House of Delegates meeting: DOs debate joint osteopathic/allopathic match.(Practice Trends)

CHICAGO -- The American Osteopathic Association's House of Delegates weighed in at its annual meeting on a number of hot topics in medicine, including medical liability reform, the use of placebos in end-of-life care, and a proposal for a joint match with allopathic residency candidates.

The group debated whether to pursue some type of collaborative process to match both osteopathic and allopathic residency positions at the same time.

With opinions divided, the AOA House of Delegates voted to send the resolution back to the drawing board.

But the issue is unlikely to go away, said Dr. Karen J. Nichols, a member of the AOA board of trustees and dean of the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine. In fact, AOA has already been studying the match process and has had discussions with the National Resident Match Program (NRMP), which administers both the allopathic and osteopathic matches, she said.

A possibility discussed at the meeting was a collaborative process in which osteopathic students would participate in the same Match Day as allopathic students but osteopathic students would be given priority to match with osteopathic programs.

The concept of a unified match was also introduced by the California delegation at the American Medical Association's House of Delegates meeting in June. The proposal, which was part of a larger effort to reform the NRMP process, was sent back to the AMA board of trustees for further review and a report is expected next year.

Osteopathic programs and students are disadvantaged by the current two-match system, said Dr. Bruce P. Bates, president of the Maine Osteopathic Association and chair of family practice at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine.