Pros and Cons of Practicing Medicine

Last week we had Dr. Mark Baxter speak to us. He had a lot to say about practicing medicine. He gave us a good look at some of the not so great things that come with the job such as malpractice suits and a busy schedule. These things may sound awful, but for those aspiring doctors out there it is important to recognize that these things do exist in this profession. Dr. Baxter mentioned good things about practicing medicine as well, such as saving lives and improving peoples quality of life on a day to day basis.

Overall the lesson to be learned from this presentation was that to become a doctor we need to accept that there is going to be bad experiences as well as good experiences and that is going to be unavoidable. If we make the best of the situation good things will happen, and if we can't, then maybe we should choose a different profession. I hope that all of you pre-med people out there can take this lesson to heart and accept all aspects of the profession and make a difference!

Through the Eyes of a D.O.

This week we had James Aston speak to us. He is a fourth year student at PCOM, or the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. He provided some great insight about the whole D.O. way of medicine and also discussed what it is like to go the military route for med school. Mr. Aston discussed how D.O.s are trained not just in traditional medicine but also in the "manipulative" part of medicine, and in a lot of cases have more at their disposal when practicing then an allopathic trained physician. He emphasized that going D.O. vs M.D. is really up to the individuals preference and that you can have great success in either program.

One great example he gave about osteopathic treatment was that of using this technique in patients who have some type of infection in their body. To speed up the healing process, a D.O. can open up the patients lymphatic pathways through a manipulative procedure (which is all hands on and non-invasive) to allow the white blood cells to get to the area of infection faster and clean it up. He provided a few more examples that were very interesting as well.

We want to thank Mr. Aston for taking time out of his busy schedule and speaking to our club. He also gave us his contact information in case anybody wanted to ask him questions about D.O. training or the military experience through and after med school. His email is jbaJSA@gmail.com.

Next week we will have a primary care physician DR. Mark Baxter, MD speaking to our club. Hope to see you all there!