Other practice modes besides private practice?

[HenryH]

When working as a podiatrist, can you work a day or two per week in a hospital/ER? Are these positions commonly available? I ask because I've heard that the vast majority of podiatrists rarely do surgeries because of financial inefficiencies (e.g., "could be making more money doing 2 or 3 office procedures during the time it takes to drive to surgery center and prep for surgery, etc."), and that got me wondering: when/where do podiatrists get to do all the cool surgeries they trained to do during a 3-year surgical residency?

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[Feli]

Most pods who are well trained for surgery sought that training because they enjoy it. They will do surgery when it's indicated even if surgery (pod or otherwise) doesn't pay like it did 10 or 20yrs ago. Just as in any medical specialty that has a mix of clinic and surgery (pod, ortho, OB, ENT, optho, gastro, etc), in order to minimize any lost time from travelling to the hospital or surg center, the goal is usually to just line up all your weekly surgeries and major procedures for one or two days. Something like this for a DPM...

M - office
T - surg center AM, office PM
W - office
Th - wound care clinic AM, office PM
F - surgery at hospital AM, surg center PM
Sat AM - round on any hospital inpatients, read, overflow patient in office

You may also find that quite a few of your quesitons can be answered by shadowing a few DPMs.

 

[krabmas]

When working as a podiatrist, can you work a day or two per week in a hospital/ER? Are these positions commonly available? I ask because I've heard that the vast majority of podiatrists rarely do surgeries because of financial inefficiencies (e.g., "could be making more money doing 2 or 3 office procedures during the time it takes to drive to surgery center and prep for surgery, etc."), and that got me wondering: when/where do podiatrists get to do all the cool surgeries they trained to do during a 3-year surgical residency?

By work a day or two in the ER