Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO or D.O.) is a professional doctoral degree for physicians and surgeonsoffered by medical schools in the United States. A DO graduate may become licensed as an osteopathic physician, having equivalent rights, privileges, and responsibilities as a physician who has earned the Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree.[1] Osteopathic physicians, or DOs, currently have unlimited practice rights in roughly 74 countries, with partial practice rights in many more;[2] [3] DOs have full practice rights in all 50 US states. They constitute 11% of all US physicians. As of 2018, there were more than 145,000 osteopathic physicians and osteopathic medical students in the United States.[4]
DO degrees are offered in the United States at 36 medical schools, at 57 locations compared to MD degrees offered at 171 schools.[5][6][7] Since 2007, total DO student enrollment has been increasing yearly. As of 2015, more than 20% of all medical school enrollment were DO students.[8][9] The curricula at osteopathic medical schools are similar to those at MD-granting medical schools, which focus the first two years on the biomedicaland clinical sciences, then two years on core clinical training in the clinical specialties.[10]
Upon completing medical school, a DO graduate may enter an internship or residency training program, which may be followed by fellowship training.[10] DO graduates attend the same graduate medical education programs as their MD counterparts.
One notable difference between DO and MD training is that DOs in training spend 300–500 hours studying techniques for hands-on manipulation of the human musculoskeletal system.[1][11]
The practice of osteopathy began in the United States in 1874. The term "osteopathy" was coined by physician and surgeon[12][13] Andrew Taylor Still, who named his new discipline of medicine "osteopathy", reasoning that "the bone, osteon, was the starting point from which [he] was to ascertain the cause of pathological conditions".[14] Still founded the American School of Osteopathy (now A.T. Still University of the Health Sciences) in Kirksville, Missouri, for the teaching of osteopathy on May 10, 1892. While the state of Missouri granted the right to award the MD degree,[15] he remained dissatisfied with the limitations of conventional medicine and instead chose to retain the distinction of the DO degree.[16] In 1898 the American Institute of Osteopathy started the Journal of Osteopathy and by that time four states recognized the profession.[17]
The osteopathic medical profession has evolved into two branches: non-physician manual medicine osteopaths, who were educated and trained outside the United States; and US-trained osteopathic physicians, who conduct a full scope of medical practice. The regulation of non-physician manual medicine osteopaths varies greatly between jurisdictions. In the United States, osteopathic physicians holding the DO degree have the same rights, privileges, and responsibilities as physicians with a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree.[1] Osteopathic physicians and non-physician osteopaths are so distinct that in practice they function as separate professions.