American osteopathic medical schools are filling in important gaps in the US health care system, while generating $6.2 billion in economic output in fiscal year 2023.
In a recent webinar hosted by the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, Robert A. Cain, DO, AACOM’s president and CEO, and Mark Speicher, DO, AACOM’s senior vice president of research, learning and innovation, discussed the 2025 Osteopathic Medical Education Impact Report. The report was developed with information from colleges, the American Medical Association and the Department of Education.
The US faces a looming physician shortage, projected to reach 187,000 by 2037, including more than 80,000 primary care physicians. Dr. Cain said that COMs are positioned as a critical solution, with nearly 30% of the nation’s medical students enrolled in osteopathic programs. Since 1990, the number of practicing doctors of osteopathic medicine has quintupled, reaching 160,000 in 2025. Without the 73 campuses offering the DO degree, the shortage would be even more severe.
COMs have a long-standing tradition of producing graduates who serve in primary care. According to the report, 56% of COM alumni practice in primary care specialties, compared with just 25% of MD-granting school graduates. An additional 25% of COM graduates work in fields that supplement primary care, such as psychiatry, obstetrics, gynecology and emergency medicine.
The report showed that 12% of COM alumni serve in rural areas and 16% in medically underserved areas, with some schools exceeding 30%. And 38% of COM graduates practice in the same state where they trained, bolstering local physician workforces.
“Anecdotally, we’ve long known about how our community supports local businesses, health-related programming and other opportunities that engage and add value to the lives of residents surrounding our medical schools,” Dr. Cain said.
COMs directly support more than 20,000 jobs and pay $1.3 billion in wages, salaries, and benefits, the report showed. In total, COMs supported nearly 40,000 jobs nationwide, contributing $3.3 billion to the US GDP. For every 100 direct jobs created by COMs, 84 additional jobs were indirectly supported in industries ranging from finance to hospitality.
Even states without a COM, such as Massachusetts, benefited economically, with $15 million in output attributed to osteopathic medical education.
“COMS develop programming that jointly supports medical education, offers beneficial health services to community residents and allows students to build relationships with local communities,” Dr. Cain said, “As our values permeate across the American health care system, osteopathic medicine is making a difference in how Americans think about health through a holistic, whole person lens, and how they experience care through compassion and the use of touch to both diagnose and treat.”
Dr. Speicher said AACOM also inventoried all the extramurally funded research underway at COMS.
“From that research inventory, we have developed a searchable database for active research and recent publications that can be used by community members, by students or potential students, and by other researchers to explore the research going on at each of our colleges of osteopathic medicine,” Dr. Speicher said. “This will facilitate and promote collaborative research between our colleges and in communities where research is sorely needed to deliver the most groundbreaking care to the patients that our students, faculty, and osteopathic physicians care for.”
The research report will be presented on April 21 at the AACOM Annual Conference in Las Vegas.
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