DO's at Allopathic academic medical centers

Hey All,
I was pondering my future as a physician and came upon a disturbing thought. I have a couple of things as backround to hopefully help you see where I am coming from.
First, I am 100% sure that whatever I specialize in, that I want to be faculty at a university medical center. This is because I want to teach and do research and also like the greater potential for variety of pathology that seem to be seen at academic centers.
Second, I have a definite interest in osteopathy, particularly the OMT aspect. This is because of my universal experience of having MD’s prescribing NSAIDS and a little rest for the various acute and chronic musculoskeletal problems that myself, my wife, and various friends suffer as a result of our activities (running, cycling, climbing, skiing…) Neither I nor the others I listed have ever had an MD try and asses or otherwise address the underlying mechanism. Often times the physicians seen have been “sports medine” docs. In two specific cases (my wife and a friend), it was suggested to them that they just not run (as in ever again not just for some finite time). The OMT and hands on evalution seems to be a good way of assessing and correcting these types of problems. I know the efficacy of OMT is not well researched but based purely on experience and anecdotes (and the JAMA paper), I believe that many of the things work.
The disturbing thought for me was that, after thinking about it for a long while, I couldn’t remember seeing any DO’s at the two medical centers that I have been at. I’m currently working at Vanderbilt’s medical center. I did a search on the faculty and didn’t see a single DO on the list. I then looked at the my undergrad alma mater the University of New Mexico and found only one DO. I don’t know if this is just in these two situations or if it is endemic to this country. I am not dead set on going to an osteopathic school and because of circumstances will probably go to an allopathic school. However, I am now feeling like I am more restricted to the allopathic route because of my goals.
Has anybody out there seen anything to indicate otherwise. I know that there will always be exceptions to the rule but I don’t know if I want to be a trailblazer with this. Please give me your observations and opinions. Thanks!

Yup, there are tons of DOs at major academic medical centers…too many to even attempt to list. I do know that Vanderbilt's Dir of the Anesthesiology/Critical Care Med fellowship is a DO - the main reason I applied for that program. Furthermore, at Dartmouth (where I, as a DO, will be undertaking my residency beginning in June of this year), there are a number of DOs including the Dir of Pain Management - I met him personally. Cleveland Clinic is also up to its ears in DOs…I interviewed at 11 top-notch anesthesiology programs this past winter – w/o exception, there were DO attendings in multiple disciplines at everyone of them: Univ of Pitt, Univ of Rochester, Cleveland Clinic, Dartmouth, Univ of FL, Univ of Mass just to name a few off the top of my head.
Far more important in determining whether or not you are able to gain an appointment to a university-affiliated major medical center will be your own performance statistics, your application and how well you are able to sell yourself than what set of initials you scribble behind what is likely an illegible signature.

Thanks for the reply Dave! I feel a bit better. I have yet to look at the schools that you listed. I did find the DO in anesthesiology you mentioned. I'm not sure why he didn't come up in the search. I went dept. to dept. at VUMC and could only find one other DO. I'll have to look at the regions where I would be intersted in living at to get a better feel. Maybe it's principally due to the comparitively smaller number of DO's vs MD's that accounts for the low numbers.
I look forward to more comments.
Thanks again!

And I can tell you that University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine has several DO's on staff, including heads of departments.
This I know because I just recently left my job there in the Department of Rheumatology, which was headed by Dr. Robert Hoffman, D.O., a graduate of CCOM.
I also know several D.Os that are Associate or Assistant Professors with the University of Oklahoma - Tulsa Family Medicine Residency Program. As a matter of fact, Dr. Randy Hunt, from the Oklahoma program, will be our opening speaker at the conference May 29, so if you can, find a way to be there!

a random look at UCSF (because you can search faculty online and sort by degree) shows many D.O.s

QUOTE (dmaes @ Apr 17 2003, 05:15 PM)
Thanks for the reply Dave! I feel a bit better. I have yet to look at the schools that you listed. I did find the DO in anesthesiology you mentioned. I'm not sure why he didn't come up in the search. I went dept. to dept. at VUMC and could only find one other DO. I'll have to look at the regions where I would be intersted in living at to get a better feel. Maybe it's principally due to the comparitively smaller number of DO's vs MD's that accounts for the low numbers.
I look forward to more comments.
Thanks again!

Yeah, bear in mind that we, DOs, only comprise about 5~6% of practicing Docs...so, we're not gonna be in the majority. However, overall, if you look at the # of DOs in virtually any specialty or subspecialty, DOs comprise approx 5~6% of the total. You will notice some geographic disparity - there are simply some region of the country where there is just not as many DOs. Classicly, the "hotbed" of DOs has been in the mid-West, but our numbers have rapidly expanded in the NE & South as well. You will find the lowest numbers in the big-Western states.
All in all, for the largest part, you will find DOs in virtually any place training in virtually anything. The classic, hard-core bastions of the MD-world: orthopedics & neurosurgery; even have a few of us training in MD programs.

Thank you all for your input!

Howdy!
I'm at an MD school (University of Texas Medical Branch, in Galveston) and one of our two course directors for the Endocrine and Reproduction course was a DO/PhD. She was the OB/GYN.
Take care,
Jeff

Thanks Jeff!

The Mayo Clinic has D.O. in the following departments:
Anesthesiology
Dermatology
Gastroenterology
Infectious Diseases
Nephrology
Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation
Pulmonology & Critical Care Medicine
Psychiatry
Radiology
among others…

Thanks MPP!!!