MD vs DO: The Uncomfortable Truth (& Which Is Better) 

I want a "House, M.D." spin-off called "Home, D.O."

I’m an ER attending. I went to an osteopathic medical school. I took both COMLEX and USMLE. I took the ABEM (MD) licensing board instead of the AOBEM boards for Emergency Medicine. My partners are both MDs and DOs and I respect all of them. Truth of the matter is that when you make it through the same residency programs and pass the same licensing boards, very few people actually care about the two letters after your name. All they care about your competency and the care that you deliver. I’m pretty sure that during my last shift, the patient in hypoxic respiratory failure could care less about whether I’m an MD or DO and was much happier that was able to keep them alive and off the vent. That’s what people actually care about. All the other stuff is pretty irrelevant. I have tremendous respect for all my colleagues and in the real world, when you become an attending and interact with your partners and consultants in the hospital, the respect is reciprocated by your ability to communicate with your colleagues and the patient care that you deliver. There really is no MD/DO “beef”.

MDs and DOs should really focus on correcting the problem of mid-level creep. That’s the real threat to both of these.

Applied to MD & DO 511 MCAT 3.84 GPA Waitlisted at 3 MD schools Got into a DO school I didn’t want to wait an additional year All my mentors an (MD, PhD) neurologist research and academic physician mentor that I researched under and orthopedic surgeon encouraged me to take the DO acceptance I know i have to work harder to get into a competitive specialty, but my school has access to some amazing hospitals, and I’m also gonna utilize completing many away rotations for sub specialties

I’m an MD: MD being better than DO is a load BS probably propagated by MDs with an inferiority complex. Matter of fact is there are both excellent and crappy MDs and DOs. What we learn in med school and even residency/fellowship is not enough to make us great doctors. It’s what we do throughout the rest of our careers that matters - self directed, self motivated continuous learning and improvement.

A friend of mine is a DO and he just got voted the physician of the year in Kaiser Orange County California. It’s not about DO or MD. It’s about how you treat your patients and your colleagues.

As a current DO student, it is quite disheartening to see people go on national television and attempt to discredit a profession they know nothing about. All the disadvantages of being a DO, while true, are the burden of the medical student themselves, and not the patient. Once these are overcome in school and the DO student gets into a residency, there is LITERALLY no difference whatsoever in patient care. This is where the patients become involved with this controversy. When patients get in their heads that their doctor is less qualified because they are a DO, it automatically ruins the patient-physician relationship. Jerks like this guy going on Fallon and shitting on the DO profession are just toxic to medicine as a whole and it just makes me sad as someone who has worked extremely hard to get into medical school just to have someone talk down to my life’s work.

As a rising DO medical student, I feel the stigma will never truly disappear. However, at the end of the day, if you save someone’s life or remove their pain as physician, that person is not going to care what two letters are after your name. A DO in a competitive specialty should be regarded highly, it shows that person overcame greater odds. It just displays their dedication to their field. They are a true inspiration to future DO’s. Hard work pays off. Great vid Dr. Jubbal!

Both groups worked extremely hard to get to where they are. We should respect them equally 🤷🏽‍♀️

I applied to MD and DO and didn't care where I went. Because I applied late in the cycle, I had the choice of DO or wait another year. I chose DO, fell in love with OMM, and got my first choice for residency. Word spread through the community about my OMM skills and now I have more patients than I can handle. While I agree that a DO getting into plastics is rare, there are thousands of amazing jobs in other specialties that desperately need to be filled. The only thing an employer cares about is whether or not I have board certification and a license to practice medicine and surgery. Outside of the premed world, the only time an MD has cared that I am a DO is because they had neck or back pain they hoped I could fix. Many of us DO's are also faculty at the local MD school. No one fears that we are corrupting young MD minds with the teachings of AT Still.

I start DO school this year. 514 MCAT and 3.95 GPA, did a lot of cool extracurriculars in undergrad. I’m going to my school because there are only 2 schools in my home state and I really value being close to family and friends. Hopefully by the time I’m an attending the stigma will be gone and we can all chill out 😂.

Hey Kevin, DO PGY2 here. Thanks for the video! I would say pretty spot on. Just a few comments. Cranial OMM is a lot of voo doo magic, but we have a lot of great techniques that patients love. Many of the techniques are used by physical therapists and other MSK professions and are well accepted. I encourage you to try some treatment (maybe a video idea in the future). I find it funny how we compare how good a physician is based on their medical school. We should compare physicians based on what residency they completed because residency is where we become real doctors. Yes, med school is important, but we all read first aid, pathoma, watched OME, used anki cards, etc. From my experience, it all evens out intern year, regardless of what school you attended. My residency program has people from the Caribbean, osteopathic schools, and top MD schools. You would hardly tell the difference amongst the seniors. It's almost like judging a person on what high school they went to instead of the university or college they attended. The ego in medicine is toxic. I hope you could make a video on this. Everyone on instagram flexes so hard. Everyone fixates on differences and has a superiority complex, not just with DO vs MD. "You went to this low tier US MD school vs name brand school". "You went to this no name ENT residency, vs a name brand program". It goes on and on, and it's sad to see it. It is human nature to compare and put down, but it should not be that way, especially with how important physician well being is nowadays. We should foster a community that builds each other up, and not down. We are all doctors. We all work together. We all help patients.

519 MCAT, 3.9 GPA. Don’t know why I didn’t get into an MD school, but glad to say that I graduated from a DO school and will be a resident next year! Maybe I’m a messed up person in some way, but a little DO school in NJ took a chance on me!!

I agree with everything he said. Disclaimer, I go to a DO school and want to match orthopedic surgery. I will say as a DO student I understand how much more I have to work, especially since we do not have an affiliated hospital, ubiquitous amounts of research, etc. But I do think the education I receive is great and is preparing me to be a great physician! And every year, I see the stigma behind DOs decrease more and more. The only part I was surprised about in this video was about DO influencers because I see a lot of DOs or DO students own their title and bring awareness so maybe Dr. Jubbal and I see different subsets of the population. Either way, great video as always!

