DPM to DO, worth it for a pod resident?

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PodThrowaway

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Nova Southeastern University offers a DO in 3 years for DPMs (podiatrists) who have completed a 3 year surgical residency. Link: http://medicine.nova.edu/dodpm/index.html

If you are unfamiliar with podiatry training, here is a sample curriculum: http://www.saintjosephresidency.com/residency-programs/podiatric-residency/rotations-electives

Does anyone here, MD, DO, or DPM, think that this would be worth it? The only thing I could find by search was an article by the APMA (podiatry version of the AMA) reasoning that the degree would be useful to be a physician member of an ACO.

As fewer and fewer physicians practice without board certification and some kind of extra acronym behind their name (e.g. FACP), would there even be a point to adding the DO behind my name with only an internship year to back it up?
 
Do you want to practice medicine or podiatry?

And just FYI, not everyone is a fellow of their respective American College of ____. It's an honorable distinction you earn through various scholarly achievements.
 
PodThrowaway said:
Nova Southeastern University offers a DO in 3 years for DPMs (podiatrists) who have completed a 3 year surgical residency. Link: http://medicine.nova.edu/dodpm/index.html

If you are unfamiliar with podiatry training, here is a sample curriculum: http://www.saintjosephresidency.com/residency-programs/podiatric-residency/rotations-electives

Does anyone here, MD, DO, or DPM, think that this would be worth it? The only thing I could find by search was an article by the APMA (podiatry version of the AMA) reasoning that the degree would be useful to be a physician member of an ACO.

As fewer and fewer physicians practice without board certification and some kind of extra acronym behind their name (e.g. FACP), would there even be a point to adding the DO behind my name with only an internship year to back it up?
Click to expand...

Seems pointless. If anything it's just asking for trouble.

Besides you'd have to go through not only 3 more years of massive debt, but then an internship with low pay. You wouldn't be board certified in ortho unless you wanted to do another long residency. Nobody is going to give you malpractice insurance to do anything under the scope of your medical license without a residency.

It'd be pretty misleading to patients if you put yourself out there as an orthopedic surgeon without doing a residency in it. Plus your podiatry skills would likely atrophy during your osteopathic training.

On top of that, at least at the DO school in my former state of residency, the podiatry students took the same basic science classes... so um med school should only be one year (the third) for them really. Repeating all of the basic sciences a second time sounds miserable.

I think the only point of this really is if you end up hating podiatry and want to go back and do something very different like radiology. Because you've done all the material before I'm sure you'd wreck the averages and do really well on step 1.
 
G0dFather said:
This really irks me, podiatry is medicine. You cant argue that. Our initials include the word medicine. The DO initials dont in fact.
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Sorry but "medical school" doesn't mean "podiatry" just how the world works.
 
G0dFather said:
This really irks me, podiatry is medicine. You cant argue that. Our initials include the word medicine. The DO initials dont in fact.
Click to expand...

I don't think that was meant as an insult. Not to speak for te poster, but generally speaking when people say (in this context) medicine vs. podiatry they are referring to fields accessed via medical school. The OP implies he/she doesn't want to do a residency, so saying medicine (i.e. pediatrics, pathology, FM, etc.) vs. podiatry is appropriate as getting a DO to continue in podiatry would be an absolute waste of time, money and a spot that someone else could have taken.
 
Textbookversion said:
Sorry but "medical school" doesn't mean "podiatry" just how the world works.
Click to expand...

Honestly, im not here to start something like this. I just wanted to clarify something that should be already know. How you got the word school in this is beyond me. We were refering to the way we practice, which includes "medicine" and "surgery".
 
