Questions about the composition of the MD study group

The following letter dated on December 22nd, 2008 by Adam B. Smith D.O., FACOS

I am writing this letter in response to the “study group” appointed by the President of UNT-HSC to consider granting the MD degree at the institution which houses the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine.

While this is an extremely emotional issue to me personally I will try to keep my points factual.  In order to provide background on myself I have included a Curriculum Vitae in additional to the personal points I will provide.

I grew up in Ardmore, Oklahoma which at the time was much smaller than it is now.  In my town I witnessed firsthand professional prejudice against Osteopathic physicians up until the late seventies and early eighties when there were just not enough qualified MD physicians to keep the hospital viable at which time the Osteopathic physicians in town who had quite successful practices were allowed to obtain privileges at the hospital.

 

Eye Health Stats

Sometimes I am surprised by some eye trivia. For example, the American Academy of Ophthalmology publishes some interesting and trivial facts about blindness and eye health. It is sobering to realize that eye care has progressed in the last 100 years and that we just now learning how to treat many of the eye maladies. But comparing the US to the rest of the world really shows how lucky we are to live in the United States.

Comparison between Michigan and Texas COM

The following Open Letter to UNT Board of Regents and Chancellor on March 29th, 2009

The recent public hearing at UNTHSC regarding the proposal to add an M.D. degree to UNTHSC clearly showed the passion among the osteopathic community for their heritage and the acknowledgement of the prestige of an M.D. degree held by the local business and hospital leaders. Proponents of the M.D. degree argue that it will bring prestige and research funding to the school.

Despite the general consensus that Texas College of Osteopathic College (TCOM) is a great success story, it is ironic that the proponents of the M.D. program are willing to waste resources of duplicating a parallel program to produce M.D. physicians instead of DO physicians. This is absurd in business sense and purely discriminatory towards the osteopathic community because M.D.s and D.O.s are all physicians, period!

Dr. Scott Stoll exposed the untrufullness in Dr. Ransom's Letters dated on Sept 14th and 25th, 2009

The following is a communication by Scott Stoll, DO, PhD
   Former Chairman of Department of Osteopathic Medicine-UNTHSC
   Former Tenured Professor-UNTHSC
   Former UNT Health Board Member
   Former Director of Physical Medicine Research Institute

Perhaps like many of you, I read with great interest and anticipation the letters recently written by Dr. Scott Ransom dated 9/14/09 and 9/25/09 (Official version of the MD school initiative timeline). Dr. Ransom distributed these letters via email to a wide audience of individuals invested both in the future of this campus and the provision of medical education in this community.  Overall, I am struck with somewhat conflicting impressions.  I am heartened by Dr. Ransom’s belated yet important effort toward truthfulness, however; I remain disappointed that Dr. Ransom does not directly acknowledge and accept responsibility for his deceptions which have so painfully divided our campus and community.  The latter part of Dr. Ransom’s letter dated 9/25/09 is a refreshingly direct depiction of the current rationale for an MD school at the UNTHSC, however; the misunderstanding and prejudice expressed are frankly embarrassing and insulting to the both MDs and DOs alike.  Our students, staff, faculty, community leaders and citizens deserve an honest and frank discussion of these issues.  Unfortunately, the atmosphere at UNTHSC still seems to preclude an open and honest debate.