I ended up in love with the field of physical medicine & rehabilitation and did the USMLE. Ironically, the more structurally based emphasis of my osteopathic medical training served me very well. Always mindful of how structure governs function and how derangements in those functions are treated by effecting structural change. I found myself accepted at a number of stellar programs in New York City and nationally. I was accepted at my first choice, NYU-School of Medicine/Langone, and never regretted it. By the time I was Chief Resident, at least 1/3 of the residents were DOs. My professors and mentors were the authors of the very textbooks we were studying, and I can honestly say, the topic of my medical degree was never mentioned once. The caveat was that if you wanted respect, you earn it through dedication, hard-work, and a commitment to excellent patient care. Does having a DO degree matter? Only if you think it does.

I appreciate Dr. Jubbal not being fearful of making vids about these controversial topics - awesome work

Comparing a candidate based upon if their title is a MD/DO is a type bias that is founded in some of the hierarchies that is rather pervasive to medicine as a whole. For example, the average MCAT score for, say, University of Louisville MD is a 507. For Midwestern Chicago college of osteopathic medicine? 510. The average MCAT for Central Michigan MD program? 508. For Des Moine College of Osteopathic medicine? 509. If we simply compare a candidate based upon a MD/DO title, then what are we really evaluating? Nothing other than our own bias. It is absurd to compare in this way because the "average" MCAT score is highly variable on the institution and the program. For this reason, it is far superior to evaluate the student, not the degree. Moreover, the MCAT is a test that can be beat. I find it comical when I hear the story of the student who studied 3 years because they never felt ready to the student who studied 2 months right out of college. One got a 512 (three years studying) and the other got a 505. Are these scores actually comparable? Absolutely not. The one with a 512 went MD and the one with a 505 went D.O. To evaluate in this way is a bias that's damaging to medicine as a whole and far to simplistic to be an accurate indicator of fit for a specialty.

I wish you would’ve talked about Caribbean medical schools seeing as the students graduate with MDs but it is typically a lot easier to get into compared to DO schools (and some don’t even require an MCAT).

I’m an MD student but as a patient I strongly opt for DOs esp for PCPs. I’ve had such great experiences with DOs treating more than my symptoms, helping me find treatment options that are reasonable for me as a student. What keeps me going is that MD curriculums now focus on the whole patient experience as well.

As a DO FP the past 23 years I thought your presentation was pretty good. There is a bit of history that was left out concerning how the allopathic physicians have in the past, tried to basically run the osteopaths into the ground. This is where a lot of the past animosity between the two originates. The state of California is probably the best example. It was eventually proven at the California State Supreme Court level that DOs not only received as good of an education as an MD but that the education is superior due to the extra training in Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine ( Used to be called OMT) AND ANATOMY. DOs get a few hundred more hours in the anatomy cadaver lab than most MD schools. In the end, the state of California granted licensure back to DOs in the late 1970s that was taken away in the early 1960s. I was actually taught by two of the DOs that took the case to the Supreme Court as were thousands of others. One of them, Viola Fryman, DO was an Osteopath who operated an exclusive Cranial Clinic for something like 60 years. Her patients were mostly children and she had extraordinary results with them and their families for generations. She also trained thousands of DOs in Cranial manipulation including myself. Calling it quackery because of a few biased studies while ignoring the decades of clinical evidence I found a little superficial. As for the grades and GPAs of entering medical students, every medical school be it DO or MD could fill every seat with 4.0 students with crazy MCAT scores without blinking an eye. It’s the interview process that hashes out what the schools are looking for as candidates. I’ll admit I wasn’t the best candidate for either school but as an a former Marine and a mature individual, it was determined that I would become an excellent physician as I can relate to people a lot better than books. I found in my rotations that all the smartest DO and MD residents could really do well on tests and exams but were utter failures in “practical exams” when they had to relate to a model patient encounter. So, it’s not all books and grades that make a good DO or MD , it’s your passion for the profession and how well you can relate and empathize with patients and their families. I’ve loved this profession and have many colleagues and friends on both sides including my brother who is a MD. This issue of which is better never comes up in any conversation. I should mention that I have kept my OMM skillz and practice them daily but selectively. You have to learn not only how to measure out that kind of treatment but also how to bill for it! It’s not hard but I’ve heard many excuses about why a DO doesn’t do it. I’ll also admit that many DOs could care less about OMM because they just wanted to get into medical school and pay the “taxes” that you mentioned. That was pretty funny. I do it just about everyday. It takes years to really get good at it and see the results that you are taught as a student. Many years. All in all, I really enjoyed your video and take on things. I got here watching your 100 mile bike ride video. I’m also a triathlete and plan on doing one of those next month. You’re a very nice young man and I wish you nothing but the best in your career✌🏽

I love your videos so much, I don't even want to be a medical doctor but I still find your content very educational and entertaining.

Honest and giving it straight as always

When you briefly mentioned in the beginning Drs Vs Mid levels like NPs and PAs, that brought back some memories from my old ER hospital I worked at. It is a busy trauma center (among other specialties) and they have a residency program. You could tell the residents and mid levels would bump heads a lot. Was quite the site to see...

I’m an MD but we had a lot of DO residents at the University of Iowa where I did my internal medicine residency. They were all great residents and very smart. My brother in law is currently a 4th year DO student. I’m also adjunct faculty at a DO school and have medical students occasionally.

