Podiatry 2015 Initiative

I heard there is an initiative to consider DPMs as full physicians like MDs and DOs by 2015, is this true? What impact will it have on the profession if this comes true?

EuroPhysician said:

I heard there is an initiative to consider DPMs as full physicians like MDs and DOs by 2015, is this true? What impact will it have on the profession if this comes true?

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This is an article on 2015, and you can read the whole thread also:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showpost.php?p=5500158&postcount=12

As far as being "full physicians," it's really just politics to me as a student. For veteran DPMs, it's really just a matter of lobbying in DC and getting respect that has been earned for years of helping people alleviate F&A ailments. Podiatry has changed a lot and constantly improves, so some of the politics are just to "make it official" and continue smoothing the road to success in a sense. Also, being recognized as having parity would assist in getting the DPM scope of practice more uniform across the country; having DPMs doing total ankles and IM rods in some states while they can't fix a fairly basic ankle fracture in other states is not ideal.

The only people I consider as full physicians are maybe IM and FP docs in rural areas or 3rd world countries who do almost everything out of necessity. Hoever, in any decent sized city or even outskirts of one, those primary care docs' job is to know a little about a LOT of diagnoses and treat the less complicated while consulting or referring the complex cases accordingly. Nobody's a true "full physician" unless they can do everything from rhinoplasty to diagnosing polyarteritis nodosa on a microscope to correctly identifying a grade 1 murmur on stethoscope to delivering triplets with a c-section in a septic mother, are they? Are you gonna go have an ortho surgeon administer your chemotherapy for your wife's brain tumor? Why don't you go have a pathologist read a 12 lead EKG for your dad's acute heart attack while you're at it?

Catch my drift? Everyone's a specialist nowadays. Even many IM guys do GI, cardiology, rheumatoid, infectious dz, etc fellowships and g-surgeons branch out. Just look at how long residencies are today and the fact that so many people who finish them still do a fellowship... the medical knowledge base is HUGE. By the time you're done with specialty training, only a bare minimum of general knowldege is still remembered. As has been a classic example around here, why do you think ortho surgeons co-admit with medicine? They have forgotten most of their medicine or at least are enough of a team player to know that IM guys get many more reps on H&Ps and are probably much sharper on current medical management concepts than they are (just like the surgeon keeps up on "his area" to read and learn about new surgical hardware, procedures, treatment guidelines, etc).

If you are good at what you do - pod or any other specialty, then you will get respect, referrals, health insurance contracts, hospital privelages, etc just like any other doc. That's the bottom line.

As far as pod 2015 and "if this comes true," I don't really know, maybe future grads will have things a bit easier, be even more integrated into mainstream medicine, and get paid more for their services. I don't really see a point to unlimited scope, and I think it's more just about respect, recognition, and payment for services rendered. I'd also imagine that all existing DPMs (or at least ones who did general medical rotations in residency) will be grandfathered into the same status improvements. Who knows... I'm fine with pod as-is. It's great that its quality and ease as a practicing specialty might - and almost certainly will - improve in my career, but it's also very good right now if you work hard and go get the good training that is there in F&A.

I agree with Feli. One of the main issues is that there are some states that do not define pods as physicians and therefore, they are not covered under medicaid. A federal bill is currently in the works that would define pods as physicians and would therefore blanket any states where that already wasn't the case. But hopefully, that will be resolved before 2015!

The rest of 2015 has to do with parity. Also, there are still some hospitals where pods are not considered members of medical staff (although I would think it odd to grant a doctor privileges at a hospital and not consider him/her a member of medical staff) and vision 2015 may help with that. Concerning the "unlimited scope", I would hope by that, they mean uniform scope of practice nationally. I don't think you'll see any DPM's doing an OB/GYN residency anytime soon!

jonwill said:

I agree with Feli. One of the main issues is that there are some states that do not define pods as physicians and therefore, they are not covered under medicaid. A federal bill is currently in the works that would define pods as physicians and would therefore blanket any states where that already wasn't the case. But hopefully, that will be resolved before 2015!

