Chiropody: Chiro is hand, Pody is feet. The term is old, from when we used to treat both hands and feet. Chiropodists are no longer involved in the treatment of hands, and our scope involves only Podiatric Medicine. If you look at all our books and the names of our courses, they are Podiatric, not Chiropodial. The term Podiatrist is not restricted to people who have recieved a DPM internationally. Everywhere else, there are diplomas, BSc, MSc etc Podiatry. If you want to add invasive surgery, you obtain more training, but you are not forced to do surgery or spend time/money learning surgery to be a member of the profession. Not everyone wants to cut people open, we need generalists, specialists and surgeons in Foot Care. You can either do everything somewhat poorly, or do a few things well. One system is not better than the other, they both complement the health care system in place.
To clear it up: There is very little difference between scope and privileges of DCh and DPM in Ontario, and gaps in legislation affect both groups, both groups are pushing for change. None of us have hospital privileges, there is no drug act for either group. DPMs and DChs are members of ONE college, proposed changes will benefit both.
The term Chiropody is misleading in itself, and very confusing to the public. I heard of one student who joined the Chiropody program thinking it was Chiropractic college and dropped out when he realized he'd be treating feet. Ontario is the only place in the world that still uses the term. We are not pushing to be called Doctors, we are not representing ourselves as DPMs or misleading the public. We are practicing Podiatric Medicine.
The model of care that we are working towards is a better fit for majority of the Ontario public than the either DPM model or the Chiropody model, with major surgical cases being handled by OHIP and universal health care. This really is a case of History and Politics.
Government sponsorship of the Chiropody model was dropped, and our scope was increased without adequate legislative backing to give DChs the tools to carry out our full scope, acting as primary care providers with a set of delegated acts as allowed in the legislation, inspite of more than adequate training. DCh training has increased much faster than the Government has acted to change to legislation, in part thanks to our very progressive school. Trust me, the name change is minor.
Here's the kicker, I can call myself a Podiatrist if I say it in French. I can call myself Dr. and Podiatrist anywhere in Canada but Alberta, BC and Ontario, I can call myself Podiatrist in UK and Australia/New Zealand/Singapore etc. The only doors closed to me internationally are US, BC, Que and Alberta. Our training is very similar, except that we do not do bone surgery ourselves. Also consider that the Canadian public is much less open to elective surgery in general (including podiatric and cosmetic) preferring non-invasive treatments first.
Our profession has evolved since it was brought to Ontario and we deserve much more credit than has been given, we are NOT technicians. We can obtain advanced standing at Temple, credit-by-examination for the theory portion and our clinical experience is fully recognized, the only addition is the surgical residency (in-hospital training). That is how close our training is to the US DPM model. Remember that US podiatry is a modification of the Original British foot care, we came from the same root and are not very different. US foot care have evolved to meet the demands of the US public, and so too has Ontario and British foot care. We are allowed to evolve, should evolve, and it is not necessary to dump the current system and adopt the US DPM model to provide quality foot care.
gustydoc said:
If chiropodists are not going away then why are they seeking the designation of podiatrist? Don't get me wrong I fully support anyone who understands how vital providing foot care is to the public, but why blur the lines between a healthcare provider's training? It seems to me that it would be confusing and even misleading to the public to call chiropodists podiatrists if there is a difference in training and privelages between the two. I think chiropody sounds like a great profession. Why push for a name change?