The DO/MD stigma exists in toxic uneducated premed culture and once you are actually in med school or in a hospital it literally doesn’t exist. I train side by side with both and never once has anyone discredited my abilities based on the fact that I’m at an osteopathic medical school nor have I once worried about matching my specialty choice. Attend the med school you think fits with you well and don’t listen to bullshit about DOs being subpar physicians. You’ll have mentorship in whatever specialty you want at both, make the right connections and you can do what ever you want as a DO. I went to a DO school specifically for better MSK training as I wanted to do something in the neuro/msk world and it’s worked out spectacular 🙌

My DO retired in 2021, and he was the only doctor I trusted. Though the medical industry here in Canada does NOT recognize the DO designation, I found my DO to be more caring and knowledgeable about the human body than any MD I've seen in a long LONG time.

I’m a DO 3rd year and this is 100% true. I went DO because it was where I could get in, but I fortunately am at a school that is owned by a hospital system and has been around for a while so some of these limitations don’t apply. I thought the cranial part was hilarious and accurate. Everyone knows it is a load of BS (even our professors told us it was garbage but we had to learn it because it’s on the COMLEX), but there is some of the OMM that is useful in a sports medicine setting (it really should just be a specialty subset of training rather than baseline in my opinion). Hopefully some of the ego differences start to fade. Love the video!

As a current DO student, this video is objective and accurate.

There are many reasons people choose to go to medical school, but the part in this video that bothered me (and perhaps I am mistaken) is that it seemed to portray rural or general practitioners as a second choice and not as important as doctors who specialize in one area. Since we have a crisis in America concerning the great need for physicians providing medical care in rural and underserved areas, this view is harmful. We need good, caring physicians in rural and underserved areas, and DO medical schools are stepping up and working hard to train physicians to fill this great need. This is not a failure, but an important difference in philosophy - not about the money, but the care. ❤️

DO here at a somewhat reputable academic residency (for what thats worth-which isn't a lot). This video is 100% accurate and factual. Honestly the difference between DOs and MDs, and the conversations surrounding those differences, are a pre-med/medical school thing. In residency this disappears almost completely. However to get to residency where it doesn't really matter, you have to be ok with being at a slight disadvantage for most specialties, and a big disadvantage for some more competitive residencies. While several people at my school matched into competitive specialties (term, ortho, ent,...), it isn't the norm by any means, so you just gotta be aware and ok with that.

Let me just go on a limb here and say that you are an advisor for Caribbean MD schools for a while now. I might be wrong but this is my feeling. Good luck!

Here goes my first time commenting on a RU-vid video. Canadian 4th year DO here, I come in peace. If you are a pre-med, your goal should be an American, Canadian in my case, MD unless you are 100% sold on OMM (Like I want to touch bones for a living sold). However, I had a competitive application (Bachelor in Music, GPA 3.8, MCAT 86th percentile) and because of that, I made the mistake of not applying to DO schools in my first round and have been regretting it since. That effort of "making my application more competitive" could've been used in medical school. What you learn in med school is very different and a lot more dependent on your personal abilities to excel. Doing well on Step 2 (which means well above average if you want to do something competitive) can compensate for the US MD preference. More importantly, instead of taking a year before med school, in hopes of getting in the next year, why not do a preliminary residency year in general surgery (which is paid), or a research year at the program you are interested instead. I don't think you should delay medical school, especially as a pre-med just because you like shadowing Neurosurgery. Watching a Neurosurgery procedure is fun but doing an 8 hours spine procedure is gonna make you ask some questions about your interest. A subtlety that this video is missing is the other factors that go into admission. For example, if you are from a place that is less populated, your chances of getting into an MD school there are higher. These places are in need of doctors and they prefer natives because they are more likely to stay and practice there. Once you are in a DO school you come to find out it's a lot fewer grandmother dogs babysitter father-in-law situations than it's implied. However, while any Canadian / US MD is good to go to for a chance of matching competitive specialties, definitely do your research and make sure you are going into a very good DO school. From what I've heard you can go wrong with that. You want to make sure they have associated hospitals, consistent good match rates, and offer extensive research opportunities. You'll also have to take USMLE, most of us DOs do even if we are unsure about the specialty that we want to go to.

I have to say that when I started with my DO about a year and a half ago, I was VERY pleased. In my close to 65 years of using medical personnel, I have been most pleased with the current DO. You mentioned something in your video about the DO being more patient-oriented. This is probably the very best description you could have given and explains exactly what I have felt and could not put it into those exact words. With the exception of one MD, I have always felt rushed by MD. Although through the years the MDs have gotten somewhat better. I have had PAs more often than anything simply because I did not like the personality of the MD and the feeling they lacked appreciation for my time. Being late to my appointment as much as an hour, and the next time 45 mins. I told this doctor straight out, if you are late to my next appointment I will be changing to a different PCP. Yuppers, he was 1/2 hour late to the next appointment and I immediately switched to the office PA, who was very kind, professional, caring, listened to me and what I had to contribute, etc. I have had a breathing problem since I was in my twenties and it has only gotten worse over the years and even and a pulmonary workup from A to Z, before I moved to where I live now. The pulm. doctor I saw, according to all the reviews I could find was supposed to be very well-known and highly recommended. However, she could not recommend anything pulm. wise that could help me above what I was already doing. She and my PCP (the only MD that I really liked and thought did a really good job) recommended me to cardiology who recommended a cardiac surgeon (who after having him operate on me twice, only to have someone see me for my follow-up appointments and both of my post open heart admissions). Even after having a CABG X 2 and a stint placed 11 months later, surgery to debride all the infection from the wound, which I then spent a week on a wound vac. had to have a pectoral flap rotation done, and ended up in a nursing home). This still did not help relieve my breathing problems. When I started with my current DO he worked with me on my breathing and switched me to a different base inhaler, which the very next day my breathing improved so much I was shocked. I went from having two base inhalers, plus a rescue inhaler, to ONE base inhaler and much less use of my rescue inhaler. He has always been very attentive to what I say and remembers even the little things from one appointment to the next. I would take this put this DO up against any of the MDs I have had in the past. VERY, very happy with his care and have recommended him to everybody I knew who needed a doctor.

