Actual Podiatry Job Postings

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What if - hear me out now - every program that has a fellowship shut it down and just let the residents they already have do those cases. And then people instead of doing fellowship just go get a job.
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Adam Smasher said:
Also noteworthy, fellowship training is increasingly a requirement to be considered for surgical positions. In other words, it's the same 2-tier training as there was 20 years ago with PMS24 and PMS36 programs, now with an extra year added in! Podiatry ever forward!
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This is the same reason that largely unskilled jobs now require college degrees when they are not needed. Saturation, excess applicants, and a weeding-out mechanism. The only problem is it totally devalues the college degree, or in this instance, being a DPM.
 
heybrother said:
What if - hear me out now - every program that has a fellowship shut it down and just let the residents they already have do those cases. And then people instead of doing fellowship just go get a job.
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But then how do the gunners keep gunning?
 
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malleolusman said:
Love how this is never addressed in depth from Dr Rogers or any of his buddies who helped create this mess.
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I helped create this mess? PSRs were already history when I trained. And I was in practice for only 4 years when the profession moved to a single residency model, the PMSR.

I constantly speak out against tiered scope since the tiered residency is dead. And there shouldn’t be tiered certification for a PMSR either. There should be a single certification and a single tier for the single residency program, just like ACGME and ABMS.

If someone wants to do a fellowship afterward, that’s a personal decision. And there should be a certificate that follows that fellowship, otherwise it won’t be reimbursed 100% by the GME program of CMS.
 
again and this has been commented on - shouldn’t call it a fellowship - period. . . if the training in residency was adequate to begin with. goes back to core issue of saturation.
they shouldn’t exist - they exist only because training is poor and job market is poor…. markedly poor for a graduate level doctoral degree

and by your buddies I mean Dr Lavery & Dr La Fontaine and the others, dean of Lecom, all of these people are participants and actors in the tragedy that awaits most future grads, affecting current practitioners and a pay scale and market identical to pharmacists… unviable.

cant fix the hot dog bun until you find what size wiener you’ll be putting in it

damn, that was a good southern euphemism I just made up
 
malleolusman said:
and by your buddies I mean Dr Lavery & Dr La Fontaine and the others, dean of Lecom, all of these people are participants and actors in the tragedy that awaits most future grads, affecting current practitioners and a pay scale and market identical to pharmacists… unviable.
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You’re entitled to your opinion. You’re just misinformed and villainizing the wrong people. They don’t have anything to do with the oversight of fellowships.

Fellowships in podiatry have been around for decades. 2023 is the 30th anniversary of the UT fellowship. They’re not going away because they’re desirable, even if you find them undesirable for you. They need to be more standardized. That’s what I wrote in my letter to CPME. Attached.

View attachment ABPM Comments on DRAFT 820-830- Lee.pdf
 
diabeticfootdr said:
You’re entitled to your opinion. You’re just misinformed and villainizing the wrong people. They don’t have anything to do with the oversight of fellowships.

Fellowships in podiatry have been around for decades. 2023 is the 30th anniversary of the UT fellowship. They’re not going away because they’re desirable, even if you find them undesirable for you. They need to be more standardized. That’s what I wrote in my letter to CPME. Attached.

View attachment 369201
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Again, talking about fellowships indirectly, more directly about saturation. Talking about saturation. And yea, your buddies are contributing to that.

Since you are so eager to answer questions and participate - do you think this profession is saturated?

If not, why not? What explains the lack of decent opportunities for a 7 (+1 for some) year career track?
 
The funniest part of podiatry training is that most fellowship directors didn't do a fellowship. Most 3yr residency attendings didn't do 3yrs residency. So, how did they get their skills? How did they get so good? Natural talent, interest, motivation, and experience. A fellowship year won't give anyone that (or any additional specialty/cert... still a DPM, still a specialist F&A doc, same scope, same boards/societies).

