think again

Amanda (and anyone else considering a lucrative??? career as a chiropodist) take a few hours and read all the posts on this Forum. This will provide you with a good understanding of what chiropody is about.

The folks at The Michener Institute for Applied Health Sciences will provide you with a much different spin for the chiropody situation in Ontario. Ask them one question, "Since 1983, how many students graduated from the chiropody program and how many are registered with the College of Chiropodists of Ontario (cocoo)?" The actual answer is 1/5th to 1/3rd are not registered with cocoo. The reason for this is there is no actual protection of the chiropodist's scope of practise. Right now you can call yourself "foot specialist" and do everything that a chiropodist can do except: perform limited soft tissue & nail surgery, sign insurance forms for orthotics and write prescriptions for orthotics, orthopaedic shoes & certain topical medications (these controlled acts constitute less than 1 % of my practise). Remember the folks are more interested in keeping their jobs than helping you. Here's what one former instructor wrote, " I was an instructor of the chiropody program, 92-97, i know the stories of many grads, must say i was greatly saddened when i saw that last year alone approx 10 chiropodists, all former students of mine left the profession. i have been in practice (part time and full time) for 10 years and there are times when it is difficult but i try to keep my costs down and keep pluging away." He can now tell the truth and yet if you spoke to him 10 years ago he would have been promoting the chiropody program as one of the best in the world. Well there really was only one at the time, so he wasn't lying.


I can add that we were told that the public attitude is changing and they are starting to understand that chiropody has to be paid for by the patient and not by OHIP. Well, being in the profession for over 10 years I see no change, people are still indignant when I tell them that the chiropody treatment fee is $30 and I get an earful of vitriol and get accused of "Americanizing" the health care system. Here are some examples of how willing the public is willing to pay for chiropody: 20+ years of free chiropody has provided little/no goodwill. Chiropodists learned this reality at 3 hospitals, located in Toronto, Hamilton and Ottawa. Each chiropody clinic was told by the hospital adminstration that they were too expensive to maintain so the chiropody clinic would have to charge a fee for chiropody treatment. Each chiropody clinic has had to let a chiropodist go because of a sudden lack of business; but, before the fee introduction, there were waiting lists of 6+ months. The patients which were very happy receiving (and demanding) free chiropody treatment on a monthly basis found that they could wait 3-6 months between their fee for chiropody treatments. Other patients simply found a subsitute lower fee provider eg, a nurse foot specialist doing housecalls or the pedicurist at the local beauty salon, etc. I found out that at one seniors' building there was a lady going door to door and charging $10/treatment. (In fact you can do this yourself right now... go to a local seniors' building, introduce yourself as a "foot specialist with over a decade of experience," put this in a sign (don't use: chiropodist/podiatrist/ chiropody/podiatry/chiropodic/podiatric) include "$10 fee" and you'll get business -I guarantee it.) I also heard that there are 5 ladies which call themselves "European chiropodists" in the St.Clair/Dufferin area. They do house call pedicure treatments for $25 -it's by word of mouth advertising. How do chiropodists compete against this? Moreover, I or cocoo can't stop them because there are no written advertisements.

Given that the there is no real control of competition for basic foot care and the fact that foot surgery is covered by OHIP when an orthopedic surgeon/plastic surgeon or a GP performs nail/soft tissue surgery and also the fact that most DCs and PTs are providing orthotics, how much income do you think you can make? I know of a number of chiropodists making less than $30,000 p.a. after overhead, after being in business for more than 8 years and today practise is growing at 1-2%/year. All they need is for an agressive, well funded, new graduate chiropodist to open up across the street from their practise, undercut their fees and then their business will go downhill.

As for the future of chiropody, well don't count on it. Right now, there's a Memorandum of Understanding that was unanimously approved by cocoo at the January 30, 2004 cocoo meeting. Read it for yourself, visit the cocoo site see, About the College|Bulletin Newsletters|Spring 2004 V17 #1. Take a look at page 2, read #5. The OSC and the OPMA and cocoo have publically declared that they will try to "establish, in conjunction with a degree granting instution a university-level institution in Ontario, a program in podiatric medicine." BTW do you really want to graduate from a chiropody program that was never accredited? That's right!! Never accredited!! Even 20 years ago when chiropody was in vogue and being taught in other countries, the Michener Institute didn't get the chiropody program accredited. The excuse was that accreditation was expensive, and time consuming so rather than waste time and money on accreditation, the time and money was put into the chiropody program to provide a superior chiropody program. The real reason was probably that graduates of an accredited chiropody program would be able to easily re-locate to other countries with accredited programs. Whereas, graduates of a made in Ontario chiropody program could only practise in Ontario and a few other provinces in Canada. Sweet, eh?

As for other options ... I can tell you that RNs and teachers went into chiropody hoping for a better career, left chiropody and went back to their old careers. So consider pharmacy, chiropractic, physiotherapy, nursing or teaching. Today nursing is especially promising. After your nursing degree upgrade to nurse practioner. You'll be able to do much more for your patients with foot problems including making a diagnosis and communicating it to a patient (chiropodists can't); performing a swab for culture and sensitivity and then sending it to a microbiology lab (chiropodists can't); ordering x-rays &/ ultrasound &/ CT scans (chiropodists can't); referring a patient to phyisotherapy (chiropodists can't); referring a patient to specialists, such as, dermatologists, orthopedic surgeons and vascular surgeons, etc (chiropodists can't); ordering blood tests and other investigative procedures (chiropodists can't). And finally, you will be able to re-locate and practise as a Nurse Practioner anywhere in Canada or the USA or European Union, NZ or Australia (I should add chiropodists can't re-locate and practise as chiropodists in Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta, BC, the USA, European Union, Australia or NZ).

After reading such a post, do you really want to pursue a career as a chiropodist????? If you think I'm too pessimistic... well try chiropody and post your comments as a student and then as a chiropodist on this Forum. If my comments sound truthful, then pursue another profession.

Also you might want to visit the U.S. Podiatry Forum. Then try to find the negative Forums for MDs, DDSs, DCs, PTs, OTs, etc. and compare them to the podiatry forums.

P.S. Email me and I will send you a scan of my tax return indicating how well I did in the GTA last year, after being in private practise in the same area for more than 10 years.