What is a D. What is an M. Physician specialties Many D. Should you choose a D. Related Stories. Three reasons to see your doctor now. Vaccinations adults need to have. View all related stories. Share this story. Download the app today! Living Better. According to St. Ultimately, prospective students should consider the school and curriculum to determine which one best suits them. MD and DO programs have similar requirements when it comes to education. Over 53, applicants applied to medical schools in the U.
Of those students, the average MCAT score was These averages were both slightly higher than those of the — and — school years. Once in medical school, a student of either program needs to complete 4 years of study. Their curriculum consists of both science courses and clinical rotations. The main difference is that those studying for a DO degree need to complete an additional hours of study on the musculoskeletal system.
The difference in approach also means that students in DO and MD programs will take different licensing exams. George University , both exams occur in three parts, and usually:. The licensing tests will also differ. Both require rigorous study and residency programs in order to gain licensure. The main difference between the two programs is that DOs learn osteopathic medicine, while MDs learn allopathic medicine.
However, this does not mean that MD training does not teach a holistic or preventive approach to addressing medical conditions. Unlike MD students, DO students will also undergo hands-on musculoskeletal training, called osteopathic manipulative treatment. Doctors who scored better on their MCAT prior to starting medical school have not been found to have better patient outcomes. Yes, a doctor needs to be able to draw on stored information about health and disease but also critical is the ability to hear what the patient is saying and integrate facts with awareness of what will be most helpful to the individual in need of care.
A friend once told me that he had to have an MD of internal medicine in order to get and take Flurazepam, a sleeping pill. My dad had successful outcome quad bypass in by a very experienced, credentialed, respected MD. Small midwest urban area. Dad suffers from severe PAD, requiring a surgical procedure. He is a nice enough person, but he received a BA, not BS undergrad and I had never heard of the medical school he attended. He did a vascular surgery fellowship. What is a fellowship?
Should I look for an MD for this procedure? Or trust that the retiring MD would hire a qualified DO? So an internal medicine doc can choose to focus on heart, or lung, or kidney for example.
A BA simply means that the person took a foreign language in undergrad.. A doctor is a doctor. A fellowship is actually prestigious so someone who has not only gone through residency but a fellowship is actually someone who has been more highly educated. I have seen both MD and DO. The MD treats the symptom. The DO wants to know why you have that symptom.
I have always been told that you needed a good Internist. My husband and I started seeing one. He was rude, plus was just basically there for the money. We stuck it out for a couple years. He never even check my husbands prostate. We changed to a DO a year ago. I will never see a MD again. Our new doctor is through. He checks out everything. Takes the time to talk to you. I love him. My current primary care doctor is an MD. I have talked with him recently about adding some food-based supplements to hopefully assist with the arthritis in my back.
He would have nothing to do with it and recommended I stick with my current muscle relaxant and pain killers. I know what I would LIKE to be taking but want someone to talk to to make sure that I am going to harm myself with meds and supplements that may potentially not be safe to take together.
Is a DO the right direction or is there another type of Dr I should be looking into? Any help is most welcome. Thank you in advance. No harm in at least speaking to a DO and getting more information. You may be pleasantly surprised. My husband and I certainly were. It does not matter where your physician trained, it does not matter their degree.
The only thing is competency and compassionate care. My wife was hospitalized for 3 months and we saw nearly physicians, some were MDs, some DOs.
Most were the most uncompassionate morons with no knowledge base at all. I am not praising D. But from my experience it does not matter. But for those of you against D. I want to say that two of my M.
So in the end does D. Probably because they already graduated from medical school…? I plan to focus on my patients as a whole and their well-being rather than simply getting rid of their disease. Their MCAT scores and grades were too low.
Nor would I let a PA treat me. These are made up degrees designed to boost college coffers via tuition by admitting unqualified students. My gosh are you biased. Rest assured Mike, judging by the way you speak, none of us doctors would even want to place ourselves within 3 miles of creatures like you ;. Good luck finding that MD who can tolerate you tho.
Actual DOs and even MDs on here have corrected the kind of blather you just spewed. While I am not a doctor, I do have a unique point of view. First, I am a retired medical social worker who worked in hospice caring for the dying.
Loved the job. After years of working in hospice, where you must treat the whole person, family, etc. To me, those are the hallmarks of a great doctor.
