Osteopathic Medicine Profession Overview

Source:http://www.oucom.ohiou.edu/OsteoMed.htm

With 100 million patient visits to osteopathic physicians in the United States each year, it is clear that osteopathic medicine is gaining ever wider acceptance by the general public. Men and women holding the doctor of osteopathy, or D.O., degree can practice in a full range of medical specialties anywhere in the country. Most D.O.s, though, are in family medicine and the other primary care disciplines of general pediatrics, general internal medicine and general obstetrics and gynecology. To understand why this is so, it may help to understand a little about the profession's roots.

The osteopathic profession was begun in the late 19th century by Andrew Taylor Still; a man of strong passions, he was both a supporter of women's rights and an outspoken abolitionist. When the Civil War broke out, Still, not surprisingly, entered the Union Army to enlist in the fight to crush slavery and worked as a regimental surgeon. After a series of medical tragedies in his own family, Still dedicated himself to the study of the physical and mechanical structure of the human body.

In 1874 Still laid the cornerstone of osteopathic medicine by describing the principles and philosophy on which the profession was to be based. This philosophy viewed the human body as a single organism in which each part interacts with and influences every other part. D.O.s, therefore, are taught to treat each patient as a whole person, rather than focusing just on the area that is causing the immediate medical problem.

Osteopathic physicians are also specially trained to use a procedure called osteopathic manipulative medicine. This technique makes it possible for physicians, when appropriate, to use their hands to help diagnose illness and treat patients. By manually examining the patient, osteopathic doctors can detect subtle changes in the body's structure, with special emphasis on the joints, bones, muscles and nerves. By using direct or indirect pressure to move the muscles and bones, doctors often improve circulation and nerve response, helping the body heal itself.

What Still began was, in essence, a reform movement directed against the widespread abuses and inefficiencies of the health care of his time. Since then, osteopathic principles and manipulative techniques have become recognized as valid medical concepts which are as exciting now as they were a hundred years ago. This is because the osteopathic approach leads to a profoundly personal, "people-oriented" style of practice that today's medical students find very rewarding. During his or her medical education, the D.O. student learns to treat the person as well as the disease and is taught that the physician's role is to facilitate the body's own natural recovery mechanisms. It's not surprising that with this focus the majority of D.O.s become family doctors who provide the "grass roots" type of general health care so much in demand in the United States today.