Osteopathic medicine and primary care practice: plan or serendipity?
General practitioners predominate in osteopathic medicine (57% of all D.O.s), as compared with allopathic medicine. A number of possible reasons are put forth: the student selection process (cloning by admission committee general practitioners); special features of osteopathic education (more required courses, primary care courses, and rotations); training in osteopathic hospitals (mainly community institutions); a required rotating internship; and predominant departments of general practice in osteopathic hospitals and colleges (providing more high-quality general practitioner role models). The author suggests consideration of personality differences, as measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, as a possible causative factor in differences between the allopathic and osteopathic segments of medicine.
Melnick
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Southeastern University of the Health Sciences, North Miami Beach, Florida 33162-3097.
D003479:Curriculum; D005194:Family Practice / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D010021:Osteopathic Medicine / Q000193:education*; D010551:Personality; D012570:School Admission Criteria; D014481:United States