Why Osteopathy?

Why not? No, really. Why not? Osteopathic medical schools teach the same basic science curriculum as allopathic medical schools. They are accredited, their students are eligible for the same NIH research grants, their students are able to participate in all AMA and AOA accredited residencies, and they learn additional material that allopathic students do not.

Yes, I am referring to Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine, or OMM. This practice includes soft and rigid tissue manipulation, similar to both massage and chiropractic medicine. Note that I did not say the same as. This is important, because most physicians will use massage and/or chiropractic treatment in concert with medical or surgical treatment. Osteopathic physicians, however, often elect to use OMM as a diagnostic tool, or as sole treatment for minor injuries.

As a diagnostic tool, OMM is very powerful. For one, it increases the amount of time a physician's hands spend touching the patient. All too often, doctors examine with their eyes alone, leaving whatever lies beneath the surface untouched. Instead of simply writing a script for some sort of neck pain, a doctor may discover a lump or a dislocation and be able to treat that instead. OMM has the potential to help all doctors treat not just the symptoms, but the cause of disease. This should be the ultimate goal, I think. Perhaps allopathic medical schools should teach some osteopathic methods as well; it certainly couldn't hurt a future physician to have more skills with which to help patients.

Interestingly, allopathic does not show up in Firefox's spell checker, but osteopathic does. This pleases me somehow.