As a DO student I can attest to all of what was stated in this video from the arguments I've heard from both sides to the reasons students choose one over the other. I was accepted into every DO school I applied to and after having done a lot of research on the differences between the two back when I was applying, I was upset to have only been interviewed by one MD school. I still think you can have a fulfilling career in any specialty as a DO, but as stated in the video your chances of getting into a more competitive specialty are slimmer. However, this is changing with both COMLEX and USMLE becoming pass fail. I'm thankful for the opportunity to have the ability to be in med school and one day become a doctor but if I had the ability to go to an MD school I would have taken it to avoid dealing with the stigma, double the amount of board exams, and learning all the OMM that I don't plan on actually using in practice.

This was a fair analysis. Much better than Hasan Minhaj. Just an aside if you are applying to both MD and DO schools: Don’t make the mistake of saying during interview at the DO school “I’m applying just in case I don’t get into an MD school”

As a patient, I have no preference between MD and DO. I just want someone who is competent, which is highly variable regardless of degree. As a premed, I want to get an MD because I don’t want to compromise not being able to get into a competitive specialty because of a DO school not having rotations in my desired specialty. At the end of the day, I feel the reasoning people use to justify why they became an MD or a DO is arbitrary as they just want to become a physician to treat patients

A few thoughts as a DO who graduated an allopathic Med Peds residency this month. Overall I would agree that MD students still have generally more opportunities than DO students in many areas. I taught MD students (from the medical school affiliated with my residency) for the past 4 years and have seen this. And yes, quality of rotations can definitely be a drawback to some DO schools. Furthermore, some prestigious residencies still hold antiquated values and won't even consider DO graduates regardless of their resume. That said, most students deciding to attend an osteopathic school reach their desired goal as a DO, so it really just depends on what you career goal / life goals are when deciding to go the MD or DO route. While it's relatively difficult to get into any medical school, GPA and MCAT scores moreso reflect undergraduate work ethic, not one's capabilities as a provider, nor intelligence. While the best opportunities should absolutely go to those who work hard for it, anyone viewing these statistics as an assessment of someone's potential is sorely misguided. One could argue that osteopathic schools having lower matriculating requirements gives many people a chance to prove they can be a great provider if they work hard(er) for it and gives many nontraditional candidates (who often have lower stats from my understanding) a shot at their dream career. Medical school and residency becomes the true test of mettle and application of acquired knowledge, and if you successfully navigate these and pass your boards, no one cares what letters are behind your name or what school you went to (i.e. whether it be stateside, Caribbean, international, etc). The two professions (which are really one in the same) are becoming less delineated every decade that passes, and in my experience, there is no where near as much animosity between MDs and DOs in real world practice. For the most part, it's the opposite: Respect. Few other things: The AOA needs to denounce non-evidence based OMM/OMT such as cranial therapy. Aside from it being an enormous waste of time and money, it hurts the credibility of the osteopathic profession. Conversely, osteopathic manipulative techniques and principles such as those also routinely employed by physical therapists and other rehabilitative services backed by evidence should be promoted. I could probably rehabilitate half the patients I refer to PT myself but ain't nobody got time for that lol. Also, MDs practice just as "holistically" as DOs so any osteopathic physician promoting that BS drank too much AT Still kool aid.

DO - PCP here Completed allopathic residency in FP 35 years ago - had co-residents from UPENN, Jefferson, and many other MD schools. Didn’t matter which school you attended; came down to your individual skills and commitment as a physician. The video is accurate as a DO you may have to “prove” yourself at times in the MD world but now that the residencies are combined that should improve. For the more “elite” specialties it is easier if you have an MD degree which is unfortunate. No question that DO schools focus more on the primary care fields which is what this country needs now!! Bottom line in practice the difference is indistinguishable- we all are physicians - we speak the same language, we understand disease processes and follow standards of care. Unfortunately it is a human trait to try and elevate oneself over another and the medical profession is no exception, but this is seen even in the MD arena - i.e. an MD degree from an IVY League school vs. MD degree from a state school. Is one truly superior to the other? My advice - whether you are an MD or DO you have been given GOD given skills to serve your fellow man - do it to the best of your ability with sincerity, compassion and diligence recognizing that one day you may be a patient.

I agree! I am alway super proud of a DO when i see them on the residency page of a dermatology, orthopedics, or ENT program. If given the option most people would take an MD seat over DO. it makes it easier to enter the match without that stigma.

The compensation thing is more nuanced. DOs who tend to do primary care more actually on average make more given they more often in rural areas. For those who aren’t aware in rural areas you can literally often double your salary when compared to working an urban academic institution. For example I’m DO in EM at a large MD academic hospital in a major city. The salary here is literally half of what rural ED docs make in my home state (Missouri) where most of the docs I was scribing for in the ED were DO

I appreciate the factual content of your message. I chose to go the DO route because I was a non-traditional student, my overall GPA was lower (only because my first attempt at college, I was not ready for and could not afford to go the extra time it took to claim academic bankruptcy and start over). I, also, was a massage therapist prior and love body work. Regardless of whether or not I regard some DO treatments as not being scientifically based, some make patients feel wonderful and have been proven beneficial. That being said, during my training, some of the med school rotations were at smaller hospitals. There are downfalls and bonuses to this. Yes, numbers of patients treated may not be the same, but the time with patients and time to study disease and treatment is actually better, or was for me. In practice, I have had more positive patient outcomes than my MD counterparts. Just my take. I did, also, want to practice Family Medicine. I spent my first 3 years out of residency in a small critical access hospital as sole ED physician and hospitalist without any specialty support during my 5-7 day, 24hr shifts, receiving better patient outcomes and more patient satisfaction from the other 2 (MD) physicians working the other shifts. So, while a lot of DOs went that route because of multiple reasons, whether or not they choose to practice osteopathic treatment, that is definitely not the case for everyone (as you pointed out). In addition, I continue to be associated with and work as a community preceptor for my previous FM residency, which now has more MD residents, due to the merger, I see no difference in baseline knowledge or ability for basic science-backed/evidence-based medicine. The only difference I see is the lack of ability in the MD resident to address MSK issues prior to referral to a specialist.

