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PURPOSE: To determine the number of DO (doctor of osteopathic medicine) and MD (doctor of medicine) residents in training programs accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) and to examine the behavior of DO residents who moved between the two types of programs. METHOD: In 2013, the authors linked data on residents reported in ACGME-accredited and AOA-accredited programs in 2009, 2010, and 2011 to produce a count of all residents, including an unduplicated count of residents reported in joint programs. DO residents were identified who moved between AOA-accredited and ACGME-accredited programs. RESULTS: There were 106,923 MD residents and 14,789 DO residents on duty on December 31, 2011. Fifty-one percent of DO residents were in ACGME-accredited programs, 40% in AOA-accredited programs, and 9% in joint programs. DOs were 12% of all residents and 14% of first-year residents. Of 3,742 DOs and 16,863 MDs graduating in 2009-2010, 663 MDs and 222 DOs were not reported in graduate medical education (GME) in either 2010 or 2011. A larger percentage of DO graduates were training in the primary care specialties, especially in family medicine. CONCLUSIONS: These data provide the first comprehensive accounting of the numbers of individuals in U.S. GME, in both ACGME- and AOA-accredited residencies. The number of graduates from U.S. medical schools is increasing rapidly; residency positions are growing more slowly. The planned unified accreditation of U.S. GME may cause significant changes in the patterns of GME for future trainees.
Jolly et al. (Wed,) studied this question.