If pod school is just as hard as med school, why are the standards of acceptance so much lower?

[Windom Earle]

It's an honest question. I don't mean to rile anyone up.

Alot of people say that the first 2 years are really similar, but why such a big disparity then?

Avg GPA for Barry is like 3.0 and MCAT is 24. Meanwhile to get into NOVA you need a 3.5 and a 28.

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[AttackNME]

Not a lot of young 20 year olds will dedicate themselves to feet for the rest of their life unless there is a particular reason. Med school on the other hand allows you the opportunity to rotate through the different medical specialties to get a better idea of what you want to do, so having options is more attractive.

 

[Nervous Pre-Pod]

It's an honest question. I don't mean to rile anyone up.

Alot of people say that the first 2 years are really similar, but why such a big disparity then?

Avg GPA for Barry is like 3.0 and MCAT is 24. Meanwhile to get into NOVA you need a 3.5 and a 28.

There's a lot on these forums about this question. You should do some searches. But a here are a few of the reasons:

1) People don't like feet
2) You are specialized from day one
3) Salary is typically lower than MD/DO
4) Not as well respected in community as MD/DO
5) Many people don't know about Podiatry

There are more reasons as well, but none of those reasons make pod school easier. A few of the pod schools take almost all of their basic science classes with DO's and are graded exactly the same.

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[Windom Earle]

Not a lot of young 20 year olds will dedicate themselves to feet for the rest of their life unless there is a particular reason. Med school on the other hand allows you the opportunity to rotate through the different medical specialties to get a better idea of what you want to do, so having options is more attractive.

So the standards of acceptance need to be lower to incentivize students to apply?

 

[rph3664]

There's a poster on another board, unrelated to medicine, who WAS a podiatrist. She gave it up even before she got her loans paid off because of the futility of her practice; had she known that podiatry, at least in her region, consisted almost entirely of dealing with chronically noncompliant diabetics, she would have done something else.

 

[Nervous Pre-Pod]

So the standards of acceptance need to be lower to incentivize students to apply?

Because of those reasons less students apply. Because less students apply, the standards are lower. The schools still pick the best students they can to fill their classes.

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[AttackNME]

So the standards of acceptance need to be lower to incentivize students to apply?

Standards of acceptance is lower due to the popularity of the job. Think of how many MD/DO graduates there are per year. Listen to the podcast by Dr Mattiaci, he gives a real overview relevant to this topic

http://www.podiatricsuccess.com/?ar...Dean&post_type=post,speaker,lunch-time-master

 

[Nervous Pre-Pod]

There's a poster on another board, unrelated to medicine, who WAS a podiatrist. She gave it up even before she got her loans paid off because of the futility of her practice; had she known that podiatry, at least in her region, consisted almost entirely of dealing with chronically noncompliant diabetics, she would have done something else.

Sounds to me like like she should have done more shadowing/research before deciding to go through 7 years of school and training and going into major debt. If you aren't willing to work at all with diabetic patients, then you probably shouldn't be a podiatrist. Working on the diabetic foot is actually an attractive part of podiatry for me. There is a need for doctors to work on the diabetic foot and podiatrists are well trained and prepared to work on the diabetic foot.

She seems to be very short sighted. She signed up for podiatry before understanding much about the profession. Then she quit working as a Podiatrist before she even paid off her loans because of the futility of her practice?? Then go into the community and make connections. Move to a less saturated area. Live in a rural setting. Seems to me that she contributed to the futility if her practice.

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[de Ribas]

So the standards of acceptance need to be lower to incentivize students to apply?

no, schools don't set standards but principle of supply and demand sets it.

 

[de Ribas]

There's a poster on another board, unrelated to medicine, who WAS a podiatrist. She gave it up even before she got her loans paid off because of the futility of her practice; had she known that podiatry, at least in her region, consisted almost entirely of dealing with chronically noncompliant diabetics, she would have done something else.

There are hundreds of MD/DO who quit medicine every year and pursue something else.

