Agreed. They take the same medical school classes and even rotate on various services. The only difference is you're basically choosing your specialty to be ankle and foot surgeon before going to medical school.
I don't blame you. If someone told me the only thing I could do as a physician is to be a pathologist, I'd rather go flip burgers at McDonalds.
Optometry is a bum deal. Podiatry is actually a great career if you can get past the whole feet thing, not legally being a physician (in most cases), and the low pay.
Yeah, but I also understand why it is so with OP. Imagine working hard for 2-3 years to do this replacement and then they pull the rug from under you. I think OP is already the type of person to want to fight against adversity, so he's at that "MD/DO or bust" stage. It takes time to process and start looking at alternatives. My plan B was also pod, but I also didn't make it in my first cycle and it made me want DO even more.
Probably splitting hairs here, but no such thing as an "informal SMP." The purpose of the SMP is to take med school level classes, which cannot be replicated by upper division undergrad or even regular grad school.
I've read multiple times that Wayne State can look at just your last 32 credits or such for GPA calculations. Perhaps someone more informed than myself can expand on that and name any other schools that may do something similar?
Just played myself, I wish I understood computers
Best people can hope for is some newer school saying they'll only consider the last 60-90 units, but the idea that individual schools will do grade replacement is naive. Like you said, there's not enough staff to do it on paper and to on top be answering every phone call and e-mail of "will this grade replace?"
This post actually convinced me to consider Podiatry. I mean, bash me if you will, but I am healing people's walking ability 😀
There's a post on the pod forum now where a prepod asked if anyone goes to nursing homes to clip nails to supplement their income and got back a resounding no. To sum it up, that's basically good money for someone who's just starting out a private practice to keep the doors open, but established docs steer clear of it. Though for the general podiatrist it's certainly nothing close to all surgery all the time. It's a very diverse field and diabetes/weight management and nail clipping is far from an adequate description, though to be fair foot and ankle surgeon is also a misleading description since while all podiatrists are surgeons only a minority fill most of their time with surgical patients.
It also depends I suppose on the state. In states like GA podiatrists are limited to the foot and in states like FL they can practice up to the hip. Most states are somewhere inbetween. So especially somewhere like GA, I would think that you might find proportionally more nail clipping pods since their scope is smaller. In podiatry school they make you an expert up to the hip and a generalist of the rest of the body, what you actually end up doing after podiatry school depends in part on where you work.
Honestly, there is a lot to the job. You can do ultrasound/radiology, orthopedics for patients, dermatologic issues, etc. I shadowed a podiatrist before med school and was really impressed. Guy had a great private practice in SF with students rotating and most patients loved him.
The SMP at the University of South Florida does grade replacement for admissions. It's through the Morsani College of Medicine. But there is no matriculation agreement.
BCOM and ATSU will not either.
