Discrimination among doctors

The other day I mentioned to one of my colleagues that a UT student recently emailed me asking me for advice on getting into medical school when her GPA (which she did not reveal) was "not very high." His response: "Apply to DO schools?"

I could not believe he said that, but then again, I don't think he knew I was a DO. Unless we ask each other or volunteer the information, I have no idea where my colleagues went to medical school or residency. And unless someone really looks at my ID or white coat, no one knows I'm a DO and not an MD. In the past 3-4 years I've been a doctor, I've never encountered any discrimination against DOs (or maybe I was just lucky). The hospital where I did my residency was a melting pot of US grads, DOs, and foreign grads; there were about 8 DOs in my class, and some of our attendings were DOs as well. There was no discrimination. We didn't care where we'd trained or what initials were after our names; we were colleagues first and foremost. I think there was one time I asked a friend why he went to med school in the Caribbean. His response:  "I can't believe you're even asking me that." Which is true. Why did it matter? At any rate, he's doing an endocrinology fellowship, and my other friends who went to Caribbean schools are currently doing fellowships in nephrology, cardiology, and ID. As for other DOs in my class, they matched into fellowships in cards, heme/onc, nephrology, and GI. Actually I think I'm the only DO who didn't match fellowship in my year, but that doesn't make me more of a failure. I'm making a very good living right now, and I'm well liked and well respected in my hospital by doctors, nurses, and patients alike. To me, that is success.

Later I mentioned the other guy's comment to one of my partners (about 20 years older than me), thinking he'd be a more supportive since the two of us work well together and have a good relationship. His response: "Why did you even apply to DO school?" Apparently back in his day my alma mater was sending letters to prospective med students inviting them to come there to study medicine, which gave him the impression that no one wanted to go there and they were desperate for students. Of course it's different now; our school has a good reputation for primary care and is fairly well known so there's no shortage of applicants. My partner then went on to express his astonishment that one of our favorite cardiologists (the only other DO in the hospital that I know of) matched into cardiology and became successful, as though DOs were only meant to do primary care and nothing else. His attitude reminded me exactly of my dad, who tried to convince me eight years ago to give up my spot at TCOM and reapply for MD schools because he didn't want me to be a DO. He'd heard from a MD neurologist that DOs had no respect in the medical profession and that people would always look down on them, and he didn't want that for me. Apparently when I made my rank list, he didn't think I'd actually match at a DO school so he didn't say a word, and he was very unsupportive when I told him I intended to keep my spot. Nasty words were hurled and we had a huge falling out afterwards; I had to escape to Taiwan for the summer to get away before I could speak to him in a civil manner again. I even recall looking at apartment brochures because there was no way I was going to move back home (even though school was 20 min away), but my mom talked me into it by promising me lots of privacy. Of course, this happened a long time ago and my parents couldn't be more proud of me now, but I can never forget the hell they put me through following Match Day, just because they wanted me to be an MD and not a DO.

The conversation I had with my partner, however, dragged up all those unpleasant memories again, and now I'm pissed and angry at him. Why should I have to justify why I was not an MD? Why was he asking me why I even applied to DO school in the first place, eight years after the fact? Back when I was debating whether to keep my spot or reapply the following year, an adviser at UT asked me this question when I told her my dilemma: "Do you want to be a MD, or do you want to be a physician?" The answer was obvious: I wanted to be a physician. And now that I've become what I set out to be eight years ago, I had hoped that my being a DO would not make a difference in how people saw me. And now it seems my own father was right all along. I just wish my partner would have kept it to himself and not thrown it in my face.

Fortunately, most of the people at work don't seem to care about the initials following my name, and if someone does bring it up, I dare them to say I'm a horrible doctor. Because I know that I'm good at my job, and that's what matters at the end of the day.