DO twitter... someone asked why there was even two types of doctors in the US in someone else's thread, and I tried to get it in under the character limit. I'm laughing my head off. Our history is too complicated to explain in a single tweet.

Back in ye olden days when cocaine and mercury were "medicine" MD's prescribed that.

A weird dude started DO schools with the goal not to use those dangerous killer "medicines" - and heal with the hands (less dead folks? YAY!).

Later, SCIENCE happened and the MDs stopped using cocaine as medicine, and the DOs were like "PENICILLIN? HELL YEAH"

So then we had to explain we were different because DOs CARED about you as a PERSON, and MDs were like "hmm, is this the amputation? Room 5? Eww, don't cry, I'm here to diagnose you, please be silent" or something like that (I WASN'T THERE, KAREN, I'M GUESSING, OK?)

But now both MDs and DOs are trained to "see the person, not the disease" and study the exact same stuff in medical school, EXCEPT DOs still learn a bunch of EXTRA MSK stuff and how to do manipulation, and take both MD and DO board exam$$$$$$ - is expensive :(

So, that's how the US has 2 almost identical routes to becoming a physician.

And we all dress up as wizards for our graduation ceremonies.

Oh, forgot to explain all the osteopaths everywhere ELSE not being physicians. Folks from abroad came to learn DO magic in Ye Olden Tymes and then went home. So UK, Australia, Italy etc have chiro-like massage therapists (?) called osteopaths. They do not practice medicine.