MD vs DO?

[mollyanna58]

I'm doctor shopping again, starting with the physician's list on my insurance carrier's website. 
A number of the doctors are DO's rather than MDs. 

Has anyone had a DO for their regular physician?  Any thoughts on their medical training, vs an MDs?  I know much of the education and training is similar, but that's about it.

Thanks!

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

From what I understand, their medical training is very similar. The only difference is that a DO is more inclusive of non traditional medical techniques. But they have to jump through the same hoops.

[kittensaver]

I have a DO. I was THRILLED to find her employed as a primary care doctor in the midst of one of the most conventional/non-innovative/stoggy HMO's in country (not my choice, employer's coverage and I have to live with it cough*kaiser*cough).

She is  a very nice person and treats me well, but she is not different in her medical approach. I was hoping for a more holistic doctor, but no dice - at least with her. She told me her medical training was "almost exactly" the same as an MD.

I see her for routine stuff my insurance will pay for (screening exams, blood tests, etc) but continue to see a naturopathic doctor outside the system for other concerns ($$$ unfortunately - but it works for me).

[mmhmm]

These days there's very little difference, really.  For a regular physician, I'd think a D.O. would be just as good as an M.D.  I'd tend to go more by which individual seemed most suited to me, and to my needs. 

[justme]

The main difference (have a friend going through DO school - she applied to both MD and DO programs) is that the DO programs lean more towards whole body. So that would be a good thing for a primary - the look at your entire health situation instead of just what you complain about. Though, my current primary is a MD and does that. But she's leaving for another practice and now I have to find someone else unless whoever I get put on is just as good.  Near about cried when I got the letter she was leaving. Unfortunately she's going to another practice so she can focus more on infectious disease so I'm guess she's not doing primary care anymore.


ETA: Check out vitals.com - for the doctors I've looked up there, they haven't steer me wrong.

[Sunnyday]

okay, what is a DO?

Is it like a nurse practitioner?

feeling lazy, and honestly doing a google search on DO will probably get me a whole lot of unrelated searches.

[steph08]

Apr 25, 2014 15:10:28 GMT -5 Sunnyday said:

okay, what is a DO?

Is it like a nurse practitioner?

feeling lazy, and honestly doing a google search on DO will probably get me a whole lot of unrelated searches.

A doctor of osteopathic medicine

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Apr 25, 2014 15:10:28 GMT -5 Sunnyday said:

okay, what is a DO?

Is it like a nurse practitioner?

feeling lazy, and honestly doing a google search on DO will probably get me a whole lot of unrelated searches.

No, not the same thing.  A DO IS a physician, needing to jump through the same hoops as an MD but their medical school curriculum is slightly different.

A nurse practitioner is a nurse with advanced training that can prescribe drugs.  IME, about the same as a physician's assistant.

[teen persuasion]

When we first moved to our house from another county and needed new doctors, we chose a family DO ( kids, and I was pregnant).  She explained that she couldn't do surgery, so if I needed a c section a colleague would step in, but not to worry, I probably wouldn't need it (despite a previous breech pregnancy - I had a version, so no c section that time).  When I again had a breech baby, she wouldn't do a version ("No one in this county does those", which I later found out was untrue), but at the next checkup insisted the baby had turned.  Nope.  When I passed my duedate, she wanted to induce me (before she left on vacation), and Surprise! still breech, can't induce, Doc X will take care of you (too late for a version, now ).  So I had a c section that could have been avoided.

We found different doctors after that.  When next baby was born, the same DO was the attending ped at the hospital, and when she learned that we had a different ped, she refused to do some procedure on our baby, since he wouldn't ultimately be her patient!

Now I'm not saying that all the DOs are this way, but it definitely soured me.   She was so unprofessional.

[justme]

That last part was crappy (not doing the procedure when she was the doctor on duty), but the rest could have been because it was a family doctor doing OB. Didn't know general family doctors even dabbled in that anymore - mostly because med mal insurance for OBs is so expensive.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Didn't know general family doctors even dabbled in that anymore

It's quite common in rural areas around here because the hospitals can't afford to hire OBs. So they tend to limit it to 1-2 OBs and you're only assigned them if you are high risk. Everyone else sees a FP.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Apr 25, 2014 15:33:37 GMT -5 justme said:

That last part was crappy (not doing the procedure when she was the doctor on duty), but the rest could have been because it was a family doctor doing OB. Didn't know general family doctors even dabbled in that anymore - mostly because med mal insurance for OBs is so expensive.

