General

Please visit the following website for a comprehensive, up to date list of California medical schools provided by the Association of American Medical Colleges:

www.aamc.org/students/applying/amcas/participating_schools/california/

For your convenience, we also have listed US medical schools by region, state and program.

DO vs. MD Schools

You finally decided that you want to become a doctor.  You’ve probably thought that becoming a doctor means your last name is followed by two letters: “M.D.”  Allopathic medical schools will grant you the more common M.D. degree but another type of school, osteopathic medical schools, confer D.O. medical degrees.  Allopathic and osteopathic medical schools both will allow you to realize your dreams of becoming a doctor so what’s the difference between the two schools and degrees?

Both types of medical schools fully prepare their students to become competent physicians in fields from surgery to family medicine, but they differ in their philosophy and training.  The attached powerpoint will go into more detail about similarities and differences between allopathic and osteopathic medical schools.  Before you decide for or against applying to osteopathic medical schools, ask yourself the following questions:

•    Do you like the osteopathic approach to patient care?
•    Are you the kind of person who is comfortable being a minority or different? (D.O.s comprise only 5% of all physicians in the US.)
•    Will you feel frustrated or inadequate if you have to explain to a patient who has never been to an osteopathic physician before what the D.O. degree is and what osteopathic medicine is all about?

For more information, please see the chart and powerpoint presentation below: