Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO)

Osteopathic medicine is a comprehensive approach to health care. Its essence lies in examining and treating the whole person, not just presenting symptoms. These relationships of the musculoskeletal system to other organ systems, body to mind, physician to patient, patient to family, and family to community all play a unique role in wellness and illness, prevention and recovery.

As a GA-PCOM student, you are strongly taught to gain insight into your patient's health care needs by looking beyond the person in front of you and discovering the social and economic factors that impact him or her. From the first day of medical school, we emphasize the interpersonal context in which medicine will be practiced. We plan our curriculum to emphasize thinking like a "Doctors from Day One."

Integrated Curriculum

The primary patient care skills are complemented by our integrated approach to biomedical knowledge that introduces both basic and clinical sciences in your first two years. By learning these subjects in tandem, rather than one followed by the other, the abstraction of science becomes tangible by its application in practice. The study of anatomy and physiology, for example, is paired with learning the principles of physical examination and osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM).

We use a variety of methods to present this information: problem-oriented cases, lectures, laboratory study, small group conferences, student-centered study and projects, medical informatics instruction and selected symposia. We provide plenty of opportunities for one-on-one interaction between students and teachers. Since medicine is practiced within a social context, the curriculum includes humanities-oriented programs, such as medical ethics, human sexuality, medical law and medical economics. Every doctor must address these topics, and we will teach them to broaden your understanding of changing attitudes and contemporary health care issues.

All applications are processed through AACOMAS. AACOMAS Web site