Offices and Clinics of Doctors of Osteopathy

According to the American Osteopathic Association (AOA), there were 67,167 doctors of osteopathy (DOs) in the United States in 2009, making up about 6 percent of all physicians nationwide. Of these doctors, approximately 65 percent practice in the primary care fields. Although DOs represent just 7 percent of all physicians, they account for 15 percent of all physicians practicing in rural areas with populations of 2,500 or less. Their fields of specialty include surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, psychiatry, neurology, and internal medicine.

This branch of medicine has grown considerably since 1970, when there were just over 14,300 DOs practicing in the United States. Ten years later, that number had jumped to 18,800, and by 1990 the number of practicing osteopathic doctors had climbed to 30,000, with only 2 percent working in hospitals and another 2 percent teaching. By 2001, the total number of DOs had grown to 47,000. It is estimated that at least 100,000 osteopathic physicians will be in active medical practice by the year 2020. The AOA estimates that DOs receive some 100 million patient visits annually. The greatest future demand for DOs will be in rural and suburban areas. Employment is expected to grow faster than average, with the best prospects being in primary care fields such as family practice, geriatrics, and preventive care.

There are 25 colleges of osteopathic medicine in 28 locations in the United States. There has been a continued steady increase in the number of students pursuing studies in osteopathic medicine, according to the AOA. The number of students enrolled in osteopathic colleges in 2004-2005 was 12,600. By the 2008-2009 school year, that number had growth to 16,893. In addition, the number of DO graduates has more than tripled since 1980, from 1,032 to 3,364 in 2008. Osteopathic postdoctoral training programs have experienced similar increases. Although the number of DOs in the United States increased significantly, so did the number of MDs, so the percentage of patients seen by DOs relative to MDs remained relatively constant around 7 percent annually (ranging from 6 to 8 percent from 2000-2009).

In 2009, approximately 31 percent of all active DOs and 49 percent of all DO students in the United States were women. Although the percentage of Black and Hispanic DOs remains relatively level during the 2000s, the percentage of Asians choosing to enter osteopathic medicine increased. Still, the majority of DOs (70 percent) were White in the late 2000s.

In 2008, the six states with the most practicing DOs were New York, Ohio, California, Florida, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. There were 10 states in which DOs made up at least 10 percent of all practicing physicians: Oklahoma (19.3 percent), Michigan (17.4 percent), Iowa (15.8 percent), Maine (14.0 percent), West Virginia (13.2 percent), Pennsylvania (13.0 percent), Missouri (12 percent), Ohio (11.1 percent), and Arizona (10.8 percent).

Overseas, American doctors of osteopathic medicine have operated clinics and trained staff, but typically have not set up private practices for themselves, as salaries are not as high as those in the United States. The United States is the only country in the world that has osteopathic medicine integrated with a physician's degree. In other countries, practitioners generally earn certification after one to two years of schooling and hold less prestige than their American counterparts.

The number of DOs who are involved in primary care has been gradually decreasing for several decades, reaching a record low of 40.9 percent in 2009. At the same time, the number of DOs pursuing specialties has been steadily increasing. The most populated specialties include general internal medicine (10.0 percent), pediatrics (4.7 percent), obstetrics (4.3 percent), and osteopathic manipulative medicine (1.8 percent). In all, in 2009, the AOA approved 72 different specialties, subspecialties, and areas of added qualifications for which DOs could apply for certification. As of May 2009, there were 22,395 DOs who were certified in at least one specialty by one of the 18 AOA-approved certification boards. Like their MD counterparts, graduating DOs were finding it difficult in the late 2000s to reconcile up to $200,000 of school loan debts with the lower paying career path of primary care. Thus, even while expressing a desire for a family practice, many were opting to pursue a more lucrative position in specialty medicine.