The osteopathy name-collision trap — US DO is a physician, UK osteopath is not

The abbreviation/word maps to two incompatible professions, and getting it wrong is the highest-risk error in the domain. USA: a US DO (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine) is a full physician — per Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, training/licensure/practice “virtually indistinguishable” from an MD: four years of osteopathic medical school (with extra hours in osteopathic manipulative medicine) then residency, board certification, and full prescribing and surgical rights. A US DO is not the UK “osteopath”. Australia: osteopaths are registered non-physician allied-health primary-care practitioners under the Osteopathy Board of Australia / AHPRA — no prescribing or surgery. New Zealand: statutorily regulated by the Osteopathic Council of New Zealand (OCNZ), also non-physician. Canada: inconsistent — title protection and the manual-osteopathy vs osteopathic-physician distinction vary by province, with no single national equivalent to the GOsC (treat as mixed / verify-per-province 🔶). The cross-walk that must never be auto-mapped is US DO → UK osteopath: same word, different profession, different regulator. A US DO seeking UK osteopathy registration uses the GOsC Registration Assessment like any other overseas applicant; a US DO seeking to practise medicine in the UK pursues GMC (medical) registration — a different regulator entirely.