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

There’s beef in the medical community between MDs and DOs. I've seen comments from both allopathic and osteopathic physicians taking digs at one another so it's time to settle the score. Let’s look at the similarities and differences between the two and talk about why there is so much tension between them.

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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Introduction
00:36 - Similarities Between MDs and DOs
01:59 - Differences Between MDs and DOs
07:28 - The MD vs DO Conflict

LINKS FROM VIDEO:

#md #do #doctor
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Disclaimer: Content of this video is my opinion and does not constitute medical advice. The content and associated links provide general information for general educational purposes only. Use of this information is strictly at your own risk. Kevin Jubbal, M.D. will not assume any liability for direct or indirect losses or damages that may result from the use of information contained in this video including but not limited to economic loss, injury, illness or death. May include affiliate links to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases made through them (at no extra cost to you).

[bbehgam]

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”.

[znation]

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

[jodada]

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

[torcularinversion]

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.

[natedawg]

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

[kevinvaldes]

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!

[khalilahd.]

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

[Christie]

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.

[devanreiss]

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.

[davidbeckett]

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!

[tonys]

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.

[Cookefan]

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✌🏽

[VivaLaSound]

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.

[gjjakobsen]

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.

[rhul]

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!!

[mikmoka]

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 😂.

[nicholashaynes]

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

[landon]

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.

[iluvmattdallasevr]

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).

[neurogal]

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.