AOA vs. ABIM: Describing the growth of osteopathic medicine

The American Osteopathic Association (AOA) recently filed a federal lawsuit against the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) over its strict policy that effectively bars osteopathic physicians from serving as directors of internal medicine training programs. To explain why this is so important, in this clip AOA President Robert G.G. Piccinini, DO, D.FACN, discusses how osteopathic medicine has taken off and is a growing part of the U.S. health care system.

Medical Economics: Today we're going to talk about a pending court case that the association has gotten involved in. But I wanted to preface that with context and ask you to discuss some of the recent facts, figures, and findings that indicate the growth of osteopathic medical schools and osteopathic physicians, their numbers across the United States.

Robert G.G. Piccinini, DO, D.FACN: It's a great question, it's a great topic, I love talking about it because it's such a great story. Currently, we're over 207,000 osteopathic physicians and osteopathic medical students. We’ve grown about 300% in the last 10 years. So we've just been keeping on, moving forward, and our growth is seeming to be doing wonderfully. The majority of our physicians are in primary care. The other thing to note about is that the osteopathic profession, 70% of our membership is under the age of 45. So, even though we've been around for quite a long time, with the explosive growth that we've had in medical schools our numbers are a very youthful workforce, and we're here to answer the long-term goals of the physician shortages.