Osteopathic Medicine

---

Osteopathic medicine is a distinct form of medical  practice in the United States. 

Osteopathic medicine  provides all of the benefits of modern medicine including prescription drugs, surgery, and the use of  technology to diagnose disease and evaluate injury. It also offers the added benefit of hands-on diagnosis and treatment through a system of therapy known as osteopathic manipulative  medicine.   

Osteopathic medicine emphasizes helping each  person achieve a high level of wellness by focusing on  health promotion and disease prevention. 

Osteopathic medicine was founded in the late 1800s  in Kirksville,  Missouri, by a medical doctor who  recognized that the medical practices of the day often  caused more harm than good. He focused on developing a  system of medical care that would promote the body’s innate ability to heal itself and called this system of medicine  osteopathy,  now known as osteopathic medicine. 

Osteopathic physicians, also known as DOs, work in  partnership with their patients. They consider the  impact that lifestyle and community have on the health  of each individual, and they work to break down barriers  to good health. DOs are licensed to practice the full  scope of medicine in all 50 states. 

They practice in all types of environments, including the military, and in all types of specialties, from family medicine to obstetrics, surgery, and aerospace medicine. 

DOs are trained to look at the whole person from  their first days  of medical school, which means they see  each person as more than  just a collection of organ  systems and body parts that may become  injured or  diseased. This holistic approach to patient care means that osteopathic medical students learn how to integrate the patient into the health care process as a partner. They are trained  to communicate with people from diverse backgrounds,  and they get the opportunity  to practice these skills in  their classrooms and learning laboratories,   frequently  with standardized and simulated patients. 

The osteopathic medical profession has a proud  heritage of producing  primary care practitioners. In  fact, the mission statements of the majority of  osteopathic medical schools state plainly that their  purpose is the production of primary care physicians. Osteopathic medical tradition preaches that a strong foundation in primary  care makes one a better physician, regardless of what  specialty they may eventually practice. 

Today, when the challenge of ensuring an adequate  number of primary care physicians extends to osteopathic  medicine, the majority of  most osteopathic medical  school graduates choose careers in primary care.  Osteopathic medicine also has a special focus on providing care in rural and urban underserved areas, allowing DOs to have a greater impact on the U.S. population's health and  well-being than their numbers would suggest. While DOs  constitute 7 percent of all U.S. physicians, they are  responsible for 16 percent of patient visits in  communities with populations of fewer than 2,500. 

Osteopathic medicine is also rapidly growing!  Nearly one in five medical students in the United States  is attending an osteopathic medical school. 

In addition to studying all of the typical  subjects you would expect student physicians to master,  osteopathic medical students  take approximately 200  additional hours of training in the art of osteopathic  manipulative medicine. This system of hands-on techniques helps alleviate pain, restores motion, supports the body’s  natural functions and influences the body’s structure to help it function more efficiently. 

One key concept osteopathic medical students learn  is that structure  influences function. Thus, if there is  a problem in one part of  the body’s structure, function  in that area, and possibly in other areas, may be  affected.

Another integral tenet of osteopathic medicine is  the body’s innate ability to heal itself. Many of  osteopathic medicine’s manipulative techniques are aimed  at reducing or eliminating the impediments to proper  structure and function so the self-healing mechanism can  assume its role in restoring a person to health.