My suspicion is that some reasonable percentage of podiatry students who showed up and did well in DPM school thought - wait, I could have been successful as an MD/DO, why didn't I believe in myself. I don't think you are the first person to wonder this.
You didn't say what year you are. You also didn't say what your interests are. Theoretically, we are all supposed to have shadowed and to have a strong and defined interest in the foot and ankle. Unfortunately, I think we all know that applicants interest level is often quite shallow.
The student loan system isn't getting any forgiving. At some point - you have to work. And in the end - you are in a clinic/hospital floor having to churn out encounters and write notes no matter what your specialty is. Yeah, podiatry deserves better compensation and other physicians are more profitable, flexible etc
Kennedy and CMS right now are on some big thing about "medicine" specialties and prevention verse all the big bad proceduralists. There is a part of this that is annoying to me because the people who actually do stuff are often the people who solve problems. I'm obviously presenting a one sided approach on the healthcare dynamics for an entire country. I always found that podiatry fairtale about happy patients leaving clinics dancing away nauseating, but there's a part of me now that appreciates what I'm able to do for people and often how satisfied they are. There is also something satisfying about treating problems that have been hopelessly mismanaged because no one gives a sh&t about the foot. Best of luck with your choice, but watch out for grass that might or might not be greener. The more time you spend reading the entirety of SDN the more you'll see intense variation across specialties generated by changing government and payor dynamics.
