Need honest assistance

[the humming sea]

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I just spent the last year of my life in the waiting game in the MD school application process and only recently heard about podiatry as a field. Surgery, good hours, etc. are starting to sound really appealing as I consider my second round of MD applications.

Is there anyone out there who was in the same boat and switched to the Pod path? and if so what ultimately made you decide?

 

[arez10]

I sort of was. I never actually applied, but about 10 days before June 1st of last year I got back a really crappy MCAT score and realized I had to wait a year to apply. But I started looking into other areas of medicine and I had actually already shadowed a podiatrist but put the idea on the backburner. I got more and more interested in it and shadowed another podiatrist and realized I really liked it. It wasn't worth it for me to restudy and retake the MCATs in order to apply to med school when I can go to podiatry school and be really happy. I'm not going to pretend that podiatry is specifically my passion. But medicine in general definitely is and it's a great field to look into! You get to combine many different disciplines such as surgery, derm, orthopedics, pediatrics, geriatrics, etc. Yeah, it's just the foot and ankle, but it's actually very versatile when it comes to different focuses in medicine. So yeah, I would definitely recommend looking in it.

 

[pieds]

I was in that same boat. I spent a lot of time shadowing various specialties and I only learned about podiatry very late in the game. This past cycle I received an invite from a DO school and a Pod school. I was accepted to the Pod program so I declined my DO interview. It's a tough decision. But I like knowing what I'm getting myself into.

 

[spo01]

Podiatry is a great field to go into but don't get discouraged and let 1 or 2 years hold you back from getting your MD if you really want to go that route. If you are genuinely interested in the field I strongly suggest shadowing several podiatrists to see if you like it. Keep in mind that when you are in podiatry you are stuck with it and there is no uncertainty of what field you specialize in. This is great news for those of us who like it but not so good for those who didn't know what they were getting into in the first place. It is not like MD/DO where you can switch and have years to decide what field to specialize in via rotations and such.

 

[the humming sea]

I have heard from a lecturer that the majority of students who choose Podiatry do so because of the "lifestyle and hours." Is that really true? How could the hours be that much better/different than MD?

 

[air bud]

by lifestyle and hours they mean you most likely wont take call once you start practicing. You can still easily work 50-60 hours a week though. But you won't have to wake up at 2am and crawl out of bed for a broken ankle.

 

[PADPM]

by lifestyle and hours they mean you most likely wont take call once you start practicing. You can still easily work 50-60 hours a week though. But you won't have to wake up at 2am and crawl out of bed for a broken ankle.

Reality check. If you plan on performing surgery or specifically if you plan on performing relatively complicated reconstructive surgical procedures, you'd better believe you'll get emergency calls at 2 am.

Complications and injuries don't always occur at convenient times, and if you develop a good reputation in your area and your local hospital(s), and you want to maintain that reputation, you'd better be prepared to receive those emergency calls at any hour.

I've been called for post operative complications, broken ankles as you have mentioned (that you didn't think would be an emergency), trauma, gun shot wounds, etc.

And with the newer, more complicated training today's residents are receiving, I would expect MORE emergency calls in the late night hours.

I have never understood the urban legend of our profession having better hours than most other medical specialties. If you have office hours and perform surgery, and have in patients, I can ASSURE you that you'll be working as hard as the majority of other medical specialists.

 

[the humming sea]

Thanks for the info. That's more what I thought.