Foot/Ankle Ortho and Podiatry

[aecuenca2]

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Hi everyone,

I am a Family Med/Sports Med doc and would like to ask a question that perhaps many of you may be able to help me answer and navigate patients.

During my Sports Med Fellowship, I worked with various Foot/Ankle ortho and Podiatry, and saw the types of patients they would see, both surgical and non-surgical.

Though your pathways are different, your surgical training and approaches regarding foot and ankle are similar to this FM/SM doc. So my question is: What surgical cases should I be thinking about consulting foot/ankle ortho vs. DPM and vice-versa? I have always hated turf wars, and I care more about which physician can provide the best care (both med/surg and bedside manner) for my patients.

Thanks for the help, it's greatly appreciated. AC

 

[jonwill]

Hi everyone,

I am a Family Med/Sports Med doc and would like to ask a question that perhaps many of you may be able to help me answer and navigate patients.

During my Sports Med Fellowship, I worked with various Foot/Ankle ortho and Podiatry, and saw the types of patients they would see, both surgical and non-surgical.

Though your pathways are different, your surgical training and approaches regarding foot and ankle are similar to this FM/SM doc. So my question is: What surgical cases should I be thinking about consulting foot/ankle ortho vs. DPM and vice-versa? I have always hated turf wars, and I care more about which physician can provide the best care (both med/surg and bedside manner) for my patients.

Thanks for the help, it's greatly appreciated. AC

That's a tough question to answer. It all comes down to training. Most pods these days are surgically trained but to different degrees (and there are still some guys that do no surgery). Many are competent in all aspects of foot and ankle surgery including rearfoot/ankle trauma and reconstruction.

From my experience, you're hard pressed to find a F&A orthopod that does a lot of F&A. Don't get me wrong, they are still out there but there seems to be less and less (notice that half the F&A fellowships sit empty yearly). Speaking from what I have seen, the F&A orthopods that still do foot stuff largely do rearfoot trauma and recon. I've yet to meet one that does a lot of forefoot stuff (bunions, hammertoes, etc). It seems like a lot of them have been moving over to more of a sports medicine practice where they still do some lower extremity stuff but end up doing tons of scopes.

I'd contact the pods in your area who you are considering and just ask them. I'm halfway through a 3 year surgical residency and already feel pretty comfortable with any type of foot or ankle fracture including pilons and all of the elective stuff as well. But as is the case with any surgical sub-specialty, training varies.