Each student is trained in the skills of primary care in order to treat the whole person, not merely the symptoms, and to understand the unique importance of the neuromusculoskeletal system to health and well-being. The thorough foundation in primary care provides a base for specialty selection for those students oriented to the specialties, and the educational program provides extensive opportunities for students to explore the specialty disciplines. As a philosophy, science, and art, osteopathic medicine is a total approach to health and disease. It recognizes that the neuromusculoskeletal system is of major importance to human life. The interrelationship between this and other body systems is a basic part of osteopathic philosophy.
Osteopathic medicine is a comprehensive approach to health and disease.
Its emphasis upon primary care, health maintenance, and prevention of disease and attention to the neuromusculoskeletal system are keys to its medical education and practice. The osteopathic physician incorporates evaluation and treatment of the musculoskeletal system as a basis for an approach to health and disease, combining it with the diagnostic and therapeutic modalities used by general scientific approaches to the healing arts. Like their MD counterparts, DOs must be licensed in the states where they practice, and additional board certification in specialties further underscores their professional credentials. All 50 states and the District of Columbia provide for the unlimited practice of medicine and surgery by DOs. Licensing boards are usually composed of senior members of the osteopathic profession.