{"id":31704,"date":"2025-07-13T09:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T09:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=31704"},"modified":"2025-07-13T09:25:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T09:25:05","slug":"so-your-doctor-is-a-do-does-that-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=31704","title":{"rendered":"So Your Doctor Is a DO. Does That Matter?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The number of osteopathic doctors has increased dramatically. People still don\u2019t know what they are.<\/p>\n

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By most measures, osteopathic medicine is a profession in its prime.<\/p>\n

The number of doctors of osteopathic medicine, or D.O.s, has grown 70 percent in the last decade and is expected to continue expanding.<\/p>\n

More than a quarter<\/a> of all medical students in the United States are training to become D.O.s, thanks in part to limited slots in traditional medical schools and ever-growing openings at osteopathic schools <\/strong>(14 campuses have opened in the last five years).<\/p>\n

And in recent years, the field has gained prestige as its doctors have risen to the highest medical posts in the country: leading top medical systems, overseeing NASA\u2019s medical team<\/a>, running the most followed medical page on social media<\/a> and, during the last three administrations, overseeing the medical care of the president of the United States<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think we are \u2014 I don\u2019t want to say infiltrating \u2014 but we are everywhere,\u201d said Dr. Teresa A. Hubka, the president of the American Osteopathic Association.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Yet the changing face of medicine has largely been invisible to the public. Beyond vague notions that D.O.s are more holistic, or stereotypes that they were rejected from traditional medical schools, very few patients know how a D.O.\u2019s training might shape their health care. One of the most commonly searched questions on Google<\/a> about D.O.s, who have had full rights to practice medicine in the United States since 1973, is whether they are physicians.<\/p>\n

Over the course of Dr. Christina Weaver\u2019s career as an osteopathic doctor, she has been mistaken for a \u201cbone doctor\u201d (orthopedist), a homeopath (an alternative healer with no medical degree) and a chiropractor (also no medical degree).<\/p>\n

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The number of osteopathic doctors has increased dramatically. People still don\u2019t know what they are.By most measures, osteopathic medicine is a profession in its prime.The number of doctors of osteopathic medicine, or D.O.s, has grown 70 percent in the last decade and is expected to continue expanding.More than a quarter of all medical students in the United States are training to become D.O.s, thanks in part to limited slots in traditional medical schools and ever-growing openings at osteopathic schools (14 campuses have opened in the last five years).And in recent years, the field has gained prestige as its doctors have risen to the highest medical posts in the country: leading top medical systems, overseeing NASA\u2019s medical team, running the most followed medical page on social media and, during the last three administrations, overseeing the medical care of the president of the United States.\u201cI do think we are \u2014 I don\u2019t want to say infiltrating \u2014 but we are everywhere,\u201d said Dr. Teresa A. Hubka, the president of the American Osteopathic Association.Yet the changing face of medicine has largely been invisible to the public. Beyond vague notions that D.O.s are more holistic, or stereotypes that they were rejected from traditional medical schools, very few patients know how a D.O.\u2019s training might shape their health care. One of the most commonly searched questions on Google about D.O.s, who have had full rights to practice medicine in the United States since 1973, is whether they are physicians.Over the course of Dr. Christina Weaver\u2019s career as an osteopathic doctor, she has been mistaken for a \u201cbone doctor\u201d (orthopedist), a homeopath (an alternative healer with no medical degree) and a chiropractor (also no medical degree).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31706,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31704"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31707,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31704\/revisions\/31707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}