Now, in addition to being a hospice social worker, I sadly also have Cystic Fibrosis, a genetic life limiting illness. Total bummer. I recently changed doctors from a MD to a DO. Yes, he put me on two short acting regimes! He would see me for all of 5 minutes, and write the scripts.
Now he was not mean at all, was nice to me, but did not spend much time with me and it seemed his solution was to always write a prescription. I decided that I wanted to come down from this dose, and that I needed to see a doctor closer to me, but also one who agreed with my plan to titrate down. I ended up finding a DO who said he could help. At the first visit with him, he said in managing pain, he has no problems writing a prescription when needed, but that he also wanted to try new and different things to help with my pluretic pain.
During the visit we did diaphragm work, as well as some of the techniques listed in the article above. He also talked about diet, supplements which a person with CF lacks due to poor digestion , and other things we can do, in addition to taking pain meds, to care for my pain. In other words, he said you can have some flakes on both sides, and some real Jems on both sides. That doctors make mistakes too.
The amount of ignorance in these posts is astonishing. However, thats our culture and society, ignorant, misinformed, unintelligent. But again, ignorance is bliss. Medicine has become a joke. Suffering is a way of life for these individuals. Naproxen, aspirin, ibuprofen, and all that similar junk neither works and just inflames and damages your liver and stomach.
When you go to see a doctor now there is no MD, rather an OD or a physicians assistant pretending to be a doctor. Of course they go to meetings with attorneys that tell them to prescribe the least risky medications and the paitients go home no better off.
The Internet is slowly becoming the source for those who need legitimate care. The drug addicts and drug abusers along with the attorneys will continue to ruin the system that worked for many generations. The system is a disappointment. Really enjoyed the article. Now looking back it is like a dream. Good doctors come from good people. There are good and bad people with both degrees.
Find people you trust, not the the letters. It is easier to judge based on letters… But that is a lazy way to advocate for your heath. Thanks for the information provided.
I am sure it will help some young people to find their paths. From reading all of these comments, it seems to me you can choose whoever is convenient and seems thorough and compassionate. If you want to keep your options open, go to a DO.
This comments section is frankly embarrassing for the medical community as a whole, regardless of position, title, or training. This type of hierarchical thinking reinforces siloed care and is a detriment to patient health.
I can only hope we see this change moving forward and that all practitioners start putting their patients above their pride. Would you rather have a board certified DO do plastic surgery on your face, or an uncertified MD? You would not go to a D.
Not to discredit a DO in any way. I am sorry that is just not correct. The same goes for General Surgery or even Orthopedic Surgery. While the numbers are fewer, there are DOs in very competitive specialties like Derm, Neuro, and Cardio.
I am not sure where you found information on insurance not covering DOs because that is just not true. Maybe you are just thinking about OMM which is a different case but if you mean medicine or more traditional procedures prescribed or conducted by a DO than insurance does not care about the letters after the physicians name. In the end it does not matter if the physician is MD or DO as long as you connect to them and they understand what you want from your care.
There are bad physicians with both degrees just as there are great ones. As a patient, here are my experiences. My MD retired and was replaced with a DO. She seemed perfectly pleasant. Then I looked into her qualifications. She graduated from an osteopathic college in Yakima, WA, which sorry Yakima is in the middle of nowhere.
How good are the professors? Her residency was spent at a 2nd rate hospital. How good was what she learned there? Now people argue that the medical education DOs and MDs receive is nearly identical. Which provider would you choose? Also, I was recently hospitalized for multiple medical issues. Neither did more than note my pain in my hospital chart.
I had a fractured vertebrae. So much for seeing a DO. Several years ago I needed immediate back surgery for spinal stenosis and some bulging discs. I was falling down suddenly without warning. The neurosurgeon was a DO. I had complete confidence in his skills and he did an excellent job.
I still have some back pain not nearly as much , but as the surgeon explained before the surgery, he was fixing my legs i. However, the pain is much better because he shaved the discs off as much as possible without resorting to fusion of the vertebrae.
Since then I have had both hips replaced and a mechanical heart valve installed in my aorta all by M. I can say there was no difference in the level of their skills or my confidence in their ability to do the surgeries. As it turns out my current internal medicine doctor M. No sweat. Has been on disability since he was He went to a DO Neurosurgeon at University of Miami Hospital who was very caring and very late to his appointment because he spends whatever length of time each Patient needs.
No surgery was done. This DO has a great reputation. I can understand why. Son is now off the pain meds and using medical Marijuana. Doing things he had no hope of ever doing again and not having the side effects of pain pills.