I was thinking this too.  Malpractice insurance for OBs is way more than GPs, so the idea of dabbling in OB and needing to send other than the most basic treatments  away doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  I definitely would not be seeing a family doctor if I was pregnant.

[Cookies Galore]

My PCP is a DO. He's the best! His practice has three DOs, one MD, and one nurse practitioner. MDs and DOs have to take their respective licensing examination (USMLE or COMLEX) and all other hoops to retain licensing and certification.

[swamp]

My OB/GYN is a DO. No complaints. And he does c-sections. 

[sunshinegal1981]

The differences between individual physicians are much greater than the differences between DO and MD in general.  Don't let the DO sway you one way or another in your search for a doc.  Good luck!

[Shooby]

I woukd go to either.

[Deleted]

 The major difference is the osteopaths seem to be better with things like chronic pain and other types of things where some more holistic treatments have been proven to work. 

They are a medical doctor who don't think chiropractors are quacks but that they are helpful. 

[haapai]

My old DO has probably retired by now but he was quite fond of telling people that the difference between becoming a DO or an MD was one course when he went to med school. 

He was great!  He gave me my first pap and when he found out that I was only getting a pap because I was working in a clinic where part of my job was telling young migrant farmworkers that a pap smear was an essential part of getting routine BC and no big deal (I had no use for BC or a pap at the time), his nurse/wife darn near hugged me.  Then she offered to lift her shirt and and show me the the nipples that she'd had tattooed on after her double mastectomy. 

<sigh>  It sounds torrid now, but I passed on the peek, wasn't uncomfortable at all, and found the entire experience totally life-changing and life-affirming. 

A year later, the MD that took the other half of the patient load in that small town agreed to stop practicing after writing too many scripts for too much strong stuff. 

[weltschmerz]

I don't think that DOs are even recognized as real doctors up here.

The practice of (non-medical) manual osteopathy is not currently recognized as a regulated health profession under the Ontario Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991, or any other legislation. There is no Act which defines a scope of practice for osteopathy. Regulated health care professions have a defined scope of practice under profession-specific Acts. However, many OAO members are regulated health care professionals, such as nurses, massage therapists, occupational therapists and physiotherapists, who have sought additional education and training in order to provide manual (non-medical) osteopathic assessment, care and treatment. Some of our members are graduates of osteopathy educational programs in Europe where the practise of osteopathic manual practitioners is regulated and practitioners can legally use the title “osteopath”.

osteopathyontario.org/our-association/regulation/

I'm pretty sure we don't have a single osteopathic medical school.

[Cookies Galore]

DOs ARE recognized as real doctors because they are real doctors. There's very little difference between a DO and an MD. Many med schools now have osteopathy schools as well. Canada recognizes the USMLE and COMLEX for licensure to practice medicine, and US osteopathic graduates have to take the MCCEE just like any other international medical graduate practicing in Canada.

[Deleted]

DH's goddaughter is an DO.  Her residency is in OB/GYN, and I doubt that she is learning to outsource her future C-sections. I seem to remember that she had to take a test that MDs take or something. I only remember because she asked DH to pay for it, and then they were both proud because her scores were very, very high. 

[weltschmerz]

Apr 26, 2014 7:32:21 GMT -5 Cookies Galore said:

DOs ARE recognized as real doctors because they are real doctors. There's very little difference between a DO and an MD. Many med schools now have osteopathy schools as well. Canada recognizes the USMLE and COMLEX for licensure to practice medicine, and US osteopathic graduates have to take the MCCEE just like any other international medical graduate practicing in Canada.

Again...we don't have that up here.

[Deleted]

My cousin and his wife are both DO's (him pediatrician and her anesthesiologist).

I echo what everyone already said: their training were similar to their MD counterparts but they were thought to look at the body as a whole vs just the one thing the patient was complaining about or come in for.

Some Doctors will be asses wether they are DO's or MD's... That is more of a personality issue than a medical training one.

[Cookies Galore]

Apr 26, 2014 9:32:41 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

Apr 26, 2014 7:32:21 GMT -5 Cookies Galore said:

DOs ARE recognized as real doctors because they are real doctors. There's very little difference between a DO and an MD. Many med schools now have osteopathy schools as well. Canada recognizes the USMLE and COMLEX for licensure to practice medicine, and US osteopathic graduates have to take the MCCEE just like any other international medical graduate practicing in Canada.

Again...we don't have that up here.

