Survey of osteopathic and allopathic residents' attitudes toward osteopathic manipulative treatment

More than 50% of new osteopathic physicians receive their residency training in programs accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) rather than in programs approved by the American Osteopathic Association (AOA). To examine the implications of this training pattern for trends in the practice of osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT), the authors surveyed attitudes toward OMT with questionnaires targeted to osteopathic and allopathic residents in family medicine residency programs. Osteopathic residents in specialties other than family medicine were also surveyed. Differences in views between osteopathic residents in AOA-approved and ACGME-accredited programs--as well as the views of the allopathic residents--were analyzed using chi(2) tests. Fewer osteopathic residents in ACGME-accredited family medicine programs (39.5%) reported frequent use of OMT than did osteopathic residents in AOA-approved family medicine programs (67.9%). This difference appears to result more from experiences during residency training than from expectations formed before residency training. Ninety percent of the allopathic residents who responded to the survey said they believed that OMT is effective for treating somatic dysfunction. Moreover, 70.9% of allopathic physicians indicated they had at least some interest in learning OMT. To the authors' knowledge, this study was the first to quantify a change in attitude of allopathic residents toward a more positive view of osteopathic medicine.