A little something to settle the fire.

I hear a lot of whinning from some of the "older" generations about podiatry. Many concerns are presented and most of them are legitimate. However, what most of you seem to lack is the ability to keep up on the changes. Many of the concerns have been addressed and things have changed in the field of podiatric medicine. Unfortunately, these changes will not help out those who recieved less than adequate training in the past. That's the nature of the beast. But as far as prospective podiatric physicians are concerned, things are looking brighter and brighter. I pulled this information from a post I found on SDN. It gives a good representation of what is going on today.

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As there seems to be a lot of confusion about a podiatric physician's current education, I have asked that this thread be posted at the top of our forum. I am hoping that this post will save us the trouble of endlessly explaining our education, as well as educate those that are unaware of our training. Thanks to ItsGavinC!

A Podiatric Physician's education consists of:
-4 years college (med school pre-reqs)
-4 years podiatric medical school
-3 years podiatric surgical residency

The most erroneous statement made is that podiatrists only know/need to know about the foot and ankle. While this is our specialty, we are also taught a great deal about general medicine. This is because we must medically manage our ER patients/surgical patients/inpatients. When called into the ER or managing our inpatients, we must have the ability to order a plethra of tests, read those tests, consult if necessary, and treat the patient accordingly.

So where do we get this medical education? Besides our first two years consisting of basic science and systems (as an MD/DO curriculum, some podiatry programs being fully integrated with MD/DO programs), and various general medical rotations 3-4 year (depending on the program), our residency allows us to rotate through many different medical specialties (ER, general surgery, path, IM, etc). And along with medically managing our own patients during residency, we are well educated by the time we finish residency.

Podiatric medicine is an extremely challenging and rewarding area of medicine. As stated before, make SURE this is what you want to do because, unlike MD/DO, you can't just change your mind on specialties!

Below is an example of a podiatric medical school curriculum (which vary slightly from school to school) and an example of a 3-year surgical residency (PM&S-36).

Podiatric Medical School Curriculum

-First-Year Academic Program

Introduction to Podiatric Medicine
Basic Life Support
Biochemistry
Honors Problem-Based Learning Biochemistry (elective)
Anatomy
Histology
Immunology
Physiology
Microbiology
Honors Problem-Based Learning Microbiology (elective)
Physical Diagnosis
Pathology
Neuroanatomy
Pharmacology I

-Second-Year Academic Program

Pharmacology
Endocrinology
Cardiovascular/Respiratory
Hematology
Lower Extremity Biomechanics
Neurology
Gastrointestinal/Nutrition
Renal
Lower Limb Anatomy
Behavioral Medicine
Clinical Podiatric Medicine & Diagnostics (includes Radiology)
Clinical Podiatric Biomechanics & Surgery
Medical Research and Writing
During the summer at the end of the second year, you are introduced to the University ambulatory care clinics, where you begin acquiring clinical skills.

-Third-Year Academic Program

Basic Life Support Re-certification
Operating Room Protocol
Dermatology
Trauma/Emergency Medicine
Public Health Issues
Advanced Cardiac Life Support
Clinical Rotations
Principles & Practices of Evidence-Based Podiatric Medicine (Problem-Based Learning)

-Fourth-Year Academic Program

Senior Independent Readings
Clinical Rotations (at various residency programs throught the country)

PM&S-36 Residency Curriculum (varies between programs)

-PGY 1

Podiatric Medicine and Surgery* - 2 month
Medical Imaging - 1 month
Pathology - 1 month
Medicine - 1 month
Emergency Medicine - 1 month
Infectious Diseases - 1 month
Anesthesia - 1 month
General Surgery - 1 month
Orthopaedic Surgery - 1 month
Psychiatry - 2 weeks
Electives (3)** - 1 month each

*Concurrent with other rotations
**Vascular surgery, family medicine, neurology, rheumatology, rehabilitative medicine, geriatrics, other rotations available

-PGY 2&3

Podiatric Surgery - 3 months
Orthopaedic Surgery - 3 months
Orthopaedic Trauma - 3 months
Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle - 3 months
Sports Medicine - 3 months
Pediatric Orthopaedics- 3 months

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As you can see, pods today are trained in all areas of medicine and graduate with extensive knowledge in critical fields such as internal medicine. By the time they graduate, they will have admitted hundreds of inpatients, know how to perform an extensive history and physical, and will be competent in advanced cardiac life support. As of right now, there are more residencies than students so everyone will get trained. Residencies are all standardized so there is no more disparity in training. Where I live, podiatric physicians just received admitting privileges as well as physician status at the last remaining few hospitals in the state that have not previously already given this to pods. I know this is bad news for you older fellas that backed out a long time ago. You should have stuck with it. One podiatric doctor in my city is currently the Chief Medical Officer of a major hospital. He still performs a lot of trauma surgery and is respected by all the physicians. He graduated some 20 - 30 years ago. Maybe he got lucky, or maybe its all about conviction and desire. In any event, I hope that this post at least educated some of you about the great changes that are taking place in this profession.