Comparison of MD and DO in The United States - Demographics

Demographics

The sex and racial distribution of DOs and MDs are similar.Currently, there are significantly more MDs than DOs. In the 2010-2011 application cycle, 5,627 students matriculated as first-year students into DO medical programs and 19,230 students matriculated as first-year students into MD programs.

A 2010 survey of students applying to both U.S. M.D. and D.O schools found that 35% were only admitted to a DO school, 11% were only admitted to an M.D. school, 26% were admitted to both, while the remaining 52% were not admitted to any schools. Geographic location was the top reason students gave for choosing the school in which they enrolled.

Of physicians practicing in the United States, 7% are osteopathic physicians (2010), 26% are international medical graduates (2012), while the remaining physicians are U.S. medical graduates (M.D.). Between 1980 and 2005, the annual number of new MDs remained stable at around 16,000. During the same period, the number of new DOs increased by more than 200% (from about 1,150 to about 2,800). Graduates from DO medical programs are expected to increase to 3,300 by the year 2010 and as many as 4,000 by 2015. The number of new MDs per 100,000 people fell from 7.5 to 5.6, while the number of new DOs per 100,000 rose from 0.4 to 0.8.

The distribution of both M.D. and D.O. physicians in the United States is not uniform, as the number of physicians per capita varies. As of 2009, the states with the most M.D. physicians per capita were the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Maryland, and New York. The states with the lowest number of M.D. physicians per capita were Idaho, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Wyoming and Nevada. Osteopathic physicians are more concentrated in the midwestern states than in other regions of the U.S. As of 2011, the states with the most osteopathic physicians per capita were Michigan, Maine, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania. The states with the lowest number of D.O. physicians per capita were Louisiana, Alabama, Nebraska, and North Carolina.