PatchAdamsFan said:
That's just dumb, come on... Putting down MD/DO's will not further our profession
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Many of my childhood friends are MD/DOs that either graduated last year or are about to graduate in 2013 with me this year... im not putting anyone down here as i well know the rigors involved in these fields from dealing with them all the time and have profound respect. So chill out and dont lecture me about furthering our profession. Ive probably done more for the profession than you will ever do at this point in my life.
 
st2205 said:
I don't think that was meant as an insult. Not to speak for te poster, but generally speaking when people say (in this context) medicine vs. podiatry they are referring to fields accessed via medical school. The OP implies he/she doesn't want to do a residency, so saying medicine (i.e. pediatrics, pathology, FM, etc.) vs. podiatry is appropriate as getting a DO to continue in podiatry would be an absolute waste of time, money and a spot that someone else could have taken.
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Thank you, point taken.
 
I'm not lecturing, and I certainly didn't mean to condescend, as you just did to me.

I agreed that the previous post wasn't meant to be an insult to podiatry, and I thought your response was uncalled for, but you mistook it as an ill-fated remark, so my bad. No need to insult me, a pre-pod, let's all be friends. In hindsight, the 'further the profession' remark wasn't needed in my post. 🙂
 
PatchAdamsFan said:
I'm not lecturing, and I certainly didn't mean to condescend, as you just did to me.

I agreed that the previous post wasn't meant to be an insult to podiatry, and I thought your response was uncalled for, but you mistook it as an ill-fated remark, so my bad. No need to insult me, a pre-pod, let's all be friends. In hindsight, the 'further the profession' remark wasn't needed in my post. 🙂
Click to expand...

Its fine I apologize also, I may have been out of line. I am also sorry to the OP for going on tangents back to the original post now.
 
st2205 said:
I don't think that was meant as an insult. Not to speak for te poster, but generally speaking when people say (in this context) medicine vs. podiatry they are referring to fields accessed via medical school. The OP implies he/she doesn't want to do a residency, so saying medicine (i.e. pediatrics, pathology, FM, etc.) vs. podiatry is appropriate as getting a DO to continue in podiatry would be an absolute waste of time, money and a spot that someone else could have taken.
Click to expand...

That is precisely what I meant by my comment, and I concur with the rest of your post.

G0dFather said:
This really irks me, podiatry is medicine. You cant argue that. Our initials include the word medicine. The DO initials dont in fact.
Click to expand...

G0dFather said:
Thank you, point taken.
Click to expand...

Sorry if my comment caught you off guard. It was more of a general inquiry to gauge what the OP wants to do: podiatry or something completely different (such as the medical fields listed above by st2205).
 
If you are a DPM and want to practice podiatry there isn't much add-on value to getting a DO and quite a financial burden goes along with it. If you find that podiatry isn't your thing and want to practice in a field that is enterred via having an MD/DO (paraphrasing the above) then it might be worth it, though financial burdens still apply and have to be considered (cost:benefit of debt:happiness). I don't think anyone should start out before school thinking of this pathway. Podiatry seems like a good and respectable profession IMO, as an outsider.

You may want to see if you can get in touch with some of the people who hold both degrees for first-person insight:
http://www.wisconsinfootandankleinstitute.com/about-the-institute.php
http://www.bakopathology.com/about-us/our-pathologists
http://www.parkviewortho.com/drbaylis.html
(Just a few that I came across. I would keep in mind that if DPM training was done quite a while ago, I believe the standards of residency training have changed quite a bit in years since)
 
G0dFather said:
This really irks me, podiatry is medicine. You cant argue that. Our initials include the word medicine. The DO initials dont in fact.
Click to expand...

Good thing you support traditional chinese medicine with its OMD (doctor of oriental medicine) as one of the true branches of medicine because it says medicine in the initials.
 
J-Rad said:
You may want to see if you can get in touch with some of the people who hold both degrees for first-person insight:
http://www.wisconsinfootandankleinstitute.com/about-the-institute.php
http://www.bakopathology.com/about-us/our-pathologists
http://www.parkviewortho.com/drbaylis.html
(Just a few that I came across. I would keep in mind that if DPM training was done quite a while ago, I believe the standards of residency training have changed quite a bit in years since)
Click to expand...

