Physicians and educational institutions across the country began to realize there was a need for change about 20 years ago, and new educational programs and treatment philosophies began to arise. One of the most notable was the founding of the Fellowship in Integrative Medicine in the year 2000 by Andrew Weil, MD, Professor of Medicine & Public Health at the University of Arizona. The Fellowship is a 1,000 hour, two-year distance learning program that has achieved international recognition as the leading integrative medical education program in the world (Arizona Board of Regents). Physicians attend this program to learn a new method of practicing medicine. This method focuses on the individual, not the disease. It emphasizes the importance …show more content…
Instead of going to a traditional allopathic medical school and receiving their M.D., students are becoming doctors of osteopathic medicine (D.O.). D.O. are licensed as physicians in the United States and are able to practice any medical specialty of their choosing after completing their training, just like an M.D. The difference is that osteopathic medicine has a unique view on how the human body should be treated. This view is defined by four …show more content…
Osteopathic medicine is also one of the fastest growing health professions in the world. Going from just 19 schools in 1998, to 28 in 2009, osteopathic medical students represent more than 19 percent of the current freshmen medical school class in this country (Hahn). This rise in popularity can be attributed to the realization that our current method of healthcare is not sufficient. More and more physicians and patients are viewing medicine differently. Illnesses within the human body are not simple problems that can be made to disappear with a procedure or a drug. Our bodies are complex and intricate, they cannot be reduced down to being something so rudimentary that all it takes is a couple of pills to solve an issue. In order for physicians to truly make a lasting and positive difference in someone’s health, they must be given the time, knowledge, and resources to dig deep and find what combination of factors could be causing the health issue. This view is at the core of osteopathic medicine, and with the increase in medical students studying to become O.D.s, one can hope that this view will start to influence the rest of the medical