We don't have DOs in my country and I wonder if I'd studied elsewhere whether I'd have become a DO instead of an MD. Thank you for teaching me something new😊

The kitty typing along with that quote, made laugh way too hard! 😂

If he's an MD himself he should probably start with why we should trust him to deliver this comparison.

Thanks for this. As an inpatient medical educator (Neurologist/MD) at a tertiary community hospital, I work with MD and DO students and residents. Almost universally the DO students are more comfortable approaching patients early on since they working with humans their first year with OMM. I firmly believe that our “system“ should be better about reimbursing OMM in certain conditions. While craniosacral should go, they have other OMM techniques that would save opiate use and unnecessary surgery if we could enlist it early. I think there should be OMM capability in every ED, primary care, ortho clinic, headache clinic and rehab unit/clinic, to complement drugs that we overuse. Unfortunately the time it takes to perform the manipulations doesn’t fit with our volume-based medical model.

I work for a MD and a DO in the same office. I really do not see a difference. They are both wonderful men and they are very intelligent!!!

Very objective analysis. I just started OMS-1 at an osteopathic school after having watched your videos for years. Very helpful!

Excellent video

As a student of osteopathic medicine I agree with a majority that has been said. From talking to many people, it seems a lot of the bias stems from it being a little easier to get into a DO school vs. and MD school. It is interesting how one exam in undergraduate education can be a determining factor of how people view the difference between the two. I personally see a lot more in line with treating the whole self and helping the body do what it is meant to do to restore itself.. The added 500 plus hours of hands-on manipulation only helps the physician feel more comfortable and have more understanding of the human body. At the end of the day I don’t think the licencing is what defines a smart/ caring/ skilled physician. Really it is the intent and the desire a physician has to improve their quality of care. I shadowed a MD Gastroenterologist that acknowledged his short comings in treatment options and throughout his career he became much more wholistic in scope. He focused so much on lifestyle and culinary medicine in treating pathologic states before starting someone on a long-term medication. I also have DO friends who wish they were at MD schools and want nothing to do with osteopathic manipulation. I really wouldn’t be surprised if the licencing eventually merged because there are way more similarities than differences. All in all I believe there are good and bad doctors from both degrees and it would be unethical to think less of DO based upon its licencing. While there are differences in averages on exam scores between the two, there are also many outliers in DO programs that have better scores than many of their MD counterparts.

The MD I went to for over 20 years retired. I was a bad personality match with the MD who took her place. The clinic has matched me with a DO instead. They have both. It's a good clinic. I trust them.

Speaking that Truth!

Great explanation.

I'd love a video on which specialties are considered DO friendly that are not primary care because I see a lot of discourse on that between my peers in my osteopathic school.

I just came by this video and God willingly I plan on becoming a doctor after doing my research. I want to go to DO school! I love the approach to health.

Look at the lower 1/3 of the MD schools--in the poorer and more rural states……Arkansas, West Virginia, Puerto Rico, Alabama, Louisiana, Washington , DC, some in Florida (the newer MD schools), and some in Ohio and Nebraska ………their average GPA and MCAT score of their accepted students is very similar to or even lower than many DO schools. Not all MD schools are that “exclusive” to get into. It depends if you are an in state applicant in one of the poorer and more rural states……it is easier to get into an MD school in one of these states than if you are in Pennsylvania (more populated state and not a poor state). Yes, getting into an MD school is somewhat based on geography, in state status of your state and just plain luck at times.

I have had DO's and MDs. I see no difference in the quality of care I have received. I will see Dos seem to approach me more a person rather than a name on chart.

You're very thorough and I like your videos. You mentioned this briefly but I would love to hear you do a video or speak more about the unspoken culture of programs not accepting D.O. students simply because they are a D.O. An allopathic and and osteopathic student with identical applications aren't given the same opportunities at several programs. There are RC cola residency programs that refuse coca cola students because they are a D.O.

I've worked with both types and it's really about the physician not the letters behind the name.

There’s no beef between MDs and DOs in real life. There’s some old hold out boomer MDs at ivory tower places that still hold stigma based on how things were in the 70s lol so it is harder for competitive specialties. I’m a DO at a large academic MD institution. Nobody cares. Chair of our hospital and medical school (MD) is a DO. I’ve never met an MD under the age of 40 who cares about DO. Go MD if you can but if you go DO and get to residency (most do) it’s all chill and fine.

The mission statement for pretty much all DO schools is to train Primary Care Physicians…it’s literally in their mission statement. If you’re an applicant that wants to sub-specialize and goes through the entire process of interviewing saying you want to do primary care, well-it is what it is. Also, DO pass and score rates for the USMLE are basically identical to MD students. No one cares what your stats were getting into the medical school-at the end of the day the training is the same, if not more difficult.

Can't wait to hear your take on APPs. As a PA, I am often disheartened by the idea that some MDs or associations have that a PA is out to replace them. We are and have always been centered on patient care and collaboration. I hope that you are able to illuminate both sides of the issue. Also, I practice in neurosurgery and work with several DOs in various specialties, including neurosurgery, and have found no difference in their training, and CERTAINLY not in their intelligence or skill.

Loved the video! The one thing I sort of disagree with is the limiting of residency option based on the degree rather than a function of med school choice. In my opinion, it’s much more based on the individual school as there are some DO schools with more opportunity than some MD schools. You really have to look at each school individually and make a decision based on what your goals are. Some of the Uber competitive specialties are more favored towards MDs because the top med schools in the country are much more populated (if not totally) with MD programs. This is not a function of the title, but rather a result of the quality of school and the opportunities that it provides. That being said you always have the option to put in the work and plenty of people get competitive residencies after only being able to get into a less competitive med school after suboptimal grades/mcat score. I guess my point is don’t pick a school with less opportunities based on the letters behind the degree. Figure out what the best school is for you and go there.

