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While the DO vs. MD thing is trending, I think it's important to point out a few facts. First the obvious, DO=MD, full stop. Same training, same licensing, same everything. The difference is purely historical, but is kept up by monied interests who profit off this division.
Which brings me to my next point. The DO education system has greatly failed the huge number of incredibly smart and driven DO students who have to fight not only against DO bias within and outside of the medical community, but face an increasingly burdensome administration that
DOES NOT have our best interests. Here's a few of the grievances. 1) While the vast majority of MD programs have a hospital to call their own, DO programs do not. They have affiliation agreements that crumble as soon having students at the hospital becomes an inconvenience.
So while our MD counterparts have no issues rotating during COVID, have no such resources and are left to fend for themselves despite paying EXORBITANT tuition (some of the highest in the country); 2) The ridiculous testing fees DO students
pay since it's almost a foregone conclusion that DO students need to take the MD and DO licensing exam for parity during residency application, and any declaration otherwise is just empty lip service. Despite the merger of residency training, this separation of licensing exams
remains in place because of money; 3) The reckless decision by the NBOME (the DO licensing board) to force students to cross state lines in the middle of a pandemic to take an exam that was initially meant to test language proficiency for international medical applicants despite
their MD counterparts cancelling their version of the test because it was a public health issue. And the list goes on. DO's and MD's share equivalent training and scope of practice in the end, but the amount of BS that DO's go through at the hands of their own is inexcusable.
DO's succeed despite their environment. rant over.
