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Applying To US DO Med Schools - FAQs, Guidance & Canadian Friendly Schools


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You guys are over analyzing it. Many of the top tier US MD schools happen to be private. Private schools want money, aren't reimbursed by the state, and dont have to match a certain in-state quota. As such, they are more likely to take Canadians than any instate public school which is funded by the state. Of course there are exceptions, but this is a general rule for US med schools.

 

You cannot be "over qualified" for US DO schools. I dont even know what that means? You think you are too good for them? Worry more about things such as location, tuition, teaching, rotation hospitals....instead of MD vs DO

 

That's a really good explanation for the situation, thanks. However, I can't help pondering why a low tier MD school or a DO school would ever send out an acceptance to a hypothetical person with 40+ mcats and 3.9+ gpa, when they know that the spot will be wasted because there's no way in hell someone with those stats would accept the offer. Unless, of course, they qualify for in state tuition or something along the lines of that. I guess we'll never know what goes on in the minds of adcoms, but sadly there has been enough reports of getting interviewed at high-tiers but flat out rejected at low tiers that there must be at least some truth behind it.

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That's a really good explanation for the situation, thanks. However, I can't help pondering why a low tier MD school or a DO school would ever send out an acceptance to a hypothetical person with 40+ mcats and 3.9+ gpa, when they know that the spot will be wasted because there's no way in hell someone with those stats would accept the offer. Unless, of course, they qualify for in state tuition or something along the lines of that. I guess we'll never know what goes on in the minds of adcoms, but sadly there has been enough reports of getting interviewed at high-tiers but flat out rejected at low tiers that there must be at least some truth behind it.

 

I couldn't help but comment on your hypothetical example. I don't mean to be rude but if you are hanging out in this thread and interested in applying to DO schools, you probably don't have 40+ MCAT score combined with 3.9+ GPA. So don't worry about what would happen for an applicant who has these stats and just focus on your particular application

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  • 2 weeks later...

Gentlemen - lets not go bashing each other here.

 

What we really need are some solutions.

 

An 18 month rotating internship/evluation period for all IMG's MD/DO/MBBS alike. It would require a certain amount of Gov't funding to be affordable, but for a small fee (so as not to be exclusive based on price) IMGs could apply to such a program and go through a comprehensive 18mo rotating internship and evaluation period. Those who prove to be the best within the Canadian system would then be given residency positions in Canada.

 

This would allow evaluation between IMGs and Canadian graduates, all of who have had 23+ months of clinical evaluation in Canadian system by Canadian attending and residents of whom they will be joining once they become residents. This would be in addition to all of the exams, the both IMGs and Canadians currently write.

 

The biggest issues with IMGs is not evaluating them based on their exam scores and written application, but the lack of standardized clinical evaluation. A solid 18 mo clinical experience would allow them to be evaluated and allow them to continue to learn and improve their clinical skills within the system that they hope to one day work. Its kind of a win win and if such programs were set up in areas that are in need of man-power it could benefit both the site/community and the learner because at this stage of training it would be assumed that the learners would contribute more in terms of work than what they would take away (by means of requiring teaching from local physicians).

 

Furthermore, such a program would further demonstrate the commitment to do medicine, that this group so often claims to have.

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Everyone is an important part of the team - from the porters to the nurses to the DOs to the physicians. Stay humble and work together. All have different roles that overlap. Just because MDs are at the top of the historical pyramid that still exists a bit today everyone contributes in there own way. People just need to refrain from overstepping their boundaries. It is frustrating when people pretend to be something they are not. MDs are MDs DOs are DO's, NPs are NPs, Physios are Physios etc. IF people would stop pretending to be MDs or clambering for the same recognition then they wouldn't be so defensive about things.

 

Can't we all just get along to improve the quality of care for patients?

 

Of course we are all here to improve patient outcomes or quality of care. But what "boundaries" are you talking about? Yes, a DO CANNOT claim to be an "MD", and that's why on their badges or their white coats it say's "DO". But DO's are doctors like MD's. They take care of patients like MD's. They collect salaries like MD's. No one is claiming to be something that they are not. There are DO hospitalists, surgeons, FP's, dermatologists, neurologists, radiologists, etc. that enjoy the same rights as their MD counterparts.

