DO (school) in anesthesiology or CRNA school

[Mantibob]

I am a new member. Discovered you guys about a year and a half ago and tap in every now and then and read discussions. Great site! Great discussions. I have a question I am hoping you can help me with. First a little background. I am 46 and my wife is 41. After years of working in the computer industry my job was sent to India! My wife has never worked out side the home. After much research and debate we both decided to go back to school and we are currently enrolled in a ASN program. We decided to become nurses for two reasons. One - we wanted to be able to come home each day and know that we really made a difference in peoples lives, (I have spent months working in the past without being able to answer yes to this question). Two - You can not send sick people to India!!! (Job Security). Since being in nursing school we have found we love it. We love the clinicals and working with patients. My wife even more! She is getting straight A's in every class. (She had no previous college experience)! Well this is our background. Sorry for the wordiness. Here is the $60,000 dollar question. As far as difficulty getting into school - which would be easier, DO in anesthesiology or CRNA. From reading your discussions it seems virtually impossible to get into a CRNA program, whereas there are a lot of doctor of osteopathy programs out there. It seems to me that it would be easier to get into a DO program and upon graduation become an anesthesiologist - and you would make more $ too! Am I off base on this?? Look forward to your comments.

[lizzyberry]

CRNA school would be a quicker route

[core0]

MDA residency is 4 years + fellowship = five.

Umm no allopathic or osteopathic residency is 3 years with an option for a fellowship or research.

Here is a fairly typical program.

http://depts.washington.edu/anesth/training/residents/index.shtml

There are osteopathic programs about 9 of them. Not sure how competitive anesthesiology residency is for DO's.

http://www.scutwork.com/cgi-bin/links/page.cgi?g=Osteopathic%2FResidencies%2FAnesthesiology%2Findex.html&d=1

[catman21]

Look I think many of people are misinformed about the DO-A path, a residency in anesthesiology is not DO or MD specific.

Allopathic(MD) and Osteopathic(DO) medicine both require a 4 year bachelor's degree, 4 years of medical school, and 4 years of internship + anesthesia residency (Postgrad year 1 + CA1/2/3).

Both DO and MD graduates apply for the same residencies, there are no DO only anesthesiology residency nor are there MD only anesthesiology residencies. That being said, should you choose to go through DO schooling, I would strongly suggest you take you USMLE as well as the COMLEX.

Currently residencies, like anesthesiology, that receive a large number of MD applicants will want to see your USMLE scores in order to compare you to your MD counterparts.

But once you're a licensed anesthesiologist, you are an anesthesiologist. DO or MD doesn't matter at that point.

[core0]

Look I think many of people are misinformed about the DO-A path, a residency in anesthesiology is not DO or MD specific.

Allopathic(MD) and Osteopathic(DO) medicine both require a 4 year bachelor's degree, 4 years of medical school, and 4 years of internship + anesthesia residency (Postgrad year 1 + CA1/2/3).

Both DO and MD graduates apply for the same residencies, there are no DO only anesthesiology residency nor are there MD only anesthesiology residencies. That being said, should you choose to go through DO schooling, I would strongly suggest you take you USMLE as well as the COMLEX.

Currently residencies, like anesthesiology, that receive a large number of MD applicants will want to see your USMLE scores in order to compare you to your MD counterparts.

But once you're a licensed anesthesiologist, you are an anesthesiologist. DO or MD doesn't matter at that point.

I think that you have a poor understanding of the nuances of residency. Both Osteopathy and Allopathy have separate residencies. They are either intership (medicine, transitional, surgery or Tri (osteopathic)) plus three years of anesthesia residency or four years of integrated residency.

Osteopathic residencies are only available to graduates of osteopathic programs. Here is a link to the AOA match:

2012 Summary by Program Type

There were 33 open anesthesia positions with 29 filled.

The allopathic match occurs after the osteopathic match and is open to allopathic and osteopathic grads as well as foreign medical graduates.

Here is a link to the NRMP match:

NRMP: Residency Match

Other things to remember is that some states require completion of an osteopathic internship to be licensed in the state. Some residencies are dual certified (osteopathic and allopathic) but most aren't. So completion of an allopathic residency will not allow an osteopath to practice in all states.

Finally there is a proposal to limit allopathic fellowships to allopathic residency graduates. This will limit osteopathic residency options.