By the 1950s,
osteopathic physicians (D.O.) were numerous in California compared to their
Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) counterparts, since the medical school at
University of California, Irvine was an osteopathic medical school. Nevertheless, osteopathic physicians began to feel victimized by the national image of osteopathic medicine, particularly by those MDs who viewed colleges of osteopathic medicine as teaching "cultist healing." Leaders of the California Medical Association (CMA) and the California Osteopathic Association (COA) met secretly behind closed doors in the late 1950s to discuss a potential merger between the two medical groups. By May 1961, a contract between CMA and COA was ready to be voted on by their respective House of Delegates. As part of the merger, which was approved in 1962, all graduates from the College of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons (COP&S) as well as DOs who held a valid license in the state would be awarded a Doctor of Medicine degree. Further, those DOs who accepted the MD degree could no longer identify themselves as osteopathic physicians. It also placed a ban on issuing physician licenses to DOs moving to California from other states. However, the decision proved to be controversial. In 1974, after protest and lobbying by influential and prominent DOs, the
California Supreme Court ruled in
Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons of California v. California Medical Association, that licensing of DOs in that state must be resumed. Today, the Medical Board of California, which licenses M.D.s and International Medical School Graduates (M.B.B.S. / M.D.), and the Osteopathic Medical Board of California, which licenses D.O.s whose degree was obtained from an
American Osteopathic Association (AOA) approved Medical School, operate as separate Medical Licensing Institutions. ==References==