I LOVE YOUR ENDING DOC❗️ And I love A.T. Still’s original idea of holistic and biomechanical use of practice. Whether if I was to fit an MD program highly. 🤷🏽‍♂️

I have no idea how these things are taught in other fields, but as a former medical massage therapist, I haven't known any cranial-sacral therapy practitioners to speak specifically about CSF or anything to do with its movement. I do know that it's often a very effective therapy modality for many orthopedic and neurologic symptoms that don't respond well to heavier forces. This strikes me as probably a similar subcultural rhetoric issue to that which plagues acupuncture, i.e. that it's often represented with outdated and unscientific terminology which perpetuates a terrible inaccurate reputation for the method, despite better terms and explanations being preferred by science-minded practitioners for a long time now. Your content is very nuanced and forward-thinking overall, and it's not like one concerningly-reductive in-passing comment negates that. That said, basically declaring CST altogether as an example of quackery was a bit uncharacteristically over a line into the territory of bias, and that's a real bummer to see. Patient outcomes would be better if us medical geeks were all a little less quick to categorically dismiss complementary therapy methods just because they've historically had elements of flawed logic; after all, by nature, the notably flawed components of models are what attract the most focus and testing and discussion, and this causes data and social narratives to feedback-loop reinforce each other, and ultimately leads to beliefs that misrepresent the actual benefits of methods which should be looked at in a much more contextualized and applied way. I totally buy that there's not evidence for the _originally preached mechanisms_ of CST. That's true for many many modalities out there. But that doesn't mean the methods themselves aren't significantly effective. This is a major problematic impasse in medicine, particularly manual medicine, especially because it's very hard to specifically define and quantify many qualities of manual medicine indications, practices, and outcomes. But there are plenty of things in allopathic medicine where our questions still boil down to a good number of "we don't know why"s, and yet we recognize that this doesn't negate the usefulness of discoveries made on the way to those unknowns. I'd argue that the use of "quackery" and similar terms is inherently opposed to an objective medical anthropology perspective. By the nature of human behavior and selection pressure, any method people are using for anything in life is filling either an objective need or a perceived need (which is a kind of objective need). To categorically dismiss methods, _particularly_ of care that's hard to standardize for experimentation, and _particularly_ of care that's predominantly used palliatively, just because the theorized mechanisms don't hold up under a particular type of western biomed lens held at a particular angle (I'm NOT belittling the scientific method, solely speaking _within_ the spectrum of experiment design here, because the hard truth is that not all true data is useful data) ... to do this is to willfully and needlessly throw away a tool, one which some real and valid people find relief from sometimes, and which isn't competing for space because it's in an infinitely sized toolbox. The toolbox of medicine can be and should be as diverse as the population it serves. I'm all for caution and criticism and examination of mechanisms and aggressive skepticism, just not for jumping to conclusions that are based in flawed focuses within a more nuanced whole. I'm part of several communities who are used to our cause-effect experiences not being represented in predominant data, and I also have the privilege of seeing why that is and understanding where dominant narratives come from. But if there's any community we (by which I currently mean people like me who have and/or treat problems that are helped by stigmatized modalities, but also other groups whose experiences aren't reflected well in data, e.g. in my case disabled, unhoused, etc.) ... If there's any group we most need to team up with (and in my case infiltrate lol) to start resolving logical and terminology impasses and identifying things that DO work for _most_ people _within specific niche need-area groups,_ it's physicians. To make it all work and move forward with better science all around on this stuff, the western biomed community really needs to help zoom out and get a little more objective and open-minded. And by all means, so do the naturalistic-fallacy people who lean way too hard into "alternative" (hate that term) med and get inappropriately dismissive of valuable tools themselves. But that's not the community I'm mainly talking to right now. :P So yeah. If anyone actually sees this and read this far, let's normalize a moratorium on "quackery" and similar terminology, because it really just firms up needless impasses rather than doing anything constructive. We can do and need to do so, so much better.

Currently a first year DO medical student. I had a 4.0 science GPA, 3 research papers, 70th percentile on the MCAT and years of experience working at a medical examiners office performing autopsies. I only applied to DO medical schools because they tend to focus on aiding medically underserved and rural communities, something that I desire to do. I also grew up in a rural community and was largely exposed to DO practice. What I appreciate about being a DO student is how we are taught that the person is made up of three components: mind, body, and spirit, hence the holisitc approach. I do not intend on specializing but serving as a rural physician, who, for lack of better terms has to "know a little bit about everything." I find that the hands on palpitory skills and some OMM treatments could prove valuable in rural clinics where improvising is necessary. I did not apply to MD schools mainly because of my lack of experience/unfamiliarity with their practice of medicine and because my personal goals aligned more with a DO approach. I have no ill feelings toward any MD students or MD physicians. I have learned that medicine is a team effort and we can learn anything from anyone. I look forward to working with all my fellow healthcare professional brothers and sisters in the future. God bless

Current US MD 4th year student here. Very true that stigma exists between MD vs DO. However, I worked with two DO orthopedic surgeons who were extremely intelligent, more so than anybody I have ever met in my life. Yes, they might be outliers, but it changed my perception of DO students completely. They are just as capable as the MD counterpart. If you are a DO and want a competitive specialty, then work extra hard for it. I believe that the two letter difference will become less and less significant in the future.

I'll just take whatever med school I can get into

Seeing fewer DO specialists is not necessarily due to preference or non-competitiveness. It could be simply that there are relatively fewer DOs than MDs. A better analysis would be comparing the proportion of DOs to MDs overall to the proportion in a given specialty. Are DOs over or under-represented in any given specialty? That’s the real question.

Honestly, as a recent DO grad, the breakdown here is actually pretty good. I especially agree with the analysis of clinical opportunities and funding, rural vs. urban, etc.

