By: Lyn Jutronich
When I was 24, my primary care provider was a D.O., but I didn’t choose her on purpose. I had simply picked a clinic near my apartment that took my insurance, and she was the first doctor available to see me. I saw the letters D.O. after her name and noticed they were different from the others that had M.D., but I didn’t have any idea what that meant.
I also didn’t care. She was an awesome doctor: friendly, smart, and knowledgeable. Most importantly, she took the time to get to know me and find the root of my medical issues. She prescribed medicine and performed small procedures in the office when necessary. The nurses and the staff seemed to like her. I was happy.
But things weren’t this simple from an admissions standpoint. When I mentioned to pre-meds that they might want to consider osteopathic schools, I was occasionally met with a look like they had smelled bad cheese. I have come to understand that in the pre-medical community, there is stigma attached to osteopathic medicine, perhaps due to the slightly lower admissions numbers for D.O. matriculants (average GPA and MCAT).
The stigma is odd to me, though. From a patient’s perspective, I don’t think the general population knows or cares about the differences between M.D.s and D.O.s. Most patients won’t question the validity of a doctor’s intelligence and credentials, regardless of the letters that follow his or her name. They know that doctors go through many years of difficult schooling, and that’s usually good enough for them. It’s more likely that they’ll deem a doctor unqualified or unprofessional based on character traits or communication style.
After reading a New York Times article by Joseph Berger, I checked out the comments section to gauge people’s feelings on osteopathy and D.O.s. As I suspected, the vast majority of posts from patients were positive:
Other patients had a more objective outlook:
For the most part, it seems that patients do not discriminate based on the M.D. verses D.O. distinction. So where does the stigma come from, and how is it perpetuated?
The majority of posts that disparaged osteopathy and D.O.s were written by M.D. doctors and M.D. students.
These are just a handful of the hundreds of comments left on Berger’s article. Since they’re anonymous, we cannot verify their legitimacy, and we must take them with a grain of salt.
Besides the allure of a personal, hands-on approach, there are practical reasons to pursue osteopathy as well. Medical schools are failing to keep pace with the patient population, and competition for medical careers is getting fiercer. More students are seeing osteopathy as a viable alternative to conventional medical school, or a way to get a medical education with scores that don’t make the traditional cut. As a result, some people inside the medical community view D.O. schools as a “backup plan” or a “plan B” on one’s path toward medicine.
It should be noted, though, that getting into osteopathic school is extremely difficult. According to Berger’s article, 16,500 D.O. students applied for about 6,400 spots in the 2013 cycle. A year later, Touro received 6,000 applications for 270 first-year seats for the Manhattan school and a new campus in Middletown, N.Y. As osteopathy continues to gain traction, the candidate pool grows larger and more competitive.
Many people believe there should be full integration between the two medical disciplines. If the distinction is mostly fabricated, and if they’re indeed receiving nearly identical training, then separating them seems to work against the greater good. The separation and the competition for residency spots will inevitably lead to resentment from both sides, regardless of how similar they might be in reality.
Stay tuned for more articles in the coming weeks, where we’ll compare match lists for residency between M.D. and D.O. students, and offer our top 5 reasons for applying to D.O. schools.