Foreign M.D. vs. U.S. D.O.
So, you’d rather have a foreign MD than a US DO degree? Welcome to Slaughter House VI.
Many pre-medical students who are re-thinking their chances at a US allopathic medical school think that it’s better to have an MD from elsewhere in the world, than have a D.O. from an osteopathic medical school in the United States.
This argument is completely true if you’d rather practice medicine outside the United States. Since the U.S. osteopathic degree is not 100% universally recognized, you may fare better by attending a foreign allopathic medical school to receive your MD. However, as we shall soon see, the odds of matching into a United States residency program as a foreign medical medical graduate is like going through a slaughter house – it becomes exceedingly competitive.
If you wish to practice in the United States, I strongly believe that a US Osteopathic degree holder will fare much better in the residency matching process than a foreign MD degree holder. I will provide hard evidence for this a little further down. But first, let’s consider some general information:
Here’s a general overview.
First of all, there are allopathic and osteopathic residencies. MDs can only match into the allopathic residencies, but DOs (licensed in the United States) are given the opportunity to enroll in both, the allopathic and osteopathic residency matches.
There are many more MD residency spots than there are US MD graduates. This means that these spots can be filled by other qualified medical graduates. Since the US DO graduates are granted a United States medical license that is grants them equal practicing rights as MDs under US law, these graduates are given more preference than a foreign MD graduate in the allopathic residency match process. For more competitive specialties, these programs are more likely to pick US graduates than foreign medical graduates (FMG). So, as a general rule of thumb, here’s the order of preference for allopathic residencies: MD>DO>FMG. Once again, this order of preference does not speak of the extent of qualification or the capability of the graduate to practice medicine. That is, I’m not saying MDs are better than DOs, who are in turn better than FMGs. What I’m trying to convey is that this is the general rule of thumb in terms of preference of the admissions committees for residency spots.
Still not convinced that it is better to apply to allopathic residencies with a DO degree than a foreign MD degree?
Don’t just take my word on it. I’ll show you some facts – facts that may seem misleading at first, but upon closer inspection, the staggering truth is revealed.
Here are the results and data of the 2008 NRMP Residency Match. Scroll down to page 5, and you’ll see into which specialties various medical school graduates matched. The total number of PGY-1 (Post graduate year 1, which is just a fancy name for first year of residency) positions available was 22, 240, out of which 20, 940 were filled. Out of these 20,940 who matched, 14,880 were US MD graduates (14,359 US MD seniors who applied during their 4th year of medical school + 521 US MD graduates who graduated medical school and then applied to residency). So, approximately 71% of the filled residency spots were US MD graduates. This provides evidence to the claim that US MD seniors fill up most of the MD residency spots. There are several reasons for this, including that there are many more US MD graduates who apply (compared to US DO and FMG MD), osteopathic graduates are lesser in number than US MD graduates, many osteopathic students elect to take osteopathic residencies, etc.
Now that we’ve established that US MD graduates occupy the majority of allopathic residency spots, let’s get to the heart of the argument: US DOs fare better when applying to US MD residencies, than FMG MDs. Initially looking at Page 5, you could say that more FMG MDs match than US DOs (1,649 FMG MDs, as opposed to only 1, 339 US DOs). These numbers are deceiving, because a lot more FMG MDs apply for residency positions than do US DOs.
Scroll down to Figure 2 on page 8. Here, you are given the number of active applicants to US allopathic residencies, and the percentage of those applicants who matched successfully, organized by the type of applicant. As shown in the dark green bar graphs, in 2008, roughly 70% of 1,870 DO degree holders matched into a US allopathic residency. However, when the light green bar graph is considered, we see that only a little more than 40% of 10,304 FMG MDs matched. So, even though 40% of 10,304 (FMG MD) is greater than 70% of 1,870 (DO) in terms of actual number of people matched, the odds of an FMG MD matching is MUCH lower than a US DO matching. A higher percentage of US DOs who apply get accepted, when compared to FMG MDs. So, your chances of getting into an allopathic residency as a US DO is much better than if you are an FMG MD. In essence, FMG MDs face slaughter in terms of competition involved in matching into an allopathic residency.
With a US DO, you have a better chance of becoming a fully licensed doctor trained in an allopathic residency. Remember, DOs have their own residency match, so as a US DO, you have the additional opportunity of having more spots available to you.
The DO degree is equal under US law to an MD, and as a matter of fact, MDs and DOs have the same payroll code in hospitals – meaning that they are considered equal in clinical practice.