 

[Weirdy]

There's a poster on another board, unrelated to medicine, who WAS a podiatrist. She gave it up even before she got her loans paid off because of the futility of her practice; had she known that podiatry, at least in her region, consisted almost entirely of dealing with chronically noncompliant diabetics, she would have done something else.

Imagine being Internal Med.....if we're playing the non-compliance game.

 

[DexterMorganSK]

There's a poster on another board, unrelated to medicine, who WAS a podiatrist. She gave it up even before she got her loans paid off because of the futility of her practice; had she known that podiatry, at least in her region, consisted almost entirely of dealing with chronically noncompliant diabetics, she would have done something else.

I thought the same about the Pharmacy field.

 

[umgoblue2008]

Sounds to me like like she should have done more shadowing/research before deciding to go through 7 years of school and training and going into major debt. If you aren't willing to work at all with diabetic patients, then you probably shouldn't be a podiatrist. Working on the diabetic foot is actually an attractive part of podiatry for me. There is a need for doctors to work on the diabetic foot and podiatrists are well trained and prepared to work on the diabetic foot.

She seems to be very short sighted. She signed up for podiatry before understanding much about the profession. Then she quit working as a Podiatrist before she even paid off her loans because of the futility of her practice?? Then go into the community and make connections. Move to a less saturated area. Live in a rural setting. Seems to me that she contributed to the futility if her practice.

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Indeed, in some perverse way non-compliant patients leads to more job security for physicians. As doctors, we try our best to prevent chronic conditions and educate people, but there will always be those who do not take their own health seriously.

 

[air bud]

It's a backup option for 95 percent of people. Eventually you learn to like/tolerate/love it. Rationalize however you need to.

 

[PikminOC]

Because of those reasons less students apply. Because less students apply, the standards are lower. The schools still pick the best students they can to fill their classes.

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Untrue. It has nothing to do with this. The people who get into podiatry school are less competitive than those that get into medical school. Once in podiatry school, it is not as difficult as medical school as the students are not as smart either.

Lets take the example of neurosurgery residency. Less medical students apply, but the ones who do have very high usmle scores. And then these residents are training in a pool of very smart colleagues.

 

[RedoxRxn]

1) People don't like feet
2) You are specialized from day one
3) Salary is typically lower than MD/DO
4) Not as well respected in community as MD/DO
5) Many people don't know about Podiatry

I think it is for these listed reasons.

Specifically reason number 3 (hence all the salary discussions around here). I would wager that many people would overlook specialization and respect if podiatry was a 9-5 and had an average salary of +400k. In this alternate dimension the word would quickly spread and all the sudden podiatry is featured #1 on U.S. News 25 Best jobs of 2017.Then next thing you know everyone and their cat is applying. It would even funnel applicants away from MD/DO/PA schools resulting in an increase in competition. Maybe

Untrue. It has nothing to do with this. The people who get into podiatry school are less competitive than those that get into medical school. Once in podiatry school, it is not as difficult as medical school as the students are not as smart either.

Lets take the example of neurosurgery residency. Less medical students apply, but the ones who do have very high usmle scores. And then these residents are training in a pool of very smart colleagues.

I'm not sure if you are trolling, but seeing that you are a gold donor I'll entertain. I have not been through medical school, podiatry or DO school so I cant comment on their relative difficulties. But with your logic people who get into DO schools are less competitive than MD students therefore not as smart? I mean they do take different licensing exams. I'm not sure maybe you are right, but you say it so matter of fact that maybe you have seen studies that confirm this?

 

[Nervous Pre-Pod]

Untrue. It has nothing to do with this. The people who get into podiatry school are less competitive than those that get into medical school. Once in podiatry school, it is not as difficult as medical school as the students are not as smart either.

Lets take the example of neurosurgery residency. Less medical students apply, but the ones who do have very high usmle scores. And then these residents are training in a pool of very smart colleagues.