When you think it through, pretty much all of the 'reason to do fellowship' arguments are BS:
"You get more surgery cases."
...so does a good residency.
"You get to work with top attendings"
...so does a good residency.
"You get to teach"
...what do you think senior/chief residents do? Even pgy1s teach students at good programs with clerks.
"You get to do research"
...again, do a good residency.
"You get different attendings and styles than residency"
...so do 8 fellowships??? You've already seen and read dozens of techniques if you paid attention.
"You will get better jobs"
...nope, you'll be more in debt and will still face the same job market all DPMs face. You will need to sell yourself regardless.

I know it's not fun to talk about, but... (drumroll) ...most PPs are less likely to hire a fellowship grad as opposed to just a good 3yr residency applicant. And no, most doing fellowship weren't aiming for PP, but that's statistically where they'll be most likely to end up nonetheless. It's not the a fellowship DPM is any worse than a regular grad, but it can be assumed they'll want more salary or % when they can't generate any more income. It's also fair to assume their residency had some deficiency or they didn't have the confidence to go into practice upon 3yrs graduation if they did fellowship track. It's the potential of hiring a diva that will make many think twice. Last, it is not unreasonable to think a fellowship DPM will have one foot out the door of PP almost immediately and be more interested in 'big cases' or letters after their name than just basic generating collections, improving the business, networking in the medical community, etc. Let's face it, big frames or RRA aren't as profitable to most PPs as bread-n-butter (rare exception of places where the PP gets fair/well-insured trauma pts).
[and yes, there's the rare exception of the good residency DPM who does top fellowship Cottom/Hyer/CORE/etc out of interest or wanting even more skills... but that's 0.X% annually... and some of them still do PP jobs afterwards]

heybrother said:
What if - hear me out now - every program that has a fellowship shut it down and just let the residents they already have do those cases. And then people instead of doing fellowship just go get a job.
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Yes, exactly ^^^
Overall, podiatry significantly lacks volume and diversity of surgical cases for residency training (hence most fellowships).
Getting some of the best attendings' cases back to resident training level would go a looong way to improving that.
It would improve competency and board pass rates... probably compensation.
The other thing would be just shutting down or consolidating or reducing spots at the laggard programs to improve resident case volume, but we all know that won't happen with more schools/grads upcoming and so many DPMs having their paycheck depend on students/residents/associate supply. 😝
 
diabeticfootdr said:
No.

Unless you’re an economist with more information than the US government (which projects a 2% growth), then I don’t believe your opinion.
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Ladies and gentlemen, 2 percent growth.

See what that translates to in terms of job openings across a 10 year period. It came up when I went verify this stat. I won’t post it here since I hope those reading will go ahead and use the google search function. Remember to compare that number with the number of grads schools are pumping out YEARLY.
 
Just when you think someone's figuring things out. Oh well.

Until the last toenail is dremeled, the last dermatophyte is lasered, and the last wound is bandaged, we'll never truly be saturated. For no task is too menial, no complaint too banal, no salary too low. Money matters not; keratin is our reward. Podiatry forward!
 
Adam Smasher said:
Just when you think someone's figuring things out. Oh well.

Until the last toenail is dremeled, the last dermatophyte is lasered, and the last wound is bandaged, we'll never truly be saturated. For no task is too menial, no complaint too banal, no salary too low. Money matters not; keratin is our reward. Podiatry forward!
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The most depressing thing is searching non-DPM websites for jobs (Indeed, LinkedIn, etc.). Outside of the rare ortho/MSG gig, it’s all mobile DPM garbage, WoundTech, NH, etc. Such a shame.

One of the recent, newer members put it well - we are sellers, not buyers.
 
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malleolusman said:
Ladies and gentlemen, 2 percent growth.

See what that translates to in terms of job openings across a 10 year period. It came up when I went verify this stat. I won’t post it here since I hope those reading will go ahead and use the google search function. Remember to compare that number with the number of grads schools are pumping out YEARLY.
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At least he answered the question. He is entitled to his own opinion of what saturation is.

Our job market falls well short of enough entry level jobs that pay us what is fair. Arguing this is not really up for debate.

Dr. Rogers has done a better job than most on giving advice on how to negotiate a contract and how to try to create your own job at a hospital.

Individually one can find a good first job, but most will not. Sure maybe 10 years out 6 or 7 out of 10 are making the average salary or above, many by starting their own office.

Podiatry has always been a profession of open your own office or create your own opportunity. Despite highly visible good jobs in hospitals, the job market has not changed as much as pre pods might expect.

I will not put words in his mouth, but Dr. Rogers has basically said what my definition of saturation is. My definition is when one can not get a job with reasonable effort that would be what one considers a fair ROI. If saturation does not include chiropody/nursing homes/home visits and opening your own office as mandatory and not optional for many, then saturation is perhaps up for debate.

1. Dr. Rogers has listed what he thinks a fair starting salary is.

I could dig up the numbers, but I think he listed 160K at a VA and about 180,000 with ability to bonus in private practice and above 200K at hospitals.

2. He admits many private practice offers are ridiculously low

“Listen, I believe everyone now about all the low ball offers.”

Those low ball offers only exists because many take them. They take them because of what I consider to be saturation.

3. Even the schools offered him, as a fellow no less, a low salary.

“They told us that the students loved working with us and we were providing a bunch of coverage in the clinic. They’re prepared to offer us $90,000.”

4. He admits the profession should do a better job preparing one for opening an office.

This is true, hopefully pre pods know this is a plan B many will have go forward with if they want a fair income. There is the potential to do very well, but there is no guarantee and a lot of risk, planning and difficulty with cash flow when one opens an office.

Podiatry is what is. It has been this way for a very long time as far as the job market. Comparatively, many other healthcare professions job markets have gone from good to great over the last decade.
 
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Not to beat a dead horse, but the 2% growth figure quoted in the BLS is projected to arise solely from the need to replace retiring doctors, not from growing demand. Which is another way of saying...

we're saturated!
 
Instead of opening more fellowships and gearing the profession towards that, shouldn't the CPME and ACFAS look into improving the current residencies. It's 3 years and we focus on surgery for 1 small anatomical part of the body. Shouldn't need an extra year to figure it out unless you are really trying to specialize. The current standards for residency and amount of cases needed by PRR are abysmal and should really be investigated.

I am in a town with 2 programs, both of whom send their residents to my elective cases. I begrudgingly accept because I know they need numbers but it is very frightening knowing these residents will be on their own attempting surgery in 1-3 years. For some reason the programs just keep getting accreditation every CPME visit.
 
First year pod student here totally new to SDN so sorry if I’m hijacking this thread a little. Disclaimer: I know I’m not gonna be making a million a year and I don’t care. I just want to live a comfortable humble life with my wife and (future) family.

Thankfully, we’re almost through the first year of school and I’m in the top 10% of my class. I bust my butt and it’s been paying off. But all this talk has me wondering- does any of this even matter??

What I mean is this- does going to a great residency and getting the best training matter as far as job offers go?
 
Toes R Us said:
What I mean is this- does going to a great residency and getting the best training matter as far as job offers go?
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The really lousy thing about this profession is that every step of the way is "no guarantees"

For example if you do poorly in school, you'll be sunk for your career, but if you do well, it's no guarantee you'll get along during clerkships

If you are lazy or not personable during clerkships, you'll get blackballed from good residencies, but if you do well it's no guarantee you'll match

If you match into a bad program, yeah you don't have much hope jobs wise, but if you match into a good program still no guarantee you'll get a good opportunity for employment/fellowship

If you don't get into a fellowship, yeah you'll be passed over for some of the elite surgical/organizational jobs but if you do get a fellowship there's no guarantee it will have been time well spent.