Again... Canada recognizes the validity of the US Medical Licensing Examination (MD) and the Comprehensive Oseteopathic Medicine Licensing Examintion (DO). The Medical Council of Canada has yet another medical examination that international medical graduates and US osteopathic graduates take as a step to practice medicine in Canada. DOs may not be common in Canada but they are licensed physicians. I work in licensing.

[weltschmerz]

Apr 26, 2014 10:16:44 GMT -5 Cookies Galore said:

Apr 26, 2014 9:32:41 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

Again...we don't have that up here.

Again... Canada recognizes the validity of the US Medical Licensing Examination (MD) and the Comprehensive Oseteopathic Medicine Licensing Examintion (DO). The Medical Council of Canada has yet another medical examination that international medical graduates and US osteopathic graduates take as a step to practice medicine in Canada. DOs may not be common in Canada but they are licensed physicians. I work in licensing.

Once they pass their exams up here, I guess they're called MDs.

I never heard of a DO.

[swamp]

Apr 26, 2014 10:24:46 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

Apr 26, 2014 10:16:44 GMT -5 Cookies Galore said:

Again... Canada recognizes the validity of the US Medical Licensing Examination (MD) and the Comprehensive Oseteopathic Medicine Licensing Examintion (DO). The Medical Council of Canada has yet another medical examination that international medical graduates and US osteopathic graduates take as a step to practice medicine in Canada. DOs may not be common in Canada but they are licensed physicians. I work in licensing.

Once they pass their exams up here, I guess they're called MDs.

I never heard of a DO.

They still have a doctorate in Osteopathy, so they're a DO. But you still call them Dr.  You wouldn't know unless you look at their med school diploma. 

[weltschmerz]

If you mention osteopathy to a Canadian, they'll immediately think of manual manipulation, much like a chiropractor.

The practice of osteopathy is not officially recognized in the province of Quebec, and our healthcare system will not pay for it. If you go to an osteopathic practitioner, you pay out of pocket.

[raeoflyte]

Our gp is a DO and we love her. She doesn't push pills (as a first solution) and has an in house acupuncturist and massage therapist and used to have a nutritionist too. Definitely a whole body health mentality.

Sent from my ADR6410LVW using proboards

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Apr 26, 2014 2:50:23 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

I don't think that DOs are even recognized as real doctors up here.

The practice of (non-medical) manual osteopathy is not currently recognized as a regulated health profession under the Ontario Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991, or any other legislation. There is no Act which defines a scope of practice for osteopathy. Regulated health care professions have a defined scope of practice under profession-specific Acts. However, many OAO members are regulated health care professionals, such as nurses, massage therapists, occupational therapists and physiotherapists, who have sought additional education and training in order to provide manual (non-medical) osteopathic assessment, care and treatment. Some of our members are graduates of osteopathy educational programs in Europe where the practise of osteopathic manual practitioners is regulated and practitioners can legally use the title “osteopath”.

osteopathyontario.org/our-association/regulation/

I'm pretty sure we don't have a single osteopathic medical school.

Canada has an Osteopathic association and does recognize doctors with a DO.  Their limitations in Quebec are likely due to the requirements for fluency in French, but they are recognized in Canada, and there is an exam, so they can practice.

DO is not confused with osteopaths.....they are different careers, with different education tracks.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathic_medicine_in_Canada

[weltschmerz]

Apr 26, 2014 13:39:57 GMT -5 The Walk of the Penguin Mich said:

Apr 26, 2014 2:50:23 GMT -5 weltschmerz said:

I don't think that DOs are even recognized as real doctors up here.

The practice of (non-medical) manual osteopathy is not currently recognized as a regulated health profession under the Ontario Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991, or any other legislation. There is no Act which defines a scope of practice for osteopathy. Regulated health care professions have a defined scope of practice under profession-specific Acts. However, many OAO members are regulated health care professionals, such as nurses, massage therapists, occupational therapists and physiotherapists, who have sought additional education and training in order to provide manual (non-medical) osteopathic assessment, care and treatment. Some of our members are graduates of osteopathy educational programs in Europe where the practise of osteopathic manual practitioners is regulated and practitioners can legally use the title “osteopath”.

osteopathyontario.org/our-association/regulation/

I'm pretty sure we don't have a single osteopathic medical school.

Canada has an Osteopathic association and does recognize doctors with a DO.  Their limitations in Quebec are likely due to the requirements for fluency in French, but they are recognized in Canada, and there is an exam, so they can practice.

DO is not confused with osteopaths.....they are different careers, with different education tracks.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathic_medicine_in_Canada