Osteopaths (Doctors of Osteopathy) constitute nearly a third of new med school grads.
M.D.'s aren't the only "real" doctors.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/education/edlife/the-osteopathic-branch-of-medicine-is-booming.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSumSmallMediaHigh&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
Harlem is a fitting location for Touro’s new medical school. Many osteopathic schools have an added mission: to dispatch doctors to poorer neighborhoods and towns most in need of medical care.
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Inside, Touro seems indistinguishable from a conventional medical school — what doctors of osteopathic medicine, or D.O.s, call allopathic, a term that some M.D.s aren’t much fond of. A walk through the corridors finds students practicing skills on mannequins hard-wired with faulty hearts. They dissect cadavers. They bend over lab tables, working with professors on their research. And, unlike their allopathic counterparts, they spend roughly five hours a week being instructed in the century-old techniques of osteopathic medicine, manipulating the spine, muscles and bones in diagnosis and treatment.
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In February, the accrediting agencies agreed to a single system for residencies and fellowships. Beginning next year and fully in place by 2020, D.O. residency standards will be aligned with those of the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education, the nonprofit that accredits M.D. programs. The council will now accredit D.O. residencies, though osteopathic representatives will sit on review committees and its board. The announcement cited the need to provide accountability and a uniform path of preparation, and “to help mitigate the primary care physician shortage.” About 60 percent of D.O. graduates go on to primary care fields like internal medicine, pediatrics and family medicine, compared with about 30 percent of M.D.s.
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Dr. Goldberg believes osteopaths have a strong case to make. Too many doctors, he said, rely on expensive medical tests like CT scans and M.R.I.s and fail to probe or even touch the patient’s body. Osteopathic schools, on the other hand, stress physical diagnosis techniques like palpation or percussion — gently tapping the abdominal area, say, to determine if the size and shape of the liver suggest inflammation. An osteopath might more quickly notice that if a pregnant woman’s posture is askew her fetus is imposing a burden on her skeleton.
The D.O. philosophy makes much of patient interaction. “I hate the term holistic, but we look at the patient as a whole — from their biological, psychological, social, occupational and family background,” said Dr. Goldberg, a physiatrist (rehabilitation specialist) by training. “We teach respect for technology and laboratory testing to aid in making a diagnosis, but count on the history and physical examination to confirm it. In that way, we’re old-fashioned.”
= new reply since forum marked as read
Sorry I just didn't want anyone reading think they're all just PCPs. 
Happy to be here, y'all are helping me keep my sanity in this sea of red I live in.
as the prerequisite for a residency, and the large majority of DO graduates go on to do a residency in medical school.
Among M.D.s, the physical exam is becoming a lost art.
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/13/health/are-doctors-losing-touch-with-hands-on-medicine.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias:s,{%221=%22:=%22RI
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''Physical diagnosis can be an enormously powerful and inexpensive way of sorting out those who need expensive tests from those who don't,'' said Dr. Robert H. Fletcher, a professor of ambulatory care and preventive medicine at Harvard Medical School. ''And yet the skills are tending to be de-emphasized, to atrophy in young physicians because they jump right away to expensive technology. So when it comes down to being on their own and having to decide something without the technology, they've lost a lot of their ability.''
SNIIP
In parts of the world where technology is less accessible, skillful physical examinations remain important. ''In Europe they pay more attention to physical findings,'' said Dr. Jacqueline Achkar, who received her medical training in Germany and Britain, and now teaches physical diagnosis to students at New York University Medical School. ''Here students talk less to the patient and spend more time in front of the computer. That is what they're focused on. I say, did you feel the liver, and they tell me what the blood tests showed. I say, 'Was the patient yellow?' and they say, 'I don't know, I have to go back and check.' ''
Dr. LaCombe, the director of cardiology at Maine General, had a similar observation. ''Most physicians would admit that few physicians under 50 know how to do a physical exam,'' he said. Teaching the subject is now generally considered one of the thankless chores of medical education in this country, he added, usually an unpaid labor relegated to junior medical school faculty members who themselves are uncertain of the techniques.
''It's like 'Fahrenheit 451,' '' Dr. LaCombe said, referring to Ray Bradbury's science fiction novel about a totalitarian society where books are burned, but a small cadre of rebels keeps their contents alive by memorizing them. ''There has got to be a place where we can keep this thing alive until it gets into vogue again.''
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The place where these skills are being kept alive is in Osteopathy school.
So it's okay but only when you use it?
...and probably more likely to kill a patient than an osteopath was.
Once upon a time surgery and dentistry were done by barbers, the same people who cut hair and shaved necks. After all, they had the sharp knives.
Times change. Today you wouldn't ask your barber or hair stylist to pull a tooth, excise a suspicious growth from your skin, or amputate a rotten toe.
Osteopaths get the same training today as M.D.s.
In my own experience I've found Osteopaths to be much more tolerant and less judgmental of quirky, sometimes non-compliant patients like myself who sometimes experiment with alternative (but not "woo"
sorts of medicine.
Thanks.
even though I've only been to one, and that was over twenty years ago. I'm going to look in my insurance network tonight to see if I can get one as a PCP
Thanks for the thread, pnwmom!
That is about it 
They get the same training and are able to take either the normal medical boards (USMLE) or the osteopathic boards(Complex) or both.
By examining the boy.
First thing Doctors and DOs do is create a SOAP note...which means asking questions and doing an exam. Do you really think MDs have never heard of referred pain before?
And if that particular doctor is not a rehab doctor then they can send you to a PT.
We been over this already and can finish later on today:
MD are morons who never heard of referred pain and don't know about PTs either. Chest pain, especially in a teenage, has to be heart problems even if there is no family history of it. A doctor would never think of other things like referred pain or acid reflux or the numerous other things it could be...
Obviously they were all playing minesweeper instead of taking notes in class.
