Acceptance into ACGME Residencies and Fellowships:

What Should the Relationship be with Non-ACGME Programs?

Problems with proposed Rule Changes/Talking Points

November 4, 2011

(Prepared by AACOM and AOA leadership)

1. Well-trained physicians are a linchpin of the U.S. health care system, and undergraduate and graduate medical education training programs produce those physicians. The osteopathic medical education system is aware that the education and training of physicians is both a social and an ethical responsibility. That responsibility is taken very seriously by both its medical school and graduate medical education accreditation systems.
2. Osteopathic graduate medical education (OGME) training has had long and successful recognition as a path for specialty training of osteopathic physicians. The governing bodies for OGME programs base their accreditation decisions on recognized competency-based standards and sound accreditation and procedural processes. For years, DO residents have received acceptance of their PGY1 AOA training toward the fulfillment of ACGME training requirements in FM, PM & R, radiology, and anesthesiology. In addition, AOA-residency training has been recognized as an acceptable background for more than 900 DOs in 68 specialties seeking ACGME fellowship training over the last 40 years. We are not aware that there is evidence of inadequate training within osteopathic medical education post-graduate programs. Thus, a sudden change such as the one proposed, which will affect hundreds of current students and residents, seems to be a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. It could potentially cause new and unintended issues for students, interns, residents and hospitals, and it would be prudent to evaluate these potential consequences closely prior to making a decision of this magnitude. For example, the osteopathic licensing bodies in PA, MI, OK and FL require an AOA-approved internship for licensure in those states. The proposed policy would prohibit DO graduates from pursuing a first-year AOA internship prior to completing their training in ACGME programs.

osteopathic history
essay competition

To encourage osteopathic medical students, interns and residents to study their profession’s past struggles and achievements, the AOA Bureau of Osteopathic History and Identity is conducting its seventh annual history essay competition.

As it has done since 2006, the bureau will bestow up to three awards: a $5,000 first prize, a $3,000 second prize and a $2,000 third prize.

The bureau is asking contestants to focus their essays on the bureau’s “Core Principles for Teaching the History of Osteopathic Medicine.” For the 2011 essay competition, the bureau has chosen five different core principles than those used in 2010. Because the bureau has 20 core principles, it is rotating them so that the competition focuses on different historical milestones each year.