 

I have had the opportunity to rotate with DO's on the floors and in the clinics. There are no differences between the treatments they offer their patients compared to MD's. I am not saying that some patients won't prefer an MD, but from my experience, most DO's don't have any problems developing a strong patient base.

 

We have teaching faculty that are DO's. We have teaching faculty that are IMG's. We have program chair's that are IMG's over here. So obviously, a US MD resident, fellow, or medical student finds him or herself reporting to an attending who is a DO or an IMG. So clearly, there's a hierarchy over here in the US that flies in the face of that perception.

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Of course we are all here to improve patient outcomes or quality of care. But what "boundaries" are you talking about? Yes, a DO CANNOT claim to be an "MD", and that's why on their badges or their white coats it say's "DO". But DO's are doctors like MD's. They take care of patients like MD's. They collect salaries like MD's. No one is claiming to be something that they are not. There are DO hospitalists, surgeons, FP's, dermatologists, neurologists, radiologists, etc. that enjoy the same rights as their MD counterparts.

 

I have had the opportunity to rotate with DO's on the floors and in the clinics. There are no differences between the treatments they offer their patients compared to MD's. I am not saying that some patients won't prefer an MD, but from my experience, most DO's don't have any problems developing a strong patient base.

 

We have teaching faculty that are DO's. We have teaching faculty that are IMG's. We have program chair's that are IMG's over here. So obviously, a US MD resident, fellow, or medical student finds him or herself reporting to an attending who is a DO or an IMG. So clearly, there's a hierarchy over here in the US that flies in the face of that perception.

 

Sorry - just meant that everyone should function together. I am not familiar with how certain healthcare professionals function in the USA. I think things vary by jurisdiction. Even in Canada there is variability within province. For example GP Anesthesiolgists provide operative anesthesia in Rural underserviced areas and would not have privileges to do the same in urban centres. The same goes for nurse practioners having broader scope in rural remote communities.

 

Simply put, people should know their scope and their expectation of practice based on the institution which they work.

 

In a big tertiary care centre with unlimited resources I think most patients would want the most qualified MD with the best track record, but we don't live in a eutopic world and people often get what they can get (or have access to). Without all different levels of experience expertise, training and scope of practice our healthcare system couldn't function.

 

Canada is not self sufficient with the number of MDs that we produce and therefore rely on imports (IMGs MDs and DOs alike). Ideally we would be self sufficient and every Canadian MD would be excellent, but thats not the reality.

 

Im sure there are many excellent DOs out there, there are also many excellent nurse practitioners and GP Anesthesiolgists, GP surgeons etc. and in many situations they are all we have and we should extremely grateful for them because without them access to care would be even more limited!

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What do you think they are? DOs are physicians.

 

Everyone is an important part of the team - from the porters to the nurses to the DOs to the physicians. Stay humble and work together. All have different roles that overlap. Just because MDs are at the top of the historical pyramid that still exists a bit today everyone contributes in there own way. People just need to refrain from overstepping their boundaries. It is frustrating when people pretend to be something they are not. MDs are MDs DOs are DO's, NPs are NPs, Physios are Physios etc. IF people would stop pretending to be MDs or clambering for the same recognition then they wouldn't be so defensive about things.

 

Can't we all just get along to improve the quality of care for patients?

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Thanks for sharing you experience. My mom had a similar experience, my mom's family doctor in Vancouver totally missed her breast cancer, (didn't even examine her and rushed her out of his office and told her that she just needed vitamins because she was young and didn't have a history of cancer in the family), a few months later she felt a lump get bigger and by chance she spoke to her friend who was a DO in the states) on the phone, and the DO told my mom she needed to be checked right away and she was in surgery the next week. Who knows what had happened to my mom if she waited longer? I could go on with mistakes that canadian MDs have made (from personal expereince) but like DOs, there are good and bad ones. Concerned med is ridiculous to be grouping DOs in the same categories as IMGs from diploma mill schools.

 

You couldn't be more wrong. I'm not a relatively healthy 20 year old. I'm a non-trad, doing a second degree, with multiple health issues (now under control) that were totally missed by my family doctor back in Canada. I was fatigued all the time, losing my hair, cold all the time, etc. Yet my primary care physician back in Canada couldn't diagnose hypothyroidism! It wasn't until I went to the U.S. to do one semester down there, that the DO, who was my family physician, discovered the hypothyroidism and started me on meds. My quality of life and health improved considerably after that! When I was still experiencing some fatigue and concentration problems, the U.S. DO didn't stop until we found the reason why: PLMD diagnosed through a sleep study. Something my "useless" family doctor back in Canada hadn't even thought to consider (probably thinking like you, that a relatively healthy 20-something couldn't possibly have a sleep disorder! Wrong!)

 

I'm now back in Canada, and I've very lucky to have a great doctor at student health services, but that wasn't the case for many years.

 

With U.S. DOs, their standard of education is pretty much on part with U.S. MD education, which granted, varies more than Canadian medical education, but we aren't talking about graduates from Caribbean diploma mills or developing countries. These are U.S. medical graduates. From what I understand, the DO curriculum is pretty much identical to the MD curriculum in the U.S., they just add in some of the osteopathic manipulation stuff. You can't compare them to IMGs from countries with less rigorous medical education standards. The fact that you seem to lump them in with IMGs suggests you: a) don't understand what DOs actually learn, B) have a superiority complex about being a Canadian medical student, and/or c) want to restrict the practice of medicine to a limited number of individuals, despite the fact that many Canadians don't have a family physician, and have to wait months to see a specialist.

 

I certainly hope I never have you as a physician in Canada. Your attitude reeks of entitlement and protectionism.

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  • 1 month later...
For Canadian Dos, for residency spots, do they have quotas similar to med School, ie does it make a difference to be a resident of Ontario or bc or Quebec (non french speaking) resident

 

Once you are out of the premed rat race, none of the in-province quota nonsense applies to you.

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  • 1 month later...

Just a question regarding osteopathic manipulative medicine.

 

Since OMM is one distinguishing feature for DO schools, how much emphasis is placed on OMM in school? How often does DO doctors use this technique in practice and what are they used for?

 

Say, if a patient comes with musculoskeletal problems such as back pain, would DO doctors use OMT or other treatment options (I would imagine this is a personal preference!?)

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Just a question regarding osteopathic manipulative medicine.

 

Since OMM is one distinguishing feature for DO schools, how much emphasis is placed on OMM in school? How often does DO doctors use this technique in practice and what are they used for?

 

Say, if a patient comes with musculoskeletal problems such as back pain, would DO doctors use OMT or other treatment options (I would imagine this is a personal preference!?)

 

Emphasis on OMT is school dependent. Some schools have a better OMM curriculum than others. You would be expected to have approximately 4 hours of OMM class each week for the entirety of the first 2 years. This comes down to about 200 - 400 hours of OMM training. In 3rd year rotations, some schools also require that you have a core rotation in OMM of 4 weeks. If you like more exposure to OMM, you can schedule more OMM rotations as your elective.

 

Use of OMM is also highly doctor specific. Think of OMM as another discipline. For instance, you have your internal medicine, pediatrics, OBGYN, emergency, FM, psych, surgery as your core disciplines, in DO medical schools, now you add OMM as a distinct discipline. Use of OMM is dependent on how comfortable the doctor is with OMM. Just as some docs are better at (say) OBGYN than they are with peds, or some really like pysch, but hates surgery. You would find some DOs who love OMM, are good at it, and use it all the time. Other times you can find DOs who are not so good with OMM, and will less likely use it (simply because they don't feel comfortable using it).

 

For something like backpain, the average DO can easly incorporate OMT into their treatment modality. It's the bread and butter of the average DO (i.e., using OMT to treat something as simple as a non-complex back pain)

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I'm wondering if I can get into a good DO school with 3.37-3.4 cGPA and a solid 35+ MCAT score. Im about to graduate and cant fix my GPA but I know I can do well on the MCAT. I have a lot of EC's (own research publication, research lab~ oncology clinic assistant ~ clubs~ blah) and etc but theres just so little information on DO schools so I'm not sure how I measure up.

