Do Osteopathic Doctors Make Less Money

I'm strattling the MD/DO fence myself. I'll offer a few observations from my altogether unhealthy, obessive-compulsive Web search--and what hard, oak tree-like data the search turned up

Certain patterns are simply undeniable in the Web pages featuring the backgrounds and pics of residents at "the nation's finest" academic centers--this is not to say, mind you, that such centers are the only places to get rigorous, first-rate training. First, even when considering that there are, in comparison to MD's, fewer DO's in existence, it is simply a statistical rarity to find DO's at these "elite" centers. (I do think this is silly and will eventually give a fuller opinion, but at this point I'm just pointing out patterns.) DO's do, however, seem to be increasingly populous in primary care residencies at these centers, especially in family/community medicine as they rightfully should be. DO heritage is strongly infused with this form of health care and there's no way to make a case against DO community/medicine training. It's the true DO specialty, stock-in-trade; it's what their heritage focuses on most of all.

The big, elite MD surgery crowd, and MD surgical residencies, do seem to keep DO's out. And undoubtedly, this is due to big-headed, pompous, irrational, and unjust discrimination--why in heavens would you generalize about people based solely on the one part of their medical resume that says the least about who they are? I challenge skeptical readers to find more than rarest exception to this and to post the results. Elite surgical centers seem to do the most to make it hard on DO's, a shame.

The last thing I'll point out is that what you also notice at the discussed centers is that all hierarchical "levels"--types is a much better word, I think...--are represented, including, strangely enough, foreign schools. Go to Hopkins's surgery programs, you'll see graduates of "big" northeast private schools; DC schools; all the nation's publics; your Drexels and what-have-you's; and Chinese, Southeast Asian, and European medical schools. I fully believe that it doesn't matter in the least where you go to medical school as long as you have the "magical" suffix (MD). You can get something as elusive as Hopkin's or Mayo neurosurgery from any MD school, period. This is probably because they pull people who have done stellar rotations with them and have, in person, proved themselves to be hard workers. If you're from Harvard or whatever and you go and expect people to hand you crap, they'll easily pass on you for someone with a good attitude. Why not? Who wants to deal with a prima donna?

Now, all that said, you don't need these big-headed centers to be a great doctor, there are plenty of publics, and some privates, and hospitals that appear to discriminate far less. And if you're a DO who decides a certain residency is for you, rotate there and show them you're "A" material, and destroy the boards. You'll be fine. You might not convince the enlightened SDN crowd of anything, but you'll be exactly the doctor you want to be, and no one's flapping mouth could ever change that. Or, yeah...