Opinion ID: 419681
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Osteopaths permitted to become M.D.s in the 1961-62 merger

Text: 24 Dr. Brandwein asserts that Sec. 2275 of the Medical Practice Act violates the Equal Protection Clause because it permits those osteopaths whose D.O.s were converted to M.D.s during the short-lived merger in 1961-62 now to use the M.D. title while denying him the same privilege. This distinction is claimed to be irrational because if the state is truly concerned with disclosure of a physician's actual educational qualifications, no reason exists to treat Dr. Brandwein any differently from the 2,500 osteopaths who took advantage of the opportunity to convert their degrees in 1961-62. 25 It is undeniable that there is an inconsistency between the state's position reflected in Sec. 2275 of the Medical Practice Act, the basis for a wholesale conversion of D.O.s to M.D.s, and the position presently enforced by the state, that post 1974 licentiates of the Osteopathic Board may not acquire the suffix M.D. This is an anomaly resulting from the convoluted history of the relationship between the osteopathic and medical professions in the State of California. In 1961-62, there can be little doubt that California's plan to grandfather existing osteopaths into the ranks of M.D.s was rationally related to the state's broader plan of prohibiting future licensing of osteopaths and merging the two professions. That overall plan was aborted in 1974 when the California Supreme Court concluded that the plan unconstitutionally denied equal protection insofar as it prohibited future licensing of osteopaths in the state. D'Amico v. Board of Medical Examiners, 11 Cal.3d 1, 22, 112 Cal.Rptr. 786, 801, 520 P.2d 10 (Cal.1974). When the two professions resumed their traditional practice of separate licensing and regulation following the D'Amico decision, the 2,500 converted M.D.s were not forced to surrender their new-found standing as M.D.s and return to using the title D.O. 26 The resulting distinction, that osteopaths licensed prior to 1962 and who took advantage of the conversion offer may now use the M.D. title while others, such as Dr. Brandwein, are prohibited from doing the same, could best be described as an accident of history. That does not make the legislative decisions involved in creating that distinction irrational, however. It is conceded that legislative decision to merge the two professions in 1962 bore a rational relation to a legitimate state interest. Nor is the later legislative decision to return to the traditional separation of the professions, in light of the D'Amico decision, challenged as an irrational choice by appellant. Dr. Brandwein's position is essentially that since the legislature once permitted osteopaths to adopt the title M.D., it became thereby obligated in perpetuity to grant all future osteopaths the same privilege. The implication that the Equal Protection Clause prohibits the legislature from ever taking inconsistent or differing approaches to a particular problem is contrary to the very premise of the rational relation test. The Supreme Court has stressed that the legislature may take piecemeal steps which only partially ameliorate a perceived evil and create some disparate treatment of affected parties. Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., 449 U.S. 456, 466, 101 S.Ct. 715, 725, 66 L.Ed.2d 659 (1981); Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U.S. 483, 489, 75 S.Ct. 461, 465, 99 L.Ed. 563 (1955); New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U.S. 297, 303, 96 S.Ct. 2513, 2516-17, 49 L.Ed.2d 511 (1976). The state does not violate the Equal Protection Clause merely because the classification made by its laws are imperfect. Massachusetts Board of Retirement v. Murgia, 427 U.S. 307, 316, 96 S.Ct. 2562, 2568, 49 L.Ed.2d 520 (1976), quoting Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 485, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 1161, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970).