I'm not sure if you read the entire thread, but I'll bite anyway. My words, that you quoted, were explaining WHY the students that get into pod school are less competitive so I'm not sure why you call them "untrue". I'll say it again. The standards to get into pod school are lower, because less students apply. Period. There are many reasons why less students apply.

Then in response to the difficulty level of pod school... I can't compare pod school to MD school, so I won't. I'll just speak about DO schools.

Let's take the example of DMU. DMU pod and DO students take all of the same classes (besides one pod specific class per semester). They are in the same classrooms, have the same teachers, and are graded on the same scale. There is no distinction between the pod and DO students in the combined classes.

I won't argue that Pod students are as smart as MD's. As a whole, we're not. But I'm also not sure you know what you are talking about concerning podiatry school.

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[de Ribas]

Untrue. It has nothing to do with this. The people who get into podiatry school are less competitive than those that get into medical school. Once in podiatry school, it is not as difficult as medical school as the students are not as smart either.

Lets take the example of neurosurgery residency. Less medical students apply, but the ones who do have very high usmle scores. And then these residents are training in a pool of very smart colleagues.

I don't believe it has to do much with being smart, rather than with work ethic, studying strategies, being disciplined and such.

 

[DexterMorganSK]

Untrue. It has nothing to do with this. The people who get into podiatry school are less competitive than those that get into medical school. Once in podiatry school, it is not as difficult as medical school as the students are not as smart either.

Lets take the example of neurosurgery residency. Less medical students apply, but the ones who do have very high usmle scores. And then these residents are training in a pool of very smart colleagues.

 

[de Ribas]

Untrue. It has nothing to do with this. The people who get into podiatry school are less competitive than those that get into medical school. Once in podiatry school, it is not as difficult as medical school as the students are not as smart either.

Lets take the example of neurosurgery residency. Less medical students apply, but the ones who do have very high usmle scores. And then these residents are training in a pool of very smart colleagues.

have you even seen podiatry curriculum?

 

[air bud]

I'm not sure if you read the entire thread, but I'll bite anyway. My words, that you quoted, were explaining WHY the students that get into pod school are less competitive so I'm not sure why you call them "untrue". I'll say it again. The standards to get into pod school are lower, because less students apply. Period. There are many reasons why less students apply.

Then in response to the difficulty level of pod school... I can't compare pod school to MD school, so I won't. I'll just speak about DO schools.

Let's take the example of DMU. DMU pod and DO students take all of the same classes (besides one pod specific class per semester). They are in the same classrooms, have the same teachers, and are graded on the same scale. There is no distinction between the pod and DO students in the combined classes.

I won't argue that Pod students are as smart as MD's. As a whole, we're not. But I'm also not sure you know what you are talking about concerning podiatry school.

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Unless they have they have changed things since I was there a few years ago, this is how it is:

First year same stuff. 2nd year systems courses have much more involved, as well as labs that reinforce. You basically memorize it, they memorize and utilize. 3rd year you forget all of it since focused on LE. They keep using. You forget. So you never truly learn like they do, you just memorize. It's not the same. Accept that you are in podiatry school and move on. The only person this argument of equal will ever win over is somebody who is not a MD or DO. It's doesnt matter, move on.

 

[Nervous Pre-Pod]

Thanks for the clarification. I got a lil riled up. Lol. I like podiatry for what it is. It's a good profession that can give me a good living.

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[PikminOC]

have you even seen podiatry curriculum?

Doesn't matter. The competitiveness of the students involved matters the most. Nurses will tell you their curriculum is difficult too

 

[DexterMorganSK]

Doesn't matter. The competitiveness of the students involved matters the most. Nurses will tell you their curriculum is difficult too

If you're going to compare a Pod curriculum to Nursing then you don't know what you're talking about and I suggest also for you to do some research.

Lower the ignorance and the ego before posting here or trying to start a flame war.

Also, read everything on this thread:

Why is podiatry not a sub-specialty of medicine?

 

[Windom Earle]

no, schools don't set standards but principle of supply and demand sets it.

In that case, has any pod school drastically changed their acceptance requirements over the past few decades?

 

[Windom Earle]

It's a backup option for 95 percent of people. Eventually you learn to like/tolerate/love it. Rationalize however you need to.

Where's that 95 percent from? Just made it up?

 

[Weirdy]

Untrue. It has nothing to do with this. The people who get into podiatry school are less competitive than those that get into medical school. Once in podiatry school, it is not as difficult as medical school as the students are not as smart either.

Lets take the example of neurosurgery residency. Less medical students apply, but the ones who do have very high usmle scores. And then these residents are training in a pool of very smart colleagues.

Coming in a pre-pod forum just to **** on the little guy.

Says a lot about you.

Collectively our entering statistics are lower. We have never denied that.

 

[RedoxRxn]

Doesn't matter. The competitiveness of the students involved matters the most. Nurses will tell you their curriculum is difficult too

So all the matters is the competitiveness of the student involved? What does that even mean? Are you saying that it matters with regards to quality of patient care?

Do underrepresented minorities in medicines who generally have lower matriculating stats provide subpar care over ORMs? Are URMS not as smart?

Boy. The adcoms really goofed letting someone through with your attitude. I hope to never be your patient, not because you are a psychiatrist but because of your ego and attitude.

 

[Nowehjose]

Who cares? Isn't psychiatry one of the easiest residencies to grab?

 

[Cranjis McBasketball]

In that case, has any pod school drastically changed their acceptance requirements over the past few decades?

The schools don't make the requirements. The average stats are based on who applies... SO its the applicants who set the averages. If 10000 people applied for podiatry school next year and every year after, the average stats would shoot up which would raise the requirements. At this point, not enough people apply. So if requirements were raised, schools wouldn't fill their seats. I agree, some schools accept people that have no business becoming doctors and surgeons until they raise their GPAs or MCAT scores

 

[RedoxRxn]

Who cares? Isn't psychiatry one of the easiest residencies to grab?

Psychiatry may or may not be the easiest residency to grab. But assuming he's less smart than a neurosurgeon is just stooping to his level.

Why it matters is because it is written that attitude influences behavior. So his attitude on this forum isn't just confined to this forum. There are larger implications. Especially since he is a psychiatrist and deals with people at their most vulnerable on a daily basis.

 

[Weirdy]

Psychiatry may or may not be the easiest residency to grab. But assuming he's less smart than a neurosurgeon is just stooping to his level.

Why it matters is because it is written that attitude influences behavior. So his attitude on this forum isn't just confined to this forum. There are larger implications. Especially since he is a psychiatrist and deals with people at their most vulnerable on a daily basis.

It's his guilty pleasure day.

Get on an anonymous internet forum and rile up as many pre-pods as he can.

Assert superiority and chuckle about it while he reads comments.

 

[PikminOC]

If pod school is just as hard as med school, why are the standards of acceptance so much lower?

 

[de Ribas]

In that case, has any pod school drastically changed their acceptance requirements over the past few decades?

Why would they change requirements?
I don' think I understood your question.
Schools don' set requirements in terms of GPA or MCAT scores but applicants do. If schools have enough student pool that have 3.7 GPA, they can pull them all, fill up the seats and keep up with high GPA averages.

Some schools set minimums, but this is just to make less work for themselves because they know that they will get more than enough applicants with higher GPA. They don' have time to even look at applications with much lower Stats

 

[umgoblue2008]

If pod school is just as hard as med school, why are the standards of acceptance so much lower?

There's a lot on these forums about this question. You should do some searches. But a here are a few of the reasons:

1) People don't like feet
2) You are specialized from day one
3) Salary is typically lower than MD/DO
4) Not as well respected in community as MD/DO
5) Many people don't know about Podiatry

There are more reasons as well, but none of those reasons make pod school easier. A few of the pod schools take almost all of their basic science classes with DO's and are graded exactly the same.

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I think your logic is slightly off. The standards of acceptance are lower because of many reason people have stated in this thread. Now, I believe pod school is somewhat easier than medical school, but this does not lead to standards of acceptance being lower. Statement A does not lead to statement B.

