To the Editor: 

In his July 2013 letter to the editor, Dr Fredricks¹ expressed his opposition to allowing allopathic physicians (ie, MDs) to participate in osteopathic graduate medical education programs. I recall the similar “us vs them” climate and mentality so prevalent when I was an osteopathic physician (ie, DO) in medical training more than 30 years ago. 

I am grateful that the 2 allopathic military residency programs that I completed (1 in family medicine and 1 in aerospace medicine) did not take a similar closed-door policy toward DO applicants that Dr Fredricks would apply toward MD applicants. 

When Dr Still practiced medicine in the late 19th century, the medical profession he reacted against was not scientifically based and would not have been recognized—or permitted—by any modern school of medicine. Today, both DOs and MDs practice essentially core scientific medicine, as I have witnessed over the past 30 years in both military and civilian clinical settings in the United States and overseas. 

The values and principles² of holistic, patient-centered, preventive, and health- vs disease-focused care in a primary care setting that some, such as Dr Fredricks, would claim as unique and exclusive to osteopathic medicine are the same as those held by most of the US and international MDs I have worked with. Additionally, such values and principles were repeatedly emphasized during my military family medicine residency—accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education—in the 1980s. 

I recommend that the “us vs them” mentality that continues to maintain artificial barriers between the osteopathic and allopathic medical schools be abandoned as anachronistic and un healthy, especially in light of the fact that most DOs obtain their residency training from allopathic sources.