Osteopathic Medicine

What will your degree say?

Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine

What post graduate testing/training do you have to do?

  • DO graduates have to pass national board exams to graduate from medical school and to become licensed physicians
  • Residency training in a specialty or subspecialty. The length of time varies from 3 to 8 years after graduating from medical school.
  • After completion of residency training, physicians can further become Board Certified in their area of practice. This is a national assurance of quality.

What is osteopathic medicine?

Osteopathic medicine provides all of the benefits of modern medicine including prescription drugs, surgery, and the use of technology to diagnose disease and evaluate injury. It also offers the added benefit of hands-on diagnosis and treatment through a system of therapy known as osteopathic manipulative medicine. Osteopathic medicine emphasizes helping each person achieve a high level of wellness by focusing on health promotion and disease prevention.

What are the practice opportunities for DOs?

Although approximately 60% of osteopathic physicians practice in the primary care specialties of family medicine, general internal medicine, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology, and many DOs fill a critical need for physicians by practicing in rural and other medically underserved communities, there is no medical specialty that is off limits to DO graduates.

Coursework:

Years 1 - 2: Human Anatomy, Biochemistry, Microbiology, Pharmacology, Physiology, Infectious Diseases, Immunology, Pathology, Complete DOctor, Osteopathic Theory and Methods, Principles of Medicine (includes pulmonology, cardiology, heme/onc, rheumatology, endocrinology, etc.), Surgery, Pediatrics, Neuroscience, Women's Health, Psychiatry, ENT, Ophthalmology

Years 3 - 4: Clinical clerkships in Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Psychiatry, Surgery, Pediatrics, OB/GYN, Radiology, Anesthesiology, plus a long list of elective and selective rotations.

For KCOM, these are disseminated to hospitals and training sites across the country. Each site has a regional director of medical education who oversees the education at that site.