Although on the surface it may seem like a good idea, this would be taking a giant step backwards for our profession.
Years ago there were preceptorships that allowed graduates to gain exposure by working with practicing DPM's. There were also residencies that were based out of surgical centers and the resident had "outside" rotations to satisfy certain requirements such as emergency medicine, radiology, etc.
However, one (yes only one) of the reasons that podiatric residencies should be hospital based is to maintain parity with the allopathic and osteopathic community. Our profession has evolved over the years from no residencies and no hospital privileges to 3 and 4 year residency programs and full foot & ankle privileges with great respect from the MD/DO community.
MD's/DO's don't offer "office based" residency programs, nor should we. It would be a huge mistake and giant step backwards, and when grads of these programs apply for hospital privileges it will be mass confusion and destroy any "parity" that we have attempted to create over the past decades.
In my opinion, it is a very feeble attempt at a fix and is not an acceptable answer. Part of the educational process is to learn the hospital system, hospital protocol, interaction of the hospital departments, staff, etc. For most young docs, they will eventually be providing some level of service in a hospital setting, whether it be consults, surgical care, ER care, etc., and they need to be familiar with the in's and out's of a hospital environment and hospital protocol, and that must be learned via hands on experience, hospital rotations, etc. That can not be learned in an "office based" residency.