 

also, I'm wondering about the tuition for DO schools

 

please let me know, thank you about your post@!

 

edit: i was looking into michigan state and was hoping to go there but i realized i dont have the one 3-credit worth of biochem. all my courses are listed as BIOL even though BIOL201 is considered to be equivalent to BIOC 212 and i have a class at 500 level called human biochemical genetics

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I'm wondering if I can get into a good DO school with 3.37-3.4 cGPA and a solid 35+ MCAT score. Im about to graduate and cant fix my GPA but I know I can do well on the MCAT. I have a lot of EC's (own research publication, research lab~ oncology clinic assistant ~ clubs~ blah) and etc but theres just so little information on DO schools so I'm not sure how I measure up.

 

also, I'm wondering about the tuition for DO schools

 

please let me know, thank you about your post@!

 

edit: i was looking into michigan state and was hoping to go there but i realized i dont have the one 3-credit worth of biochem. all my courses are listed as BIOL even though BIOL201 is considered to be equivalent to BIOC 212 and i have a class at 500 level called human biochemical genetics

 

With your current stats, you'll probably get in somewhere. It's fairly competitive, esp the 35 MCAT.

 

Tuition is around 40k - 50k, on par with MD schools.

 

I can't comment on MSU as I'm not from that school.

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For current DO students or DO-hopefuls or even anyone who is interested in dentistry or MD followed by primary care in the US, I know that you can specialize to increase your future income, but since most students don't, how do you think that you might manage the $300k student loans with accumulating interest with a primary care practitioner's salary? Will earning $200,000 or less be a burden to eventually $500k in loans and interest?

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For current DO students or DO-hopefuls or even anyone who is interested in dentistry or MD followed by primary care in the US, I know that you can specialize to increase your future income, but since most students don't, how do you think that you might manage the $300k student loans with accumulating interest with a primary care practitioner's salary? Will earning $200,000 or less be a burden to eventually $500k in loans and interest?

 

People have and always will whine about the "interest" and "debt". To date, I have not seen a single doc that is not at least well off (assuming there were no major screw ups such that they lose their license and can't practice).

 

What I commonly hear are things along the lines of "you'll never have to worry about money again". Sure, with 500k of debt, for some people it'll take longer than others to repay. But (say) assuming you started in your early/mid 20s, by the time you hit your 40s, 50s, there's simply no way those debts are not paid back. In California, I have yet to see a doctor that doesn't drive some kind of BMW, Lexus, Mercedes, Infinity, Porsche, Jaguar. Heck, I used to walk past this ER doc's 100K+ Jaguar every morning on way to morning report.. I almost took a picture of that car as a form of motivation.. then I decided not to as I don't want to corrupt myself lol... Now, US government loans have an interest anywhere between 6% to as high as 8%.. imagine that, 8% interest compounded annually on 300k of debt!! That's insane! Yet, I still see these docs driving their luxury vehicles. In Canada, with your much cheaper tuition, and LOC interest of prime/ 2.5-3%, I imagine it'll be much easier to pay back. Again, these primary care docs are not starving.

 

Also, in the US at least, I have heard of cases whereby the residency programs (and I mean primary care like FM), will help the resident negotiate a contract with a hospital upon graduation, such that the hospital will pay for all the resident's debt (I have heard as high as 300k of debt), plus their annual 200k of starting salary.

 

There are many ways, and it's not all doom and gloom. At the end of the day, medicine is still recession proof, and will basically guarantee you a life style that the majority of people can only dream about.

 

Now, if you want to buy your own Caribbean islands, drive a Ferrari, or own your own hospital.. That's a whole different story :)

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^well said

 

I can't believe I'm just finding out about DO now, good thing I still have a month until apps are open

 

obviously the best school is the cheapest school, but OMM sounds awesome, not sure why anyone wouldn't want to get that extra education for the same price

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  • 2 weeks later...
What's the average GPA and MCAT needed for DO schools nowadays?

 

3.3 and 26, is that good enough?

 

Is it really that low? Those sound like the stats for an American... Comparing to the 3.7~ and 34~ average mcat for Canadian matriculants at USMD schools, I'd probably assume 3.5 and 30 for DO to be safe.

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