This is like saying MD schools are very difficult, therefore the standards of acceptance should be much higher. The reason standards of acceptance for MD programs are high in no particular order: 1) high salary, 2) prestige, 3) able to pick a specialty or practice primary care 4) highly respected in society, etc. Because all of these things are desirable, more competitive applicants are going to apply -> higher standards of acceptance.

 

[bobtheweazel]

If pod school is just as hard as med school, why are the standards of acceptance so much lower?

How are "standards of acceptance" and difficulty of the curriculum in any way related? No school says, well our curriculum is 85% as difficult as some MD school's curriculum so we'll only accept people who have exactly 85% the undergrad stats as people going into that MD program if that's what you're saying. And also no school says, well this year's class has a 2% lower GPA than last year's class, let's make the curriculum 2% easier for them. There's not a relation between those two things in either direction.

And anyway presumably you haven't been to MD and podiatry school and none of us have been to podiatry and MD school, so what is your basis of comparison between the difficulty of the two? There isn't even anything close to standardization in curriculum or difficulty between MD schools or between DO schools, as that's all set by each individual school. So there's really no way to compare generic MD school to generic DPM school. All that can be said without a doubt is that most podiatry schools share a significant portion of their classes with their affiliated MD or DO programs. Yet you make it sound like a podiatry student couldn't get through one MD or DO level course, with no real evidence to support your claims.

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[Windom Earle]

If pod school is just as hard as med school, why are the standards of acceptance so much lower?

Did you really just rewrite my question?

 

[de Ribas]

Did you really just rewrite my question?

Probably just copied it.

 

[bobtheweazel]

Did you really just rewrite my question?

Lolololol

Enviado desde mi Pixel mediante Tapatalk

 

[Windom Earle]

How are "standards of acceptance" and difficulty of the curriculum in any way related? No school says, well our curriculum is 85% as difficult as some MD school's curriculum so we'll only accept people who have exactly 85% the undergrad stats as people going into that MD program if that's what you're saying. Yet you make it sound like a podiatry student couldn't get through one MD or DO level course, with no real evidence to support your claims.

Let me rephrase the question then. Could the average pod student pass all 4 years of an MD school?

 

[med2345]

Did you really just rewrite my question?

He had the intelligence to find the Bold highlight button.. give him some credit

 

[de Ribas]

Let me rephrase the question then. Could the average pod student pass all 4 years of an MD school?

yes, with right study strategies, motivation, good work ethic and self-discipline.

Even if first 2 years at MD/DO schools contain couple more classes, I do think that average pod student can handle few more classes.

I don't think that last 2 years of either school vary in how hard these years are but different in the scope of what students do. Rotations should be also different in the scope but not how hard it is.

 

[GypsyHummus]

Is DO school as hard as MD school? Why are the averages for DO schools lower than MD schools? Are MDs and DO equal?

From my knowlage, Pod schools literally take all but 3 classes with the DOs the first 2 years at DMU and AZPOD, and the same tests (OB, Psych, and Osteopath wizardry for pod specific classes) so my argument is would follow; DOs=Pods +\- those few classes. Thusly, if you believe DOs are equal to MDs, and DO=Pod, then Pod=MD/DO via the transitive property as far as education is concerned.

People don't apply to pod school for 4 fundamental reasons as I am increasingly finding out when I ask my current classmates. I'll go in most common to least:

1) Ewww Feet. Number one reason. This has always been a weak argument for me because you as an MD will have your fingers in a lot more unpleasant orafices. I mean, feet are basicallly hands. If it was a hand specialty, I think more people would be inclined to pursue it.

2) they don't know what a podiatrist is or what they do. They believe pods are little more than PAs

3) they don't want to do surgery

4) They would bring dishonor on their family by not being a cardiothorastic dermatological plastic surgeon who specialized in neruosurgery to make lots of cash

If pod school is just as hard as med school, why are the standards of acceptance so much lower?