Would like to add that I have also seen that an MD coming from a top 10 MD school may “look down” upon an MD graduating from a state school or one of the lower 1/3 ranked MD schools. Not all MD schools are seen as being equal to each other in the eyes of some of the graduating MD’s. There is even judgement among MD’s themselves…..not all, obviously, but some do judge.

As a DO attending in EM who went through the first combined dual MD-DO program in EM established in the US ---I find very few physicians who care what initials you have--the more often asked question is where did you do residency? I teach in an EM program that has accepted both degrees for years and there are strong and weak residents on both sides of the fence. Success is much more the effort one put into it along the way. Commend Dr Jubbal for a well balanced vlog on the topic. However, one facet that he didn't cover is that DOs are a late comers to the physician game relative to the well established MD programs. Historically DO programs were family practice oriented and usually small with smaller faculty. Those DOs wanting to do a given specialty used to be immediately at a disadvantage because the number of DO specialty positions was small ---the alternative was to enter allopathic residencies--but then your competing with a much much larger pool of MD students and its just a number game at that point. Now both will be competing for the same residencies with the fusion of the ACGME. In the midwest the osteopathic profession is and was extremely well established and DO programs had their own base hospitals and dedicated rotations and in fact in Michigan all training is in a education consortium so MD or DO students can rotate at any medical institution if there is space and they apply and get accepted. Osteopathic schools also had a reputation for accepting. non traditional students--some in their second careers in life. The recent acceleration in the number of DO medical schools has created competition for rotations/ training programs that were already full. So many have gone to an al a carte method with a rotation here or one there or to ambulatory clinics ---that strategy likely.does not give equivalent exposure for DO students but with any new group/professional needing clinical exposure growth is painful and slow. MD profession for years has had the monopoly on training sites. Even now well funded traditional MD schools are moving into remote urban training sites (usually out of their home state) and making massive financial commitments in return for their name on institutions training program and preferred access for their medical students. At the end of the day this argument is really irrelevant to the quality of the individual physician--a better question is how much training and experience do you have and are you board certified ??

Great video, I think you hit this right on the head, it ultimately goes back to confidence in one's self. If you are confident in your abilities as a physician it will be apparent to all of your patients and this ranks superior to the perceived notion of the medical school you attended. As you said before, the medical school you attend is not the final determinant in the type of physician that you will become.

Hisan Minhaj probably wasn't smart enough to get into DO school and is now salty lol

It is very challenging to specialize as a DO. We had none in our cardiology residency. Most friends from do school became pcps.

I am going to apply to both MD & DO I don't care which one I get in to. I just want to be a family medicine physician so it wont matter to me which one takes me.

I get the sense that a lot of the differences and disagreements seem to have a lot more to do with the internal politics of the medical field. As a patient I probably shouldn’t be too worried about those two letters.

I took both the USMLE and the COMLEX. The USMLE was more straight forward while the COMLEX was more convoluted and of course contained osteopathy. I wouldn’t say the COMLEX was easier. I found the USMLE “easier” for me.

Some key points to note about your claim of US DOs and international practice: -The UN-ILO declared in 2016 that USDOs are physicians and surgeons w/ a medical degree and are separate from osteopaths. -France & Barbados are the only countries worldwide who restrict USDO practice. They restricted licensure way before 2016. -Wikipedia has an AOA summary; please understand that the countries u see there r where a DO has applied before. Mongolia, eg, is not there; it doesn’t mean a DO can’t practice there-it means no DO applied to practice medicine in Mongolia. If you want to practice medicine in Mongolia, you simply have to apply just like a USMD. Every country has its process of licensing foreign grads. -Most US residencies are not recognized in 1st world countries (regardless of MD or DO); you may have to retrain regardless of USMD/DO. The DO degree, however, is recognized by every first world country in the world (except France) like Canada, UK, New Zealand, etc. for unrestricted practice of medicine and surgery. Funny thing is, a program coordinator reached out to me on this point she herself has sent surgical residents with DO degrees to France for training. -Most US doctors do not go to the developing world to “practice” medicine; they go on mission trips. 100% of mission trip organizations (DWB, CMDA) accept USDOs as physicians and have arranged for their mission trips. If u want to stay over for long term, by reference, it’s not an issue. Bangladesh, an LDC (Least Developed Country) country where I was born, for example, is not in AOA summary of licensure. However, I am connected to a DO orthopedic surgeon in LinkedIn who goes to Bangladesh every summer to do hip and knee surgery at the arrangement of a health organization. If you think this is anecdotal, no problem. DM me @iamahmednahian on IG or Twitter and I can even give you his details and you even can get info about the organization if you are interested in international service. Now if this DO orthopedic surgeon, or let’s bring current example, the 119 OMS-4s who matched to orthopedic surgery this year (2023) wants to get a license from Bangladesh Medical & Dental Council for private practice after residency, do you think BMDC will deny these US educated, trained, ABOS board certified surgeons ????? As far as Bangladeshi law goes, ABOS certification is hugged and adored by the board. I don’t know how many of the 119 OMS-4s even go down this rabbit hole of “Will I be able to private practice in XYZ country,” but I think it is safe to say that there is light for these DOs down that rabbit hole. -Almost all foreign boards in need list ABMS boards as grounds of acceptance for licensure. So what’s the point of bringing up a degree for international practice when no medical degree means anything in foreign soil; it’s your residency that will determine whether you may or may not practice within the scope that you want to. As an immigrant, personally, I’ve never understood this strike against the DOs. Most countries around the world is not France; getting one physician from anywhere, let alone the USA could mean the world to them. This video definitely is one of my favorites from this channel tho because it goes down the rabbit hole of ego and things as such. It appears that as someone who is doing BS/DO, I haven’t listened to your advise by committing to becoming a DO from high school despite having an acceptance from a BS/MD program 😁. One of my favorite lines from here is that you suggest premeds to not commit to DO programs now because they are not “as established;” you are doing your job, I understand. However, this degree being newer + the rapid changes happening to it was probably one of the biggest reasons I have pursued this degree. There is a lot happening around it. There is a lot we can do to improve our community and institutions, and the change comes from us, the future bearers of this degree. Aside the fact that I celebrate the DO philosophy, we forget that some people like me may want to be in the 10%. I don’t know about the history of DO, but the future of DO is bright.

