Editing Preparing for a Newborn (section)

=== DO ===

This was the second thing I discovered in the process that I had no idea of before: in the US a doctor who practises medicine need not be an MD. They could also be a DO, a [[wikipedia:Osteopathic medicine in the United States|Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine]]. Osteopathy in most of the world is a complete joke science: it is full of woo. Many of my friends were quick to tell me that most of what a DO studies is the same as an MD and that they have some added garbage on top. In general, I am very pro-medical-access and so having a slightly less capable person provide a bit of garbage along with medicine at a lower cost is better than not having a doctor. But it turns out that half of DOs perform their stuff on some 5% of their patients<ref name=osteo-50 /> and so there is quite a high risk that you will be given some bogus advice. I'm not a doctor myself, and this is all new to me so I'm unlikely to be able to identify it unless I shove everything into Claude.

Opinions of these DO doctors was mixed among the doctors I know or to whom I am connected to, but not inspiring in their ability. Here are some quotes, anonymized:

{{Blockquote
|text=[My wife, who is a doctor,] also thinks they are able to perform reasonable medicine for what it's worth

what your forgetting Roshan is that people like the doesn't-work shit

so if they MD but also do some bone manipulation juju their patients are happier

if they are worse, it's because their schools are less selective/best students get MDs
|author=Partner of a Doctor in Family Medicine
|source=Private conversation
}}

{{Blockquote
|text=Personally I'd stick with the MDs the DO degree is very variable and program dependent from my limited understanding of it
|author=Family Doctor
|source=Private conversation
}}

{{Blockquote
|text=In primary care DOs are worthless. It’s Ayurvedic medicine people that passed a residency. Bottom of the barrel.
|author=Cardiovascular Surgeon
|source=Private conversation
}}

Though another of my friends had a good experience with one.
{{Blockquote
|text=my obgyn is one that my pediatric emergency MD friend found and has seen for her 3 pregnancies, and the obgyn is a DO
|author=Patient
|source=Private conversation
}}

My parents are both surgeons so I usually go to them for this information, but they were not familiar with the qualification and said that they had asked their friends before on encountering authors on papers with a DO qualification but did not get a particularly concrete answer.