By: Naomi Toubian
Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine, or DOs for short, are doctors who specialize in ensuring all of their patients are improving their overall health by using different modern medical resources. They not only evaluate your condition, but also your lifestyle using modern techniques such as prescription drugs, surgery, and technology to diagnose propensity for disease and evaluate injuries. Using the patient’s help, doctors of osteopathic medicine help patients stay healthy through modern holistic techniques. These holistic techniques include looking at the patient’s medical history and healing any medical, mental, or health-related issues. In addition to assessing how their lifestyle has had an impact on their health, DOs connect all health-related issues and heal them together.
This intriguing type of medicine was formulated by Dr. Andrew Taylor Still, an MD, in 1874. In the U.S., more than 25% of medical students train to become an Osteopathic Doctor, showing just how much Dr. Stills’ findings have spread. In fact, Osteopathic medicine has become the fastest-growing medical field in the U.S, and has grown 63% in the last decade and nearly 300% in the past three decades!
Being an Osteopathic Physician is not something you can be by itself; a doctor will use Osteopathic medical techniques to aid them in their specialization. They will use an approach different from MDs to care for these patients. For example, if someone is a Pediatrician and an Osteopathic Doctor, they would most likely be a Pediatrician using an Osteopathic approach, not just an Osteopathic doctor. Since anyone who is a DO can also pursue another specialization, their patients can range from infants to seniors. The wide range of diseases and issues they deal with depends on their specific specialization.
Osteopathic doctors have the same medical training as all other doctors but have to complete an additional 200 hours of Osteopathic Manual Medicine (OMM) as they use their hands to diagnose and treat injuries and illnesses. These hands-on skills are necessary to evaluate and treat the neuro-muscular-skeletal (nerve, muscle, and bone) system.
In the U.S., students who want to be Osteopathic doctors have to take certain prerequisites for medical school; this includes biology, anatomy, chemistry, and physics classes, as well as proficiency in English. Like other medical professionals, students can get a bachelor's degree in any subject to become an Osteopathic doctor. The top three Osteopathic medical colleges in the United States are Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, and Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine. All these colleges have separate programs for Osteopathic Medicine so that they can maintain a clear focus to provide the best training for future Osteopathic doctors.