Not the vacuum cleaner's nephew 😭😭😭

Whether you are an MD or DO does not matter. I never asked my physician where she graduated. I picked my doctor based on how she treated me period, i care less on where she finishef. How can you say its better off MD??? Who cares ? What matters is she or he made me comfortable. 😮

This is one of those things where, given enough time, I wouldn't be surprised if the opportunities even out. I'd be really interested to see a study where a patient was blinded to whether the physician was an MD or a DO, go through the treatment, then see if the patient can tell which is which. I bet they can't. I'd likewise love to know the morbidity/mortality of each case and if there's a difference. I bet there isn't. With both such hypothesis, I'd be more than willing to be proven wrong (isn't that what science is all about?), but given how the residency programs are, well, for all intents and purposes the same, I'd be surprised if there's an actual difference. Also, would be interesting if you somehow could control for the ability of the student, as then you could actually compare the programs. The best equivalent would be to compare MD/DO graduates' ability as a physician (in whatever possible quantifiable way, morbidity and mortality being the obvious endpoints but patient satisfaction being an interesting one as well) controlled by admission MCAT scores/GPA. So like, compare an MD graduate with an MCAT of x and a GPA of y to a DO graduate with the same variables. That would tell far more than the average admissions of each type of degree, though even that isn't necessarily a great quantifier of actual inherent abilities required to be a physician

"An MD is Coca-Cola and a DO is RC Cola" 💀 On a serious note, much respect to all physicians out there helping mankind! ✊

That Joker clip got me good

I'm like the only person who got into MD and DO and ended up going to a DO :/

This is true. I went MD due to my military background gave me a huge advantage when applying to all schools. My wife being Asian, well we know about the discrimination they face due to what’s going on. However we decided that she would accept the best opportunity and she went DO. And yes it’s basically the same thing however she took all the exams USMLE Complex etc and passed them all easily. She was annoyed however with the hands on bs training mandated lol. We did have a ‘kicker’ due to I’m a 100% p&t veteran and we are married = they did take that into consideration for rotations and residency.

I applied to MD and DO schools. No beef in my book🤷🏽‍♀️ Docs rock!💯😄

I’ve noticed there is a huge misconception on MD practice rights outside of the US. As someone who is currently working with a DO in Italy, the degree does not matter. Every single US doctor had to submit the same exact paperwork and wait 6 months before their license was granted.

I don’t think there is that much tension between MDs and DOs. We have more to gain by working together. The only concern I have for DOs is the over proliferation of DO schools including for-profit institutions..that’s honestly going to hurt existing DOs more than MDs

DO attending here....I didn't know there was a beef....

I'm planning on applying this year and will be choosing a DO school over all but 2 MD schools if I am accepted.

Most Americans still have NO idea that a DO is a medical doctor! It's such a shame. The only reason I know is because my father is a MD and I have doctors in my family. I'm not sure how to educate people about DOs but it's something that needs to be addressed.

The real question is how many matched pre meds with future cardiothoracic surgeon in their bio change their mind to primary care while getting ready for USMLE

As a patient, I'd rather see a DO than an MD, or either with integrative medical certification

Dr. Mike says DO schools are more competetive (because there are less schools) and that DO is MD+bonus competence.

Without a horse in this race, or an ego hang up, its CLEAR that MD's are preferable.

Tl:dr the difference is most important to consider for pre meds. Once/ If you land a residency of your liking, nothing else matters

As non american, Ive watched some vids that those who didnt make it to med school in the US often go to the Carribean med schools bec going to DO schools in the US would limit their chance in the competitive specialty. And DO path would gave them more hardships in their study just to compete with MDs in those specialty.

Kevin schooling costs aside from being a doctor in America. Why does it take so long and why is it so hard to become a doctor in America compared to other countries? Thanks for all you do

Dr. Mike ❤️

I strongly believe that no matter your physician status, the stigmata associated with MDs and DOs can have ethical implications for the practice of medicine. Here are some ethical considerations I think we should keep in mind: Avoiding Bias: Physicians should avoid bias and stereotypes when making diagnoses and treatment decisions. This means that they should not make assumptions about a patient's condition or treatment preferences based on whether the physician is an MD or DO. Promoting Patient Autonomy: Patients have the right to choose their healthcare provider and to be fully informed about the training and qualifications of their provider. Physicians should provide accurate and unbiased information about their training and qualifications, and respect the patient's decision in choosing their healthcare provider. Maintaining Professionalism: Physicians should adhere to ethical principles and professional standards that promote patient safety, privacy, and confidentiality. This includes avoiding discriminatory behavior or language and maintaining appropriate boundaries with patients. Using Evidence-Based Practice: Physicians should use evidence-based practices and rely on the best available research and clinical evidence to guide their treatment decisions. This means that they should not base their treatment decisions on stereotypes or misconceptions about MDs or DOs. Promoting Collaboration: Collaboration between MDs and DOs can help promote patient-centered care and improve health outcomes. Physicians should be willing to work together to provide the best possible care for their patients. Although there not not many differences in the practice of the medicine, I do argue however that, these ethical implications are important to keep in mind when facing the physician at hand. What are some things we can do now to unite practices and set aside differences? Sliwa JA, Raddatz MM, Kinney CL, Clark G, Robinson L. Allopathic (MD) and Osteopathic (DO) Performance on the American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Initial Certifying Examinations. PM R. 2020 Sep;12(9):899-903. doi: 10.1002/pmrj.12311. Epub 2020 Jan 27. PMID: 31883237.