If you don't get a good job starting out, yeah that's the path you'll be along for the forseeable future, but if you do get a good job, no guarantee it will stay that way

Bottom line: yes, it matters to work hard to get the best education/training possible, at least for the purpose of giving yourself the best chance possible. But no guarantees!!!
 
I remember this one dpm lectured to us in school how he was a 'C' student and built a practice management empire and started some society about practice management. I was like how is that possible?! Clearly you need to be good at school to succeed in life.

After being in practice, smooth talking and developing relationships is PARAMOUNT. I have patients that would fall on a sword for a dpm they loved. I cant stress enough how if you are personable that can carry its weight in gold. Many in the top 10 in my class were just excellent people and even some in the bottom 10. Both ends of the spectrum have those that are doing very well in their careers and personal life. I am sure it has more to do with their interpersonal skills than remembering a fracture classification system.
 
Toes R Us said:
First year pod student here totally new to SDN so sorry if I’m hijacking this thread a little. Disclaimer: I know I’m not gonna be making a million a year and I don’t care. I just want to live a comfortable humble life with my wife and (future) family.

Thankfully, we’re almost through the first year of school and I’m in the top 10% of my class. I bust my butt and it’s been paying off. But all this talk has me wondering- does any of this even matter??

What I mean is this- does going to a great residency and getting the best training matter as far as job offers go?
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Yes doing well in school does matter, especially doing this well. The correlation is not as direct as medical school but it exists.

Personality and work ethic matter just as much, but you must often meet a certain cutoff for being considered for certain residencies. A few residencies have very high cutoffs.

You are also likely smart enough and put in enough effort to pass the required boards and surgical boards eventually also.

If matters leas if you open your office office.

The training you get matters regardless of where you end up.

This a competitive profession as far as good employed jobs. School is only one component, but you are where you need to be. Keep it up.
 
Toes R Us said:
First year pod student here totally new to SDN so sorry if I’m hijacking this thread a little. Disclaimer: I know I’m not gonna be making a million a year and I don’t care. I just want to live a comfortable humble life with my wife and (future) family.
....
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Forums are for ask/answer questions. Welcome.

If your wife doesn't make any appreciable money, it probably won't be as comfortable as you probably think. Be open to that.
The solo family breadwinner thing can be done on DPM income, but it's often dicey (esp if you can't get a job with decent health insurance).
If she is a nurse or an accountant or something, you're fine. If she's a semi-volunteer paraprofessional or a professional online and mall shopper, be careful.

You are doing the right things, though: keep options open, pass all boards, get top training.

Even if grades/residency aren't as correlated to income in DPM as they are in MD (I agree they're not), you still want the best skills and smarts you can get for the sake of your future patients. The skills will help with passing boards and most jobs at least considering you. There are definitely some podiatry residencies out there that are real stinkers; that's undoubtedly our biggest difference and failing when compared with MD post-grad training.
 
Toes R Us said:
Thankfully, we’re almost through the first year of school and I’m in the top 10% of my class. I bust my butt and it’s been paying off. going to a great residency and getting the best training matter as far as job offers go?
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None of what you mentioned translates to getting better job offers lol.

The fact of the matter that podiatry (and a lot of professions) is always going to be a business. If you are better at business you will do well.
 
Adam Smasher said:
The really lousy thing about this profession is that every step of the way is "no guarantees"

For example if you do poorly in school, you'll be sunk for your career, but if you do well, it's no guarantee you'll get along during clerkships

If you are lazy or not personable during clerkships, you'll get blackballed from good residencies, but if you do well it's no guarantee you'll match

If you match into a bad program, yeah you don't have much hope jobs wise, but if you match into a good program still no guarantee you'll get a good opportunity for employment/fellowship

If you don't get into a fellowship, yeah you'll be passed over for some of the elite surgical/organizational jobs but if you do get a fellowship there's no guarantee it will have been time well spent.