 

[GypsyHummus]

Pass class? Prolly. Boards prolly not. There was a study I read, I forget where, explaining pod students took the USMLE and failed miserably at it.

yes, with right study strategies, motivation, good work ethic and self-discipline.

Even if first 2 years at MD/DO schools contain couple more classes, I do think that average pod student can handle few more classes.

I don't think that last 2 years of either school vary in how hard these years are but different in the scope of what students do. Rotations should be also different in the scope but not how hard it is.

 

[bobtheweazel]

Let me rephrase the question then. Could the average pod student pass all 4 years of an MD school?

Let's assume that the average pod student is getting a 500 or below and a 3.40 GPA or below. If you look at https://www.aamc.org/download/321508/data/factstablea23.pdf then you can see that almost a few hundred people were accepted into MD schools this past cycle with stats within that range. Schools would not accept that level of students if they historically had a tendency of not making it through, especially with plenty of applicants with much higher stats being denied, as can also be seen on that PDF. Unless anyone thinks an MD school is dumb enough to accept students just so they can fail out immediately and then have those empty seats worth tens of thousands of dollars/year just be empty for the next few years. That would be ludicrous.

We've taken some of the same classes as the MD students with the professors tasked with teaching the same content at the same level and yes we pretty much all passed. I'm not saying our class averages would have equaled or exceeded those of the MD students, but to think that someone with an undergrad GPA in the 3.0-3.5 range and an MCAT a little under 500 couldn't pass an MD level course with sufficient time and studying is just silly. Yes, any medical school course requires a ridiculous amount of work but the material itself isn't particularly difficult. So really the only factor becomes how much time you'll be willing to put into it, which isn't necessarily reflected by your undergrad GPA or MCAT. There aren't really any concepts in medicine that couldn't be taught to a high school student given sufficient time.

 

[DJ Khaled's Pet Tiger]

So the standards of acceptance need to be lower to incentivize students to apply?

Supply and demand would be more accurate.

 

[de Ribas]

Pass class? Prolly. Boards prolly not. There was a study I read, I forget where, explaining pod students took the USMLE and failed miserably at it.

I get it. But the question was if they could have passed the MD school.

What is preparing students for boards? pre-med schooling or med school? Med school. so not going to a med school and failing boards is common sense. This is similar if MD students fail pharmacy exams, NCLEX or such. Of course pod students would do worse on USMLE.

That doesn't mean though that any pod student if went through MD school could not do well on MD boards.

I just think we should think objectively.

There are only about 600 students in podiatry schools with average of about 3.3 GPA or so. There are more MD and DO students that have less than that. There still go through med school and DO well on boards.

 

[Cranjis McBasketball]

Pass class? Prolly. Boards prolly not. There was a study I read, I forget where, explaining pod students took the USMLE and failed miserably at it.

I don't know if that means anything though.. If theres nothing to gain or lose from taking it my guess is that there are a handful who didn't really give it their best effort. If there was something to gain or lose and pod students were forced to study their hardest and try their best then we could probably see more accurately if they could

 

[de Ribas]

I don't know if that means anything though.. If theres nothing to gain or lose from taking it my guess is that there are a handful who didn't really give it their best effort. If there was something to gain or lose and pod students were forced to study their hardest and try their best then we could probably see more accurately if they could

would MD student pass NCLEX? of course not.

 

[NTT123]

If pod school is just as hard as med school, why are the standards of acceptance so much lower?

Because MD's applicant pool is big enough to hide those" low standard" matriculate applicants according to you.
There is 483 applicants matriculate into MD school whose MCAT is range from 486 to 497.
There is 882 applicants matriculate into MD school whose MCAT is range from 498 to 501.

If you want look into GPA, you can go ahead.

Simply google:
MCAT and GPA Grid for Applicants and Acceptees to U.S. Medical Schools, 2016-2017 or Bob has provide the link.


Total MD accepted applicants is ~ 21000 vs DPM accepted applicants ~600. Do the math.