Charles Sophy May Have His Own Problems

Remember Charles Sophy? The one who wants kids to complete their assignments and worries about separation anxiety? The one who got Lee Baca to overrule his medical staff in the Paris Hilton case?

Several sources (Dlisted, A Socialite's Life, I Don't Like You In That Way) are linking to a Radar Online post about the good doctor. Excerpts:

[T]he Beverly Hills healer paid an unauthorized visit to Hilton in jail and somehow helped secure her release (albeit temporary) just three days into her 45-day sentence. How, exactly, he swayed L.A. County officials to go easy on the heiress (against judge's orders) is a mystery many members of the media would like answered. Sophy, however, has stonewalled....

Until [Wednesday] Sophy claimed on his website to hold an "Associate Clinical Professorship at the University of California, Los Angeles, Neuro-Psychiatric Institute." He does not. According to well-placed sources at UCLA, he's an unpaid volunteer clinical instructor—"an entry-level position at best," the source tells Radar. "He cannot claim himself to be a professor here by any means."

Sophy has yet to return Radar's messages seeking comment, but it seems our probing reached him. He changed his website late Wednesday. It now says he's "a clinical instructor" at UCLA rather than a proper professor....

Sophy has been mistakenly referred to as an M.D. (specifically by Men's Health). He's a D.O., a doctor of osteopathy, a slightly different classification, though D.O. schooling and training mirrors that of M.D.s. Osteopaths focus on alternative treatments, prevention, and patients' total wellness rather than specific symptoms. And osteopathic psychiatrists make up about 10 percent of the American Psychiatric Association, of which Sophy has been a member for more than a decade. So why wouldn't he be forthcoming about his exact credentials?

"Some of the D.O.s in our organization don't go out of their way to make the distinction," says a spokesperson for the American Osteopathic Association. "It's a personal choice, but I don't know why any D.O. would not want that to get out."

There's a reason:

"Though osteopaths are still considered licensed doctors in America (not, however, in Europe) and Sophy serves as the legitimate medical director of the L.A. County Department of Family and Child Services, he does not seem eager to tout his full credentials—perhaps because a D.O. is considered by many M.D.s to be the fake Rolex of the medical profession."...

"In this day and age, from a skills and capability point of view, MD=DOs. DO schools often have slightly ower entrance requirements but thats where the different ends. Many DOs do 5 years of medical school (intern year included as osteopathy) and take a heavier courseload than traditional allopathic programs. They qualify for the same residency programs that MDs fill. Licensing requirements are the same, etc."...

"Within any group there are outliers and there are almost certainly some DOs who performed extraordinarily well and still went DO. But the reality is that the vast majority of them would not have been accepted to become MDs. On the other hand, almost all of these people go into primary care, where they are (in turn) almost certainly far more academically qualified than the NPs who are allowed to essentially practice solo now. So it's really not much of an issue."...

"High GPAs and MCAT scores do not a good physician make."...

"DO schools are accredited by the AACOM. MD schools are accredited by the LCME. Those organizations have exactly NOTHING in common and they dont share any regulations whatsoever."...

"Your smarmy comment about pedophile priests is a miserable slur against those who are catholics who never would have accepted abuse as the cost of doing business; you seem to imply that they did. If you do think that, you are a self-deluded keyboard coward."

Whoops...what can you say? It's the Internet. But what about psychiatry and osteopathy? Are they the Reese's of the medical world? I hope not; I hate Reese's. Back to topic:

PRIMA FACIE PSYCHIATRY and osteopathy do not appear to share much common ground; however, in at least one important respect they pursue similar goals. By seeking to consolidate their independent identities, each is challenging the dominance of the medical model. This involves justifying what they do and why they should exist as independent professions. With osteopathy the situations are different in the United Kingdom and the United States, but in both countries the same challenge exists (Howell 1999; Tyreman 1998). Broadly, it boils down to how osteopathy is positioned in relation to conventional (orthodox or allopathic) medicine and, particularly, to how its practice and theory is validated by scientific methodology.

charlessophy

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