If you don't get a good job starting out, yeah that's the path you'll be along for the forseeable future, but if you do get a good job, no guarantee it will stay that way

Bottom line: yes, it matters to work hard to get the best education/training possible, at least for the purpose of giving yourself the best chance possible. But no guarantees!!!
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This should be read by every single pod student before signing up for 250-300K in loans.
 
LMAOOO there's no guarantee. That's why I'm gonna be Pronation's total nail replacement fellow :shy::shy:
Already got my belt clip for my wireless dremal and foot miracle cream on auto dispense.
 
malleolusman said:
This should be read by every single pod student before signing up for 250-300K in loans.
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It truly just comes down to if you make connections and get jobs that way. I know people who were complete asses but their uncle had a private practice and now they are running it making 450k a year.... really comes down to who you know and are you good at business. If youre a great doctor.... great, but that wont guarantee an income.

EDIT: by people, I mean one person
 
@Toes R Us come shadow me and I’ll gladly show you my first job paychecks. Heck I’ll even show you my school transcripts, my GPA, class rank, my residency logs. Then tell me if you can live humbly and comfortably with a family, student loans, maybe some prior debt, a possible mortgage and maybe set aside for retirement. Then I’ll go on google and show you job listings for the entire country relative to the current number of practicing pods. Then I’ll also show you some text threads with my buddies. Then if you have any more doubts, you can refer back to Dr. Rogers comment above or MalleolusMan’s meme.
 
wakaflocka88 said:
@Toes R Us come shadow me and I’ll gladly show you my first job paychecks. Then tell me if you can live humbly and comfortably with a family, student loans, maybe some prior debt, a possible mortgage and maybe set aside for retirement. Then I’ll go on google and show you job listings for the entire country relative to the current number of practicing pods. Then I’ll also show you some text threads with my buddies. Then if you have any more doubts, you can refer back to Dr. Rogers comment above or MalleolusMan’s meme.
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This is the truth. Some are greedy, but most went into this profession content to be comfortable and if they could eventual do well great.

We could all be comfortable if the average salary in the profession was equally distributed.....it is not. More haves and have nots than many other professions.

Also most are in private practice and benefits are not great.

Most start in private practice as an associate where many will not make a salary that will allow you to be comfortable if you want to live better than you did in residency.

Many do make it to the comfortable stage eventually or well beyond it. Many gave up a lot to get there and that is not even counting school and residency. Being extremely geographically open, a couple horrible jobs each requiring a move, risking everything and borrowing money to open an office with negative cash flow in the beginning etc.

How many other professions can you triple your salary and get better benefits going from a garbage associate job to a hospital job? There is no comfortable "basement" with podiatry to live in like many other professions.
 
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Toes R Us said:
First year pod student here totally new to SDN so sorry if I’m hijacking this thread a little. Disclaimer: I know I’m not gonna be making a million a year and I don’t care. I just want to live a comfortable humble life with my wife and (future) family.

Thankfully, we’re almost through the first year of school and I’m in the top 10% of my class. I bust my butt and it’s been paying off. But all this talk has me wondering- does any of this even matter??

What I mean is this- does going to a great residency and getting the best training matter as far as job offers go?
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I am very fortunate that I did not know about sdn as a first year pod student. My best advise is to stay off sdn. Delete your profile and focus on school. keep working hard and getting good grades. Come back to sdn when you are in residency.
diabeticfootdr said:
This place is a toxic echo chamber of professional self-loathing.
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100% agree. Log out of sdn as a pod student.
 