The rest of 2015 has to do with parity. Also, there are still some hospitals where pods are not considered members of medical staff (although I would think it odd to grant a doctor privileges at a hospital and not consider him/her a member of medical staff) and vision 2015 may help with that. Concerning the "unlimited scope", I would hope by that, they mean uniform scope of practice nationally. I don't think you'll see any DPM's doing an OB/GYN residency anytime soon!

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I agree with Feli and Jonwill.

In addition I think that the 3 Physician degrees should be MD, DO, DPM but DPM should have to remain in podiatry. They should not be allowed to do other residencies except PM&S (36) and foot and ankle fellowships for MDs or DPMs. Unless of course they go to medical school again or convince some medical school to do only the last 2 years over again.


Thoughts?

I personally think that DPMs should stay in their realm of profession. It should be separated from the realm of the MD and DO. Podiatry is podiatry, dentistry is dentistry, optometry is optometry. And then there is the MD and the DO. This talk of DPMs getting into residencies other than their PMS standard is ridiculous. You treat the foot and ankle, anything else belongs to the realm of the medical physician (MD and DO).

That is my own view.

AlleghenyPOD said:

I personally think that DPMs should stay in their realm of profession. It should be separated from the realm of the MD and DO. Podiatry is podiatry, dentistry is dentistry, optometry is optometry. And then there is the MD and the DO. This talk of DPMs getting into residencies other than their PMS standard is ridiculous. You treat the foot and ankle, anything else belongs to the realm of the medical physician (MD and DO).

That is my own view.

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I think you are missing the point. The point is not what we treat but what we learn.

No one said we should be able to enter into MD or DO residencies.

krabmas said:

I think you are missing the point. The point is not what we treat but what we learn.

No one said we should be able to enter into MD or DO residencies.

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👍👍👍 2015 strives for parity, not DPMs to get MD/DO residencies.

PODonny said:

👍👍👍 2015 strives for parity, not DPMs to get MD/DO residencies.

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But it does address the fact that some DPMs in our profession would like to see the DPM degree change to an MD/DO which is not cool in my opinion.

I just got back from our dinner w/ the APMA guys for our annual visit, heard some very interesting stuff (most of which I'm not sure I can repeat yet), but I'll try and keep up with the latest.

But to get to the point, it's not an issue of being "full physicians" as Feli said. It's a question of reimbursement and scope of practice, which is less than what an MD/DO has to deal with.

The current discourse says otherwise.
Please check the thread in the Allopathic forum:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=466274

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Originally posted in the allopathic forum:

In the October 2007 Journal Oklahoma State Medical Association, President's Page, W.H. Oehlert, MD,MMM, writes that in May, US Rep. John Sullivan (R, OK) and Jim McDermott (D, WA) introduced a new bill - Health Care Truth and Transparency Act of 2007, which would require that health care profesionals clearly state their professional credentials in advertisements.

In Oklahoma statute, 9 classes of persons may use the word "Doctor" or an abbreviation thereof:

1. DPM (podiatry)
2. DC (chiropractic)
3. DDS or DMD (dentistry)
4. MD (medicine/surgery)
5. OD (optometry)
6. DO (medicine/surgery)
7. Phd, EdD, PsyD (health service psychologist)
8. PhD, EdD (speech/language pathologist)
9. PdD, EdD (audiologist)

It used to be that Classes 1 - 7 could use the term "Physician", but the statute has been amended to limit that to Classes 3, 4, and 6 (DDS/DMD, MD, and DO).

He ends with this, "There are 9 classes of "Doctors", and 3 classes of "Physicians", but only 2 classes who "practice medicine", MDs and DOs."

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Remark: I'm uncertain about this 2015 Initiative. Discourse says otherwise..

Dentists can call themselves physicians??? Looks like the dems and repubs are making good sense these days 😱

Apparently so...

yeah that's weird