Administrative aspect of podiatry

[Chamahk]

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Initially asked this in the pre-pod section.

I was hoping someone could shine some light on this topic. I'm assuming there are some administrative aspects involved in podiatry? What's it like?

Could a pod push for a position in healthcare administration?

I still come back to this field time and time again. I'm just trying to get a sense of what it's like overall.

In the long run, if you wanted to push away from the clinical stuff, as you were getting older and closer to retirement, is administrative duties something that's realistically on the cards for a DPM? What options are available to you? Chief?

 

[Chamahk]

(road) bump.....

any takers to comment? Will a MHA help you land an administrative role?








Please respond...

 

[jellybean2020]

People don't join podiatry to get administrative duties. It's a surgical specialty that's mostly private practice based. You can own your own practice. You can own a part of a surgery center. You can be chief of your department one day if you're hospital employed. You can help run a residency and be director of that. Maybe if you want to just do political stuff and not see patients you can work for one of the state-wide or national podiatry groups. I don't really know where you're going with your question, but in my opinion you're asking the wrong questions if you're considering a profession based on 'what you can transition to as you near retirement'.

 

[Chamahk]

People don't join podiatry to get administrative duties. It's a surgical specialty that's mostly private practice based. You can own your own practice. You can own a part of a surgery center. You can be chief of your department one day if you're hospital employed. You can help run a residency and be director of that.
I'm actually not interested in opening a private practice; I rather want to join a group or work for a hospital. Residency director and chief of the department sounds nice.

Maybe if you want to just do political stuff and not see patients you can work for one of the state-wide or national podiatry groups.
Not possible to do both? And I would love a position with APMA. Posted a video about a pod in Cali who, in addition to working his private practice, holds positions with the Cali state Pod association / group. I'm intersted in doing something similar to that. Student outreach and recruitment is one of the areas that appeal to me.

I don't really know where you're going with your question,
Maybe it wasn't worded right, or sounded better in my head. I read one of the posts on here where an actual practicing DPM mentioned he allots time for paperwork and more office / administrative stuff. I wanted to know more about that. What's the paper work like? You filing insurance stuff? You on the computer typing reports? The administrative / paperwork aspect of podiatry. What's it like?


but in my opinion you're asking the wrong questions if you're considering a profession based on 'what you can transition to as you near retirement'.
We're just going to have to agree to disagree here then. But maybe you're misunderstanding my post?
I like the field of podiatry and I am more than excited about the surgical aspects that come with it. I don't see what's wrong with taking my next step while thinking about the 50 steps after that. I don't see myself practicing pod forever and after a certain time, I will like to transition more into seeing less patients and working for the APMA doing something more administrative/leadership centered. I'm not saying I don't want to work as a pod. My early years of my career will be devoted to learning the surgical techniques and practicing it well. But as time goes on, I have my sights set on something a little different in the field as opposed to keep working as a DPM and retire. Best way to put it, consider a pre-law student who wants to become a lawyer but in addition to being a lawyer, has his sights set on being Chief Justice some day. Or a judge? DA? It's slightly different than being a lawyer and diffending a client but you're still in the (law) field. I don't mind working as a DPM while holding some of these administrative positions. It's just I would like to move up from just being a DPM. It's something to work towards. I'm I still not making sense?

 

[jellybean2020]

Well I admire your ability to set goals and think so far in the future. I've always been a "one step at a time" person in terms of goal-setting 🙂

 

[Chamahk]

Well I admire your ability to set goals and think so far in the future. I've always been a "one step at a time" person in terms of goal-setting 🙂

I wish I could be like that. This style of thinking is a headache. You'll overthink very simple things and make them much more complexed than they need to be. I struggle in school sometimes because of it

 

[ro221]

Well I guess start with school that offer MPH programs and go from there. My school, NYCPM, I know has it. I am sure most schools offer it as well.

 

[ldsrmdude]

Initially asked this in the pre-pod section.

I was hoping someone could shine some light on this topic. I'm assuming there are some administrative aspects involved in podiatry? What's it like?

Could a pod push for a position in healthcare administration?

I still come back to this field time and time again. I'm just trying to get a sense of what it's like overall.

In the long run, if you wanted to push away from the clinical stuff, as you were getting older and closer to retirement, is administrative duties something that's realistically on the cards for a DPM? What options are available to you? Chief?

There are a few options that I could see potentially. You could get involved in the administration of a multi-specialty group or with a podiatry group/"supergroup." There are a few podiatrists that are involved in administration at hospital systems. My residency director was chief of staff of the hospital and I know there have been a few others as well. I think he could have easily expanded his administrative time and duties, but he is still practicing and doesn't really want to switch to more administrative tasks right now. There are also other avenues you could look into if you wanted to transition away from clinical practice. There have been some residency directors that don't practice much anymore and just run the program. You could focus more on research and spend time doing that. Or some podiatrist just slow down and work less hours and see less patients as they get loser to retirement