Template talk:Medical education in the United States

NRMP

The NRMP identifies six "types" of applicants for NRMP matching positions.

• U.S. Allopathic
• Canadian
• U.S. Osteopathic
• US born FMG
• Non-US born FMG
• Fifth Pathway

Source: Results and Data February 2008 www.nrmp.org
I propose each one of the these types be considered a pathway for entry into the US physician education and training system. Possibly the two foreign educated category be combined into one "IMG" category (since there's already one article on this.) Bryan Hopping ^T 13:15, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Those are pathways to this topic, not within this topic. Antelan ^talk 18:17, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

The topic is physician education and training. Physicians in the United States are educated at two types of U.S. medical schools. The may also be educated internationally and permitted to enter the U.S. training system via various pathways. Bryan Hopping ^T 19:11, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Please see the question below. The point is that you are creating redundancies. Antelan ^talk 19:13, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

As you can see, the breakdown of pathways (4 at present), differs from the breakdown of degrees (2 at present).Bryan Hopping ^T 19:17, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but a better formulation than having "pathways" and "degrees" would be "degrees" and "additional pathways", adding in the 2 beyond the traditional US MD and DO degrees. It avoids linking to 2 articles that are not actually about US physician education. Antelan^talk 01:18, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Which two articles are not related to the education & training of US physicians? Bryan Hopping ^T 02:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The ones that you keep reinserting, as one might have imagined. And based on that response, I can't tell if you understood what I was saying. Antelan^talk 12:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The article Osteopathic medicine in the United States discusses medical school and training, rather heavily. The article allopathic, though very incomplete at the moment, does mention several bodies of great import to physician education and training in the United States. Does that answer the question? I'm not sure if I do understand what you are saying.Bryan Hopping ^T 18:35, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The core of my comment is that the allopathic link in this template is functionally redundant with MD, and osteopathic is functionally redundant with DO. MD and DO are relevant to training, and they give the reader links to and a sense of the philosophical differences. Therefore, I am combining the lists to keep it relevant and non-redundant. Antelan^talk 19:00, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't see the redundancy argument. In each section, the allopathic/osteopathic parallelism is seen. MD/DO, AMA/AOA, AAMC/AACOM. The "pathways" articles are the general categories of this parallelism, the other subsections offer specific examples of the two categories. Bryan Hopping ^T 19:26, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

What do "Pathways" cover that "Degrees" don't

See title. Hopping alluded to an explanation on the talk page, but there is none yet. Here is a good place for it. Antelan ^talk 19:09, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Redirects, Pathways, Allopathy

On wikipedia, internal links via redirects should be avoided, hence "comparison of MD and DO" is the correct form. And I'm also interested in an answer to the pathways question above. If no one explains this section should possibly be removed. Also, User:Hopping is, perhaps unintentionally, pushing the term allopathic, which is not common and considered insulting by many. This point has been raised on his user page. The allopathic article is short, and describes the controversial history of the term rather than what an MD actually is. Hence a link to the MD article is far superior.