I am probably your typical pre-med student. I had heard the term podiatry, but had always thought it was just a md subspecialty. I was pursuing md school until my friend introduced me to pod.
Yep, basically the same here.
I worked in a 30hrs/wk as a CNA in a hospital for 3yrs all during my undergrad (patient transport 2yr, then ER nurse assistant for 1yr). Working that much and being a BioCh major trying to finish in 3yrs probably weren't the most helpful to the ol' GPA, but I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. I saw the daily lives of and got to chat with a multitude of different health care workers (MDs, DOs, PAs, NPs, RNs, LPNs, respiratory techs, XR tech, perfusionists, phlebotomists, medical lab staff, etc etc). I was extremely interested in so many of those careers (namely MD, DO, PA, NP, RN, perfusionist).
From the start of college, I was pretty sure I wanted to be a FP doc (cardiac surgery interested me also, but the residency length was a turnoff). I knew that I would enjoy many fields, but I had the talent to achieve good things and wanted to use it. The ability to screen and diagnose many illnesses and see the same patients for a long time appealed to me. However, I in my second year of college, I got pretty interested in DPM also when a CRNA (nurse anesthetist) friend from my hospital mentioned it. I found out it was more than just an MD specialty, and I shadowed the pods at my hospital as well as a couple across the city who were in private practice during my final undergrad year.
I finished undergrad with only a 2.8 GPA but a 28R MCAT and some pretty good connections with local docs from the hospital. I applied to the MD school at my undergrad (its focus is rural FP docs), pod school, and a perfusionist program. I was waitlisted for the MD program, yet accepted to the perfusion program and accepted to the pod program with a scholarship. The decision wasn't tough for me (DPM), and I'm happy with it. Perfusion was considered, but lack of job variety coupled with advances in technology in preventitive cardiology had me questioning the long term job security and whether I would remain interested.
Going to a SMP program or retaking calc, calc-based physics, and p-chem to get my grades up over a couple years and then re-applying to MD or DO school didn't really appeal to me, and it was fairly obvious that med programs were only going to get increasingly more competitive. I want to be fairly young when I'm finished. I would not want to be 32 and have $300-400k in debt like quite a few BS+SMP+apps+travel+MD+residency people do.
There are times I wish I had gone to school from the start to be a BSRN simply because of how much less school it is to achieve very good pay and a great job in nursing (and you could always go to grad school for NP or CRNA later on). Some of my good friends are very happy and making great money in nursing ($50k at age 22 or 23) while I am still in pod school and piling up debt, but I think my DPM will be well worth it in the end. Nursing seems that it might have beem somewhat frustrating for me at times when I'd feel limited to treating symptoms instead of diagnosing and addressing the cause of the pathology.
