DO school offering an MD degree?

KevinMd (also caught in ice storm central) pointed out an article describing some plans by a Texas Osteopathic school. READ HERE
Apparently, the school feels it will improve its financial situation by also offering an MD degree...
and of coarse, Kevin (like many others will)points out that this additional degree may be in effort to become a more "traditional" medical school. Cause we D.O.s all want to be M.D.s yo!

My comment on this news (copied, too busy and lazy to write something formal) are incldued below:

"there is definitely no shortage of students applying to medical school period. DO or MD. My DO school gets about 4000 applications for 120 spots. I think they accept about 450?

I really can't speculate why this texas school is doing this. I think there are some who feel D.O.s and M.D.s have become so similar in practice that there is little difference in schooling these medical students aside from the additional manipulation and biomechanic education the D.O.s get.

While I agree that we end up doing very similar jobs, I personally really do enjoy my D.O. education and feel I am getting some extra helpful hands on techniques. I think the healthcare system often dictates whether we have the time to actually use them...

I also pay the price for these extra skills with higher tuition (private), a longer school year, frequent questions of "are you really a doctor",having to take two sets of boards (COMLEX and USMLE), and some discrimination from dinosaur M.D.s that still don't get it.

I think a school offering both degrees might be a good way to go. They could do all the core science and didactics for the D.O.s and M.D.s in the same classrooms and then add on a component for the D.O.s covering osteopathic philosophy and manipulation."