Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Letter Writing Campaign??? WTF??!?!?!!?
I've recently been trying to keep more abreast of the news, especially when it has to do with medicine. I think it is important to know what is going on in the world around you - it hasn't hurt that I currently am co-students at my family practice clinic with 2 of (probably) the most political and outspoken people in our class - so I get to overhear a lot of their conversations/debates and occasionally pitch in my 2 cents.
I was surfing the American Osteopathic Association website today (for fun, or something) and came across this. Now, I realize that there is a need to educate people about the Osteopathic philosophy, but is petitioning television shows the best way to do it? I can see it now:
Dear ER executive director,
Did you know that in all your shows' 11 seasons there has never been a DO as a cast member? How can that be, when there are obviously two perfectly legitimate schools of medical training in the US - allopathy and osteopathy? I would highly recommend that next season there be a new crop of students and one of them be a DO student. When discussing a patient with back pain, the student can pipe up and talk about Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment, a hands-on manual therapy founded in the late 1800s by Dr. Andrew Taylor Still.
I feel this would be a great way to get the word out about Osteopathic Medicine and would give your television program a wonderful means by which to educate the general public...
Blah, blah, blah... Does anyone else not see this as a bad idea? I can see it now - that same scenario comes up, and the student is granted the opportunity to use OMT on this back pain patient (which I am sure will need an open thoracotomy any minute for sudden cardiac arrest). Instead of utilizing OMT correctly, the student (who is a bit naive) performs HVLA on the patient which causes paralysis of both legs because (had the student checked more closely) the patient had nerve impingement signs and never should have had HVLA performed - MAYBE soft tissue, muscle energy, or indirect techniques.
What the people who are proponents of this sort of "free advertisement" don't understand (apparently), is that OMT is very rarely indicated in the ED, nor does an EP have the time to perform it.
I realize the idea is a great one - get the name of osteopathy in front of an audience of 40 million all at once. But I don't think it would turn out like they want it to. At the most, they will be able to spend 5-10 seconds on it, then they would be off cracking someone else's chest because they are in asystole (and everyone with asystole warrants a thoracotomy with direct cardiac massage, don't you know). People would be left with a lot of questions - and they would probably look online for more information and be misled or misunderstand what they read. It has too great a possibility to take a negative turn.
Again, I think the idea is good, but the practicality of it isn't. Instead of pouring all this time and effort into trying to get Osteopathy mentioned on some television soap operas, the AOA should spend a little time actually advocating for the physicians it represents, stop opening new schools to further dilute the applicant pool and try something else to educate the public about Osteopathy. Of course, this begs the question: if most patients don't know what degree their physician holds, why do we even care? Why do we have this burning NEED to educate the public and get Osteopathy in the public eye if it doesn't really matter - we are equal in every way to allopaths (some would argue better), we have every right to practice in any specialty, etc. Why do we need to pick little stupid battles like this? Why don't we work on getting equal practice rights in every country in the world rather than argue where we're already equal. What if I (hypothetically) want to move to France and practice after my training is over? Ooops, I can't - DOs don't have full practice rights there.. ¶ 3:20 PM
I was surfing the American Osteopathic Association website today (for fun, or something) and came across this. Now, I realize that there is a need to educate people about the Osteopathic philosophy, but is petitioning television shows the best way to do it? I can see it now:
Dear ER executive director,
Did you know that in all your shows' 11 seasons there has never been a DO as a cast member? How can that be, when there are obviously two perfectly legitimate schools of medical training in the US - allopathy and osteopathy? I would highly recommend that next season there be a new crop of students and one of them be a DO student. When discussing a patient with back pain, the student can pipe up and talk about Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment, a hands-on manual therapy founded in the late 1800s by Dr. Andrew Taylor Still.
I feel this would be a great way to get the word out about Osteopathic Medicine and would give your television program a wonderful means by which to educate the general public...
Blah, blah, blah... Does anyone else not see this as a bad idea? I can see it now - that same scenario comes up, and the student is granted the opportunity to use OMT on this back pain patient (which I am sure will need an open thoracotomy any minute for sudden cardiac arrest). Instead of utilizing OMT correctly, the student (who is a bit naive) performs HVLA on the patient which causes paralysis of both legs because (had the student checked more closely) the patient had nerve impingement signs and never should have had HVLA performed - MAYBE soft tissue, muscle energy, or indirect techniques.
What the people who are proponents of this sort of "free advertisement" don't understand (apparently), is that OMT is very rarely indicated in the ED, nor does an EP have the time to perform it.
I realize the idea is a great one - get the name of osteopathy in front of an audience of 40 million all at once. But I don't think it would turn out like they want it to. At the most, they will be able to spend 5-10 seconds on it, then they would be off cracking someone else's chest because they are in asystole (and everyone with asystole warrants a thoracotomy with direct cardiac massage, don't you know). People would be left with a lot of questions - and they would probably look online for more information and be misled or misunderstand what they read. It has too great a possibility to take a negative turn.
Again, I think the idea is good, but the practicality of it isn't. Instead of pouring all this time and effort into trying to get Osteopathy mentioned on some television soap operas, the AOA should spend a little time actually advocating for the physicians it represents, stop opening new schools to further dilute the applicant pool and try something else to educate the public about Osteopathy. Of course, this begs the question: if most patients don't know what degree their physician holds, why do we even care? Why do we have this burning NEED to educate the public and get Osteopathy in the public eye if it doesn't really matter - we are equal in every way to allopaths (some would argue better), we have every right to practice in any specialty, etc. Why do we need to pick little stupid battles like this? Why don't we work on getting equal practice rights in every country in the world rather than argue where we're already equal. What if I (hypothetically) want to move to France and practice after my training is over? Ooops, I can't - DOs don't have full practice rights there.. ¶ 3:20 PM
