physicians are inferior since you graduated from such a SUPERIOR school. Actually, you probably think the nurses and PAs and all the other health professionals are all inferior to you. I’d really hate to be working with you.

All the schoolyard name calling and bickering aside.

It is still interesting that the newsmagazine (presumably) deliberately chose to change the credentials of the doctor. If asked, this doc certainly made clear his credentials. If the newsmagazine failed to fact check their headline then it reeks of sloppy jounalism. Either way, the journalist screwed up.

Even though colleagues in my group carry identical clinical credentials and previleges, we cannot freely interchange the letters (MD or DO) on any identification we use during the practice of medicine as a matter of state law.

I am state med school grad; you are right. The bottom line is nobody would go to DO school if they could get into an allopathic school. The schools cost the same (cheaper if you go to a state med school!); I don’t buy that anyone would choose DO over MD; there may be 1 or 2 fools, but the rest are allopathic rejects.

BTW, I also would never pay $40K a year to go to Harvard med over $4k to go to UCLA med or $10K a year to go to FU State med; I hope you did your residency at Harvard and didn’t go to school there otherwise you’re as big a fool as these DO fools….

Harvard-MD again (yawn)…

Stop bad mouthing osteopaths… they do help alot of people, which is the reason to become a doctor. I would say that the majority, not all, goto DO schools because they could not gain acceptance to an allopathic program. Some want to become a DO for their own reasons, which may be valid in their eyes.

It’s amazing to see how sensitive doctors, MD’s and DO’s alike, are regarding this subject. MD’s need to admit that DO’s can be fine physicians, DO’s should honestly accept that as of 2006 they do not command the same level of respect (salary yes!).

There is an interesting article from the 1999 NEJM entited paradoxes and osteopathy or something or other discussing the subject. DO’s are basically allopaths who learn body manipulation techniques, which in that same issue were shown to be dubious in a randomized study.

And 9:06… I won’t even get into which allopathic school is best. Get a life….

Signing out…

“Harvard-trained MD” you are really sounding like an arrogant quack. I find it highly suspect that you are really a Harvard grad anyway, or even a physician at all, given that you can’t even spell the word “holistic”.

As for OMT, (or “body manipulation stuff” in your sophisticated lingo), you’re an idiot if you think one journal report proves your case. Much like chiropractic, the debate about efficacy has raged on, back and forth, for awhile. Obviously you are welcome to your opinion (which isn’t even worth much considering you aren’t OMT trained and have never practiced it) but do not present it as fact. Just a cursory scan of Google results shows articles in the November 1999 New England Journal of Medicine and 2003 Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine finding OMT helping everything from back and cervical pain to reducing the need for abx in recurrent pediatric OM.

Other than the rare pompous ass like yourself, I’ve never met a physcian who doesn’t accord equal respect for their osteopath colleagues. Perhaps it is only you seeing it this way.

I agree. Patients and the general public may not respect them as much (largely because they don’t know much about them or don’t know what they are at all) but within the physician community I think MDs who have less respect for DOs are the extreme minority.

Woah… 9:59… are you actually reading what I’m saying:

Let’s recap:
1) I do respect DO’s as much as MD’s.
2) On average, lay people are not as aware of them, and they don’t command the same respect on average.
3) I don’t believe in OMT, what’s wrong with that? If this were a onc forum and we were debating chemo then I wouldn’t be a pompous ass, as you put it.

As for going to Harvard, well it takes the same 4-years as other programs, and my family is independently wealthy so cost was no a factor. So given the choice, why not? And yes, state schools are very good. Any american school is very good.

I believe Sam Sheppard was an osteopath (you remember him? The real life model for dr Richard Kimble of “the Fugitive”

Nothing at all wrong with you not believing in OMT. If you will bother to read what I said, you’d see that. The problem is that in your initial post, you identified yourself as some kind of ultimate authority (”let’s get the facts straight and settle this”) and then proceeded to offer your opinion about OMT as some kind of established fact. And when called on it, you cited a single article in a medical journal as your “evidence” which is pretty weak. You are not an expert or authority on a practe in which you have not been trained and do not perform, and you can’t cite any conclusive body of research evidence, so yes your original comments were out of line. You could have very easily said “I don’t believe in it,” but instead you called it “crap” like that was what everyone should think.

phil,
you are young and naive. i was in your shoes once – with that carefree attitude. i bet you are entering medicine to save a few lives right??? but once you leave residency, you will realize how lawyers will be your enemies. you will dread the day when the first law suit comes to you in the certified letter. you will see how patients are so demanding, and despite your trying the best, they will still sue you. you will need a lot of growing up to do.

One reason that a lot of patients don’t know that they are being treated by a D.O. is that some of
these D.O.’s try to hide these letters. Their white coats or their prescription pads will state “Dr. So and So” and omit the D.O..

I figured you guys would say that. And you’re right. I am naive. I have only the slightest idea about the crap that many of you have to go through. Life is unfair, and everyone has something to complain about. Somehow, I just don’t see doctors having it much worse than anyone else. Even if they do, that doesn’t change my point that anonymous name-calling and arrogance in a forum is pointless and irritating to those trying to get information. I’m all for statistics, argument, and interesting stories, but come on. Calling someone an idiot or fool doesn’t lend you a whole lot of credibility.

Anyhow, carry on w/ the interesting thread. Didn’t mean to send it off-track into another malpractice argument. A few months ago I was trying to prepare for an interview at a school where they had asked a few candidates “Why not DO?” Reading this would’ve helped.