How many of you podiatry students or pod residents interested in specializing in ...
I say it all the time, but podiatry is already a specialty.
Like almost any pod student you'll meet, want to be a comprehensive F&A specialist. No, not everyone will use all of their training, but you want to be able to experience it all so you have a base of knowledge for nearly any podiatry related complaint. Also, having comprehensive pod training also lets you then decide if and how to sub-specialize. Some residency programs are certainly known more for one thing or another (trauma surgery, diabetic limb salvage, pediatric surgery, elective surgery, sports med, etc etc etc).
Basically, one prof I respect broke podiatry down into 4 main branches like this:
1) Bone and joint - This is the classic podiatric bone fracture repairs or deformity correction surgery... bunions, hammertoes, midfoot, STJ, ankles, etc. It also encompasses the arthritis and joint sepsis arena. This is stuff pods might choose to team with radiologists, rheumatologists, orthopedists (esp F&A or pediatric), etc on.
2) Soft tissue - This is essentially the "sports medicine" branch of tendons, bursa, fascia, ligaments and the sprains, strains, etc which plague them. These complaints involve using a lot of the biomechanics knowledge that pod education prides itself on.
3) Derm - This is your skin and nail pathology such as infection, lesions, disorders, etc. This is huge and difficult since a lot of skin diseases present differently or late in their course when they show up in the foot. For these cases, pods might work with infectious disease docs, pathologists, oncologists, etc.
4) Vascular - This is the wound healing, peripheral arterial disease, diabetes, limb salvage, etc stuff. This is the part of the pod specialty where you team up with vascular and plastic surgeons quite a bit... as well as infectious disease.
Of course, you also work with the patient's PCP on almost any of those, but most pod cases fall into one or a combo of those categories.
There are other categories of pod specialization like pod pediatrics, pod radiology, pod path, F&A orthoses, etc which some DPMs become very well known for, but most of the pathologies they see will still fall into one of those 4 main cats.
