I missed this the other day, but better late than never.
JPS voices support for new M.D. program at health science center
By ANTHONY SPANGLER
FORT WORTH — Doctors at the JPS Health Network showed their support Thursday for an M.D. program at the University of North Texas Health Science Center.
Dr. Sealy Massingill, president of the JPS medical staff, said he and other JPS physicians back the idea that the school should offer the new degree program in addition to its traditional degree in osteopathic medicine.
Plans for the M.D. program would be presented to the university’s board of regents in November.
For those who don’t live here, Fort Worth’s Osteopathic hospital closed a few years ago, and with it many of the training rotations for the DO school here disappeared. The county hospital (JPS) flexed up, the DO students travel more, but they’ve survived.
Whether offering an MD track alongside an existing DO program is desirable, I don’t know (is there such a place anywhere else)?
What I don’t get is the implication that having an MD school would result in more residency slots at JPS; residents are residents. The only reason I can think of is they don’t want to be the “DO hospital”. There must be a lot of anti-DO bias somewhere.
Why?
Don’t know if there are yet many D.O.s practicing in Louisiana, quite a few states used to make it next to impossible for a D.O. to practice medicine. Move toward allopathic residency made life easier for many D.O.s. Perhaps the MD program will be of great future benefit to the DOs training at JPS. Not familiar if it is osteopathic or allopathic program, but can attest that there’s a much larger job market for MD(allopathically) trained DO as compared to osteopathically trained.
You asked if there were other combined D.O./M.D. schools, and there are. Michigan State, West Virginia, and the University of Medicine and Dentistry New Jersey all have allopathic and osteopathic schools of medicine.
Sean and Nanarcr,
It does appear now that TCOM will join the rest of the colleges mentioned(Michigan State,West Virginia, and UMDNJ) in being the next university to grant MD and DO degrees.
Sean and Nanarcr, is it your hope and dreams that eventually there will be a combined MD,DO, i.e., Medical Doctor, Diplomate of Osteopathy ; or not. Please contribute and explain your decision here now.