Do you know what an Osteopathic Doctor (D.O.) is?

Question

Would you be discriminate and choose an M.D. over a D.O because the D.O.'s are in the minority (or some other reason), even though there's no huge difference between the two types of doctors?

Answer 1

Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine, or D.O.s, apply the philosophy of treating the whole person (a holistic approach) to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illness, disease and injury using conventional medical practice such as drugs and surgery, along with manual therapy (Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine or OMM).

As with Doctors of Medicine (M.D.s), D.O.s educated in the United States are fully licensed physicians and surgeons who practice the full scope of medicine. In other parts of the world, most D.O.s graduating outside the U.S. are not medically trained practitioners. Currently, there are 23 accredited D.O.-granting U.S. osteopathic medical schools[2] and 125 accredited M.D.-granting U.S. medical schools.

M.D. and D.O.-granting U.S. medical schools have similar curricula. Generally, the first two years are classroom-based, with certain programs providing patient contact, while third and fourth years consist of rotations through the different major specialties of medicine. Upon graduation, M.D. and D.O. physicians pursue residency training programs. Depending on state licensing laws, osteopathic physicians may also be required to complete a 1 year rotating internship. Osteopathic physicians also have the opportunity to pursue allopathic (M.D.) residency programs; however, the converse is not allowed. Within the U.S., osteopathic physicians practice in all medical specialties including, but not limited to, internal medicine, dermatology, surgery, radiology, etc. There is no distinction in pay between allopathic (M.D.) and osteopathic (D.O.) physicians, but physician salaries differ noticeably among the various medical specialties.

Osteopaths educated in countries outside of the U.S. do not follow the same curriculum as U.S. trained D.O.'s. Their scope of practice is limited mainly to musculoskeletal conditions and treatment of some other conditions using OMM and various alternative medicine methods, not unlike chiropractors. Hope this ansewers your question hun....Flo

Answer 2

Like any other profession, there are some with more ability and some with less. If your wife does not notice some relief in a few weeks, try another office! Many Chiropractors are spectacularly lousy in my opinion! Often they have the busiest practices and make the most money, especially if they are very good at convincing people to come forever when they don't get any better (or don't have any symptoms in the first place!) Best luck, as far as an Osteopath check what your deductible will be with them. $35 deductible sounds very high for a Chiro (check prices of others I'm sure you can do WAY better) but an Osteopath will almost certainly be MUCH more!!! Best luck and email with questions if you want. My treatments used to cost $35 TOTAL in Los Angeles just a couple years ago! And I would give you a free one if you prepaid for 6! Copay was almost always $10-15.

Answer 3

I know what a D.O. is and I'd probably choose a D.O. over an M.D. The D.O.'s learn everything an MD learns, plus more. So why not go there?

Answer 4

If it wasn't for a D.O., I would be dead....I was unconscious and 5
Doctors, couldn't figure out why...they all wanted to do exploratory surgery....He was called in, and he figured it out...
Like I said, I would be dead without him. what I found out was he
is a M.D. but chose to specialize in a certain field, ..lucky for me he did this.... If you want to know more email me.....
good luck

Answer 5

A D.O. is a medical DR. with training like a chiropractor. He knows about regular medicine and natural medicine and can preform adjustments on your bones like a chiropractor.

Answer 6

Deals with bone disease.