With respect to bakopathology (the second link), this is what the doctors emailed me regarding their reasoning:

----,

Put simply I left DPM school just to do dermatopathology. Through experiences in the field during the first year of podiatry I realized that is what I wanted to do more than anything else. Pathology is just not a field that is available through a DPM degree. I absolutely did not transfer for any other reason pertaining to podiatry as a field. The vast majority of DPMs I know are very satisfied with their decision to go that direction. That being said, as with all areas of medicine, there are challenges in the future and unfortunately those challenges are not all known at this time. I would just suggest that you do your due diligence and go with the area that best suits your wants and will make you the most happy. Good luck to you in whatever you choose.

Wayne
 
G0dFather said:
This really irks me, podiatry is medicine. You cant argue that. Our initials include the word medicine. The DO initials dont in fact.
Click to expand...

So does a Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine.
 
There's an FM attending at UMDNJ-SOM who did exactly this. As far as I know, he doesn't really integrate much podiatry in his practice now.
 
Eilat87 said:
So does a Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine.
Click to expand...

Wait so ND's are legit?! Quality.... 😉

Technically MD doesn't have the word medicine in it (just medical) so it isn't medicine either. So we have narrowed TRUE medicine down to podiatry, oriental medicine and naturopathy? Seems legit.
 
Ost3oclast said:
Haha yes but strictly going by the letters MD= Medical doctor. You could technically say DO= doctor of osteopathic medicine as well but thats not what the letters mean lol
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.... no.... MD = doctor of medicine. Have you ever even seen a medical diploma? are you even in med school lol?
 
Putting all the BS above aside. I really don't see how having a DO behind your name can help you. Will it allow you to do anything else unless you complete a residency? All I see is three years of additional debt accumulation for a few letters behind your name. You already have a fairly sweet gig with DPM and a completed podiatric surgical residency, it's time to start earning some $$$ and doing what you have trained to do!

Survivor DO
 
Ost3oclast said:
No I'm pre-vet
Click to expand...
As a veterinary student, I ask you to please educate yourself on the credentials and the appropriate titles of our colleagues in other health professions. Saying "MD" means medical doctor is layman speak.
 
G0dFather said:
This really irks me, podiatry is medicine. You cant argue that. Our initials include the word medicine. The DO initials dont in fact.
Click to expand...

Source: International Licensure Map. American Osteopathic Association. 15 Dec 2012.

The Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine or D.O. degree is the only other legal and professional equivalent to the M.D. degree in the United States and in some parts of Canada. The differences between the M.D. and the D.O. degrees lie in the distinctive osteopathic philosophy and osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT).
 
OneHealthDVM said:
As a veterinary student, I ask you to please educate yourself on the credentials and the appropriate titles of our colleagues in other health professions. Saying "MD" means medical doctor is layman speak.
Click to expand...

As far as I know, he's gonna be a "physician" in the US in 2017.
 
PodThrowaway said:
Nova Southeastern University offers a DO in 3 years for DPMs (podiatrists) who have completed a 3 year surgical residency. Link: http://medicine.nova.edu/dodpm/index.html

If you are unfamiliar with podiatry training, here is a sample curriculum: http://www.saintjosephresidency.com/residency-programs/podiatric-residency/rotations-electives

Does anyone here, MD, DO, or DPM, think that this would be worth it? The only thing I could find by search was an article by the APMA (podiatry version of the AMA) reasoning that the degree would be useful to be a physician member of an ACO.

As fewer and fewer physicians practice without board certification and some kind of extra acronym behind their name (e.g. FACP), would there even be a point to adding the DO behind my name with only an internship year to back it up?
Click to expand...

Anyway in all seriousness OP, I don't think you should do it. You went through all that schooling, you really want to do it all over again?

Time is precious... You want to be 40 and still in school?
 
So...is this bridge program still a thing?
 
G0dFather said:
This really irks me, podiatry is medicine. You cant argue that. Our initials include the word medicine. The DO initials dont in fact.
Click to expand...

This gave me a good laugh though, lol
 
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