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Comment by repiret | Hacker News Reader

The training, and resulting skills and privileges are nearly identical between DOs and MDs. I don’t know about interchangeable - every DO and MD I know would be offended if you put the wrong two letters after their name, but DO and MD schools are not significantly different paths to producing physicians.

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I keep hearing this claimed, but I have never met a physician in my life who would honestly say that, given acceptance to both an MD and DO program, he would pick the DO. It is widely viewed as an alternative path to becoming a physician if you cannot get accepted by an MD program and do not want to go overseas.

I know a DO, and she was indeed not accepted by an MD program. But the end result is equivalent; doctors from her school are DOs, not MDs, but residency is the same, and you've got to have the same base of skills and knowledge to get into and through a residency, so there you go.

You have the same skills and knowledge but couldn’t get into the MD programme?

The important skills and knowledged are learned during the MD or DO program, not as much before. The DO programs are essentially lower prestige MD programs with a different name.

If there was a significant difference in the degree program, they'd need different residency programs prior to practice, and that's not the case, AFAIK.

This is a gotcha only if you assume programs use perfect meritocratic measurement of your skills and knowledge to decide who gets in.

In real life, there is some correlation, plus other uncorrelated items and just plain luck ;)

That's not the same question.

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