Not sure if it's been mentioned but how hard is it to land an academic podiatry job
I'm assuming a pay-cut from the hospital jobs but the salaries have to be more uniform/guaranteed right? No way they start a teaching attending at 80k
 
even though we all love to dogpile on @diabeticfootdr he's right about this, we are more pessimistic than we should be, myself included. Your perception shapes your reality, and it's not healthy for any of us to belabor undesirable aspects of podiatry as a profession because the reality @Toes R Us is that you can make podiatry work for you as long as you're prepared to sacrifice. Like many things in life, podiatry is a mixed bag, and there are some serious downsides. But neural pathways have a way of reinforcing themselves and if all you think about is the bad, your mind closes itself to the good and you will be unable to find happiness. Next thing you know you become so unhinged that Barry Block bans you from submitting letters to PMNews and you have to rant incoherently on another podiatry blog. So work hard, and even if it doesn't pay off, the work itself can be meaningful to you and you may get some contentment in that.
 
Prehealth1011 said:
Not sure if it's been mentioned but how hard is it to land an academic podiatry job
I'm assuming a pay-cut from the hospital jobs but the salaries have to be more uniform/guaranteed right? No way they start a teaching attending at 80k
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The actual podiatry schools pay less than academic jobs at teaching hospitals.

How hard? Hard like most organizational jobs, especially if pay and location are good.

Pay is similar to VA give or take and benefits and work/life balance are generally good.

You want jobs more like this and not the schools.

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Fellowship is definitely where this field is going which blows my mind. 4 years on one body part, with an additional year that doesn't change our scope. The comment above about people going to poor residencies having less of a chance at being successful I think is false. I think you'll see a lot of high tier programs put out people who do fellowships because they want too, the one's from poor residencies will do it because they need too and they'll be fellowship trained and get the better jobs (maybe 120k instead of 100k base salary if they're lucky). I just can't fathom another year of training making poor income and paying 25-35k in interest alone for that year of fellowship.

You'll see the quality of fellowships likely go down in the future with more foot and ankle surgeons as cases become dispersed elsewhere. I think you'll see more and more fellowships pop up additionally. Why pay an associate a terrible salary when you can pay a fellow an even worse salary? As an attending sign me up for a fellow any day of the week to hold my pager, take my calls, see my inpatients and do whatever wound debridement cases I wouldn't want to cover, just make sure my biller gets the op report so I can get paid.
 
bloxxeeey said:
Fellowship is definitely where this field is going which blows my mind. 4 years on one body part, with an additional year that doesn't change our scope. The comment above about people going to poor residencies having less of a chance at being successful I think is false. I think you'll see a lot of high tier programs put out people who do fellowships because they want too, the one's from poor residencies will do it because they need too and they'll be fellowship trained and get the better jobs (maybe 120k instead of 100k base salary if they're lucky). I just can't fathom another year of training making poor income and paying 25-35k in interest alone for that year of fellowship.

You'll see the quality of fellowships likely go down in the future with more foot and ankle surgeons as cases become dispersed elsewhere. I think you'll see more and more fellowships pop up additionally. Why pay an associate a terrible salary when you can pay a fellow an even worse salary? As an attending sign me up for a fellow any day of the week to hold my pager, take my calls, see my inpatients and do whatever wound debridement cases I wouldn't want to cover, just make sure my biller gets the op report so I can get paid.
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The best fellowship programs get the best residents from the best residency programs… very rarely can someone from a poor residency actually get a worthwhile fellowship. They will get a poor fellowship experience and will still not be well trained.

Cpme at one point had a cpme approved 2 year infectious disease fellowship. Like what a joke. People who did bad residencies would do that stuff and still suck

AND YES. You hit the nail on the head. Fellowship is so popular now because it’s a way to pay someone a residents salary to do your b*tch work.
 
malleolusman said:
Or maybe you are now openly biased towards Dr Rogers? Love to hear your thoughts. You’ve done more to derail this thread by deleting a meme in response to a user calling all LITERALLY all users on this site toxic. So why is he here joining all toxic users? Sounds like a violation of the TOS dexter…. You know.. the whole name calling business.
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There is no bias. This thread was about jobs. If anyone wants to post about jobs and talk about them, feel free to do so. Anything else is derailing. If you guys want to talk about another topic, make another thread. It is simple as that.
 
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