Also called osteopaths or DO, these doctors focus on the body, mind and spirit as part of an interconnected system. A doctor in osteopathy practices osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM), a type of medication that includes practical treatments. ODs have special training in healing the musculoskeletal system. Osteopathic doctors believe that touch can heal.
All ODs are trained in osteopathic manipulative treatment, sometimes called manual manipulation or OMT. It's a practical method to help diagnose and treat diseases. However, not all DOs use it regularly in their practice. Then I learned another osteopathic principle in medical school, that structure and function are interrelated.
If Salzberg wants to talk about the cost of providing health care in this country, he should recognize the growing need for primary care physicians that is being addressed with the growing number of osteopaths each year and the amount of healthcare dollars that are wasted when patients go to the ER or a subspecialist for care because they do not have access to a primary care physician. Most students who apply to osteopathic medical school first earn a bachelor's degree, and many also have a master's or doctorate degree. During my training, I learned how we, as physicians, can influence the structures and functions of the body with osteopathic manipulation, as well as with medications, surgery, and advice on nutrition and exercise. By combining the latest advances in medical technology with OMT, Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine offer their patients the most comprehensive care available in medicine today.
An osteopath can give you the vaccines you need and recommend routine medical tests, such as a mammogram or blood cholesterol test, a smoking cessation program, or screening for depression or another mental health problem. Buser, DO, vice president of health affairs and dean of the University of Pikeville-Kentucky; president-elect of the American Osteopathic Association. Prevention is an important part of the osteopathic approach to medicine, so your DO will likely give you advice to help you avoid injury or illness in the future. What is infuriating about Salzberg's article is his apparent lack of knowledge about osteopathy and his assumption that the high-quality evidence on which doctors rely significantly improves patients' lives rather than manipulations he dismisses as pseudoscientific.
I was attracted to osteopathy because of the basic principle of treating the whole person rather than a collection of symptoms. In his cursory rejection of osteopathic treatments, in which he combined chiropractic (which seems to be responsible for most of the money wasted on the CMS data he used) with osteopathy, Salzberg revealed his poor understanding of osteopathy. Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine have a deep understanding of how the body's systems are interconnected and how each one affects the others. He developed osteopathic manipulation treatments with the aim of restoring nerves to a healthy state and promoting circulation so that the body could heal itself.
After 4 years in medical school, osteopathic doctors do a residency in their chosen specialty area. Doctors of osteopathy (DO) are experts in diagnosing and treating all types of conditions using osteopathic manipulative medicine, or OMM for short.
