Democracy in action: D.O. Medical Excellence (DOME) Day in Austin

I joined the DO day in Austin on February 23^rd. It was my very first (somewhat) political event I attended in my life. There were 95 TCOM students, 39 DOs, and 13 others coming from across the state and outside of the state to attend the event. I admire the participation and the spirits of the students because I didn’t make the time to participate in those events as I was trying to survive in medical school.

Texas capitol is a beautiful building and most of the legislators’ offices are located underground. The capitol was crowded with a few dozen groups of different interests. It is very hard to meet the legislators because they are either in committees or meetings unless you have connections to have personal meetings. Appointments are needed to be made way in advance or made by political consultants on short notice, and the appointments are also subjected to changes.

It was a marathon day for me to have meetings with the legislative aides of 4 representatives and 2 senators. Some meetings were taken place even in the hallways outside of the legislators’ offices because there were several groups meeting already inside the offices. I was able to talk to a few TCOM students and get the pulse of the TCOM students on the issue of the UNTMD plan forward.

• It was reported that UNTMD school was a done deal and future MDs would be given the option of taking elective in OMM. Most of the students were against the MD school on campus because they were more concerned about the insufficiency of residency slots if increased the number of medical students in Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
• Rumors were spread at John Peter Smith’ s family medicine residency that you can exchange the DO degree for MD degree.

The D.O.M.E. day has been a tradition since 2003, organized by the Texas Osteopathic Medical Association (TOMA) in concert with the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine (TCOM). TOMA and TCOM have had intimately close relationship with each other as TOMA physicians were instrumental in building TCOM. Previously, TCOM dean or UNTHSC president usually joined the D.O.M.E. to promote the school and the osteopathic profession. This year, the school leadership was absent. Recently, major tests seem to be scheduled around the D.O.M.E day; therefore, it was a surprise to a big turnout of TCOM students.

Recent policies of Dr. Ransom have drifted TCOM and TOMA further apart from each other. Since the day Dr. Ransom took the reins of UNTHSC, he cancelled the allowance for TOMA membership to DO physicians, he cancelled the tradition of TOMA providing free white coats and other things to welcome new students into the profession. The small gifts from TOMA may not be much, but some of you may experience in your practice, which will not cover the cost of your white coats.  With the push of an ill-conceived plan for a new MD school on campus, the D.O.M.E day was a day of lobbying the legislators against Dr. Ransom’s plan. To paraphrase the title of an article in Texas Medicine Magazine: “DO vs. DO,” the D.O.M.E. day became a day of DOs against Dr. Ransom.

As Texas legislature convenes only once every two year for 140 days, there is another 2 months left. Please lend your support to defeat Dr. Ransom's plan by contacting your local legislators, template letters and contact information can be found at TOMA' Legislative Action Center.