Osteopathic Medical School Applications Break Record for Third Straight Year

2010 Application Now Available

At a time when applications to most health professions schools are either flat or declining, applications to U.S. colleges of osteopathic medicine (COMs) are up by nearly 8.8 percent, setting a record for the third straight year.  The application numbers reflect a six-year period during which several new osteopathic medical schools have opened their doors and thousands of additional potential medical students have applied to enter one of the fastest-growing health care sectors.

Some 12,875 individuals are hoping to fill one of the 5,100 total fall 2009 seats available at the nation’s 25 COMs and their branch campuses, compared with last year’s record-setting 11,650 applicants.

Today, nearly one in five U.S. medical students (nearly 17,000) is training to be an osteopathic physician, a ratio that is expected to grow to one in four by 2019. The centralized online application for the 2010 entering class is now open at https://aacomas.aacom.org/. 

The nation’s more than 55,000 practicing osteopathic physicians (DOs) are licensed to practice the full scope of medicine in all 50 states. They practice in all types of health care settings, including the military, and in all specialties, from pediatrics to geriatrics, and from sports medicine to trauma surgery. And new DOs may be especially helpful in mitigating the impact of the impending primary care physician shortage. The osteopathic medical profession has a heritage of producing primary care practitioners. The majority of osteopathic medical school graduates choose careers in primary care, and the COMs continue to focus on the importance of primary care in their mission statements and educational models.

The American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM) was founded in 1898 to support and assist the nation's osteopathic medical schools, and to serve as a unifying voice for osteopathic medical education. AACOM’s mission is to promote excellence in osteopathic medical education, in research and in service, and to foster innovation and quality among osteopathic colleges to improve the health of the American public.

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