(1) Um no. You are missing the point. In medicine you become a doctor and then choose to specialize. But you are still a doctor, can still treat the whole human being. For instance your orthopedist is a doctor. He might specialize in "foot and ankle" by doing an additional Fellowship after his 5-6 years of residency. He may in so doing sometimes compete with podiatrists for surgical patients. But he is far better trained, and would be allowed to manage a patients other problems (diabetes, hypertension, etc) while under his care. And if he gets tired of feet he can do another fellowship and move to hands or other joints. The podiatrist really has a line he can't cross at the ankle. So it's a very limited role. Sort of like a dentist, who doesn't get to work on anything outside of the mouth. A hand specialist is an orthopedist with additional training in hands. This is something he does after residency, so he's a very extensively trained physician and surgeon as his baseline. Podiatrists are foot doctors, without additional scope or training. They serve an important role because frankly most doctors aren't that interested in feet, and more than happy to share the wealth in terms of corns and nail bed fungus. Where the turf wars happen is surgery, and the number of orthopods who do foot and ankle isn't that huge (nor is the percentage of pods who spend most of their time in the OR). In terms if training, your orthopod has a lot more, and can address ailments above the ankle too, so if someone asks you who to see, I think that's the right approach. I'm not trying to attack podiatry and it's annoying and trollish that you are trying to steer this conversation down this road. But no, your cousin didn't go to med school and isn't a medical doctor. He's/she's a podiatrist and carries the limits in scope and training that degree carries. They aren't orthopedists who specialize in the feet. They have the feet part but not the orthopedic residency part. (sort of like your dentist isn't a maxilofacial surgeon who chose to focus on teeth). To specialize you need to have started general. They didn't. The orthopedist who does a Foot and ankle fellowship has specialized from the more general orthopedic training. He can always go back and practice under that umbrella, and do more. The podiatrist started and ended at feet -- no specialization just very limited scope.
(2) you throw in the towel, as mentioned above, when you have made multiple efforts to improve things and it's just not going to happen. No shme in that - you gave it your shot. Not everyone can or should become a doctor. Or if you decide you'd be just as happy in podiatry or other health related fields that allow you to do some of the things you want out of a Career. If you just want to wear a white coat and see patients there are several options. If you just want to call yourself "doctor" there are several options. if you want to do surgery in some respects, and dont really care what body part, something like podiatry might work for you. But let's not delude ourself that it's all the same role or career. It isn't. I'm sure some people love these paths and others consider them close enough to being a medical doctor. If you get all you want out of it in terms of practice and prestige, more power to you. But this isn't playing horseshoes -- close enough isn't really the same as hitting your target.
(3) you actually did say "they learn almost the exact same thing". Which is false. They get some overlap with early med school. So do dentists, PAs. Probably nurses too. Some overlap is a far cry from "almost exactly the same thing" or "minus a few classes". You are just wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Stop it already. Your cousin didn't go to med school and no she didn't do the med school equivalent. She went into another totally independent healthcare field that has their own schooling, training and scope. That's great. But saying your cousin prescribes meds or does bunionectomies in the OR really doesn't mean her level of training is on par with the guy who did an orthopedic residency and then a hand fellowship.
Your posts are either really trollish or really naive. I'm thinking the former, in which case impressive that you flew under the radar for so many posts before lowering the boom. if it's the latter, you need to do quite a lot more research into what doctors do and their schooling, training and scope, because medical doctors aren't podiatrist with a couple of extra classes under our belts.
