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I wanted to ask the podiatrists who had already graduated and I wanted to know if podiatry was surgery mostly and thats what most Podiatrists did once they opened up their own practice.
I wanted to ask the podiatrists who had already graduated and I wanted to know if podiatry was surgery mostly and thats what most Podiatrists did once they opened up their own practice.
PADM is definitely spot-on with his answer because there's a lot of variety depending on the level of training, type of practice, and where that practitioner is with their experience. I've seen and worked with DPM's in ortho groups who were essentially "end-of the line" consultants, meaning, patients came to them on a referral basis after having tried conservative modalities and other surgical consultations with other physicians - so essentially they presented for a final/definitive surgical "answer". Those practices typically saw heavy surgical volumes as you can imagine. Also, some practices are more conducive to having you see "surgical patients". So if you are in a practice were you see a fair amount of referrals then you're more likely to have more surgical patients (when indicated and depending on the patient's subjective status of course). The ER call is another factor to be considered in this equation as well - if you or your group are on the schedule for foot/ankle call then you're adding a large source of referrals to pathology and trauma, so more cases. Additionally, if your practices allows for you to be on staff at the hospital, take floor consults, and even see patients at wound care centers then you have another source of cases via diabetic foot infections/limb salvage management.
So again, a fair amount of factors are involved so you're training, level of experience, reputation, referral-base, and type of practice you have are large determinants for surgical volume.