Thanks to the DO giving it to him straight. So what was the medical treatment rendered by this D. Certainly the D. It must have been surgical or the result of heavy opioid pain medication limited to a 3 day period for acute injury Awaiting your answer for credibility….
I am sure glad I became a veterinarian! I do have a comment though, good veterinarians use and look at any thing that will help there patients. I have a lot of problems with the terms holistic,allopathic ad infinitum. What I mean is good physicians use everything at their disposal to help their patients such as nutrition, physical therapy, drugs, vaccines, counseling etc.
But let us base these things on evidence based medicine. I know I do! I do have a comment though, good veterinarians use and look at any thing that will help their patients.
Wow, why disrespect the nurses? As one person said you can find good and bad in all. I think the general public has the wrong perception of what a DO actually is and therefore think they are less qualified in some way. But I know this is not the case.
By chance… not sure if you noticed the very slight, almost unrecognizable sarcasm bias toward D. The author most likely had a failure whether personally or through an associate in M. This is not meant to be attack-y, just an observation of the fact.
The cold hard truth is that — in any scenario — a Medical Doctor M. Essential oils, acupuncture, and dietary recommendation is cute… But when it comes to Strep Throat, Hypertension high blood pressure , or Schizophrenia… an M. Osteopathic physicians prescribe regular Western medicines, perform regular Western surgeries, and follow regular Western medical guidelines. The only distinct feature of osteopathic physicians is that some perform osteopathic manipulative medicine.
However, this is used as a supplement to a standard treatment plan, not a replacement. That is not what a DO is. DOs do not prescribe essential oils or other pseudoscience. They prescribe pharmaceuticals and other science-based treatments, as well as conducting procedures the same as an MD. DOs are not MD dropouts. These are primarily foreign medical students or doctors who immigrated to the US.
You choose one or the other, not drop out of one and then switch. You could probably see that by the very low dropout rate in US medical schools. Of course MD schools as a whole have higher matriculant stats than DO schools but you will get an MD candidate with fairly low stats but a great application with plenty of experiences and a DO candidate with great stats but not much else and vice versa.
As as future physician, I find it extremely odd that you are so willing to bash your colleagues because they have two different letters next to their name, not to mention you are spreading falsehoods about DOs that are wildly untrue. I have had many doctors, both DOs and MDs. This article only hints at the vast difference in philosophical outlook between these professions.
My experience when I have had a DO as my PCP is the illness count stabilizes and sometimes the DO discovers reasons or underlying conditions that actually reduce chronic illnesses. If one is healthy it matters not what your doctor knows. If you are a chronically ill person you had better find yourself an experienced DO. Only your longevity is at risk in this comparison — so, if you are invincible or omnipotent, you are fine with an MD for your PCP.
I am guessing this article was written by an MD, not a DO. Here are just 3 of the issues that stand out:. My spouse is a DO Emergency Physician. His closest DO friends from school are a dermatologist, a pediatrician, and an ophthalmologist. The opposite is often true!
The lowest-paid physicians in the country are in desirable metropolitan areas, due to heavy competition.
My kids are getting a little older, so I wanted to find a clinic I could go to if one of them gets sick or in an accident. Some were excellent, some were not.
As I recall, his shingle said that he was an MD. I started seeing him around or so. I used him until I went off to college a couple of years later. I really liked my GP. We had some great conversations. During the war, he served as a hospital corpsman in the U. The Navy did not consider him to be a qualified doctor. When he completed the program, he was given a medical degree.
He said he was an MD. As long as I can remember, DOs could prescribe medication. I also learned some interesting facts from my stepfather, who was a graduate of the medical school at the University of Pennsylvania. He told me that when he started medical school, there were ten or eleven medical schools in Philadelphia.
Today there are five schools. It depends on the person not the letters behind their name. I worked for a DO and the last thing he was was holistic. I worked for him for 6 years and ended up being fired due to my POTS symptoms but the possibiliy of that diagnosis never entered his mind. He did perform occasional osteopathic manipulations though. Hello I have had three back surgeries since My third was a T9-S1 fusion October I immediately became kyphotic.
I recently found out something about my surgeon who is a DO neural surgeon. I was told he has been sued and cases were won against him. I am trying to find out if he did anything wrong where I am concerned. Thanks, Sandy. Probably pain in the butt patient anyways.
If seen by a DO should you expect physical manipulation?
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