DO schools are medical schools that grant the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) degree, as opposed to the more widely known Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree. Graduates of DO schools are fully licensed physicians who can practice in every medical specialty, prescribe medications, perform surgery, and treat patients in hospitals, just like their MD counterparts. The key difference is that DO programs include additional training in the musculoskeletal system and a hands-on technique called Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment (OMT).
How DO Training Differs From MD Training
DO and MD students cover the same core medical curriculum: anatomy, biochemistry, pharmacology, pathology, clinical rotations in surgery, internal medicine, pediatrics, psychiatry, and other specialties. Both paths require four years of medical school followed by residency training. Where DO schools diverge is in their philosophical framework and an additional set of hands-on skills.
Osteopathic medicine is built on four core tenets recognized by the American Osteopathic Association. The first is that the body is a unit of body, mind, and spirit. The second is that the body is capable of self-regulation and self-healing. The third is that structure and function are reciprocally interrelated, meaning the way the body is physically arranged affects how it works, and vice versa. The fourth is that rational treatment should be based on understanding all three of those principles together.
In practice, this translates into extra coursework in OMT, a set of techniques where physicians use their hands to diagnose, treat, and prevent illness or injury. OMT can involve stretching, gentle pressure, and resistance applied to muscles, joints, and tissues. DO students typically spend 200 or more hours learning these techniques on top of the standard medical curriculum. Not every practicing DO uses OMT daily, but the training shapes how they approach diagnosis and patient care.
Licensing Exams for DO Graduates
MD students take the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE), a three-step test required for medical licensure. DO students take the Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination (COMLEX-USA), which covers the same general medical knowledge but also tests osteopathic principles and OMT skills. COMLEX-USA is administered by the National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners and is designed to assess the knowledge essential for osteopathic physicians to practice without supervision.
Many DO students choose to take both the COMLEX-USA and the USMLE. Taking both can strengthen residency applications, since some program directors at MD-affiliated hospitals are more familiar with USMLE scoring. COMLEX-USA Level 1 is scored as pass or fail, Level 2-CE is scored numerically, and Level 3 is also scored numerically. Level 2-PE is pass or fail.
Getting Into a DO School
Admission to a DO school requires a bachelor’s degree, completion of prerequisite science courses (typically biology, chemistry, organic chemistry, physics, and biochemistry), a competitive MCAT score, clinical experience, and letters of recommendation. Most applicants also need shadowing hours with a DO physician, something that MD schools rarely require.
DO schools use a centralized application system called AACOMAS, which is separate from the AMCAS system used by MD schools. You can apply to both types of schools simultaneously. For the 2024 entering class, students who successfully enrolled in DO programs had a mean undergraduate GPA of 3.59 overall, with a 3.49 average in science courses and a 3.71 average in non-science courses. These averages are slightly lower than those at MD schools, but the gap has been narrowing over the past decade as DO programs have become increasingly competitive.
Residency and Career Paths
Since 2020, all residency programs in the United States operate under a single accreditation system run by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). This means DO graduates compete for the same residency positions as MD graduates. Before this merger, osteopathic medicine had its own separate residency system, which limited some opportunities. That barrier no longer exists.
DO graduates match into every specialty, from family medicine and pediatrics to orthopedic surgery and dermatology. Historically, a higher percentage of DO graduates have entered primary care fields, partly reflecting the osteopathic tradition of whole-person care and partly reflecting applicant preferences. But DO students regularly match into competitive surgical and procedural specialties as well, particularly those who score well on their licensing exams and train at programs with strong clinical exposure.
Practice Rights and Scope
In every U.S. state and territory, DOs have the same practice rights as MDs. They can specialize, prescribe controlled substances, admit patients to hospitals, and hold medical staff privileges. From a patient’s perspective, the care you receive from a DO and an MD is legally and functionally equivalent.
Internationally, DOs trained in the United States have full practice rights in more than 65 countries. One important distinction: in some countries outside the U.S., the “DO” title refers to practitioners whose training focuses exclusively on manipulation rather than full medical education. Only U.S.-trained DOs are educated and licensed as complete physicians. If you plan to practice abroad, the Osteopathic International Alliance and the American Osteopathic Association maintain updated information on which countries recognize the U.S. DO degree.
How Many DO Schools Exist
The number of colleges of osteopathic medicine in the United States has grown rapidly. There are now more than 40 accredited schools spread across numerous campuses, and they collectively produce roughly 25% of all new physicians entering the workforce each year. This expansion reflects growing demand for primary care physicians, particularly in rural and underserved areas where DO graduates have traditionally been well represented.
DO schools tend to emphasize community-based clinical training. Many partner with regional hospitals and clinics rather than large academic medical centers, giving students hands-on patient care experience in settings that more closely resemble where many of them will eventually practice. Some programs specifically recruit students who intend to serve in medically underserved communities.
Is a DO Degree Worth It?
A DO degree opens the same career doors as an MD degree. You can become a cardiologist, a psychiatrist, an emergency medicine physician, or a surgeon. Your patients will call you “doctor,” your prescriptions carry the same legal authority, and your board certifications come from the same specialty boards. The practical difference for most practicing physicians comes down to the additional OMT training, which some use regularly and others rarely apply after residency.
Where the distinction matters most is during the application and residency matching process. Some highly competitive residency programs still carry implicit biases toward MD applicants, though this has been diminishing since the residency merger. Taking the USMLE in addition to COMLEX-USA, building a strong research profile, and training at clinical sites with good reputations all help level the playing field. Once you complete residency and enter practice, patients and employers overwhelmingly treat the two degrees as interchangeable.