How does Podiatry school compare to MD/OD?

How does the curriculum of a Podiatry school compare to that of an MD/OD program?

How does the degree of difficulty compare?

businessguy said:

How does the curriculum of a Podiatry school compare to that of an MD/OD program?

How does the degree of difficulty compare?

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I believe you are referring to the DO degree, optometry confers the OD degree.

I attended SCPM a couple of years back and I can say that the basic science curriculum is pretty much the same. I'm sure there are some differences within the classes themselves. First year classes were definitely the same but second year classes are a little different. Pathology at Touro is, in my opinion, more comprehensive and the testing style completely different from that at Scholl. Pharm seems to be the same, but I don't remember taking a systems based internal medicine class at Scholl, they had a med core intensive class I think that Dr. Hrywnak taught. Psychiatry, I don't remember taking either but that might've been a PM3 class.

For the most part, the basic science curriculum is the same and then add on the pod clinical science courses like fund. of podiatric medicine, LEA, biomechanics, etc.

At DMU, there is no deviation the first 1 1/2 years. Podiatry students are in the same classes with DO students, taking the same tests, etc. We take all of the same basic science classes, as well as systems classes (it's regular medical school). After that, the focus turns more to the lower limb in order to finish preparing for part 1 of the board exam. It's a tough curriculum but it prepares you well.

businessguy said:

How does the curriculum of a Podiatry school compare to that of an MD/OD program?

How does the degree of difficulty compare?

Click to expand...

I think that most of the Podiatry school's basic science curriculum is pretty comparable to the MD/DO basic science curriculum.

At Temple, the curriculum is pretty close to the allopathic (MD) curriculum. Most of the basic science courses are taught by the allopathic medical school professors and are structured the same way as those courses. In fact, many of the students when I was a student at TUSPM, used old exams from the medical school to prepare for the exams of the basic science courses given by the Temple medical school faculty. The difficulty of the courses are pretty comparable to the Temple medical school because basically the professor write the same exam questions for both the podiatry and medical students. In the Physical Diagnosis course, it is pretty much the same as the medical school course, where students have to do their practical exam on simulated live patients and go up to the Temple University Hospital and do certain amount of H&Ps in the second year. The only difference in the Physical Diagnosis course is that there is an extra section added on for the Podiatric physical examination. Instead of taking MD courses such as Human Development over the Life Span (this is not embryology) and Introduction to Psychiatry (I did take this Psych course when I was a TUSPM student but it has been eliminated from current student's curriculum), we take the Podiatric courses, such as lower extremity anatomy, biomechanics, various podiatric surgery, podiatric medicine, and podiatric orthopedic courses. Along with a solid foundation in Podiatric medicine and orthopedics (biomechanics), TUSPM curriculum is pretty heavily slanted towards Podiatric surgery. Lastly, TUSPM is now working on bringing the third and fourth year clinical rotations (non Podiatric) to be on the same level as the MD students. For rotations, such as Internal Medicine, TUSPM students will have to take a shelf exams, which MD students take at the end of their rotation to assess the student's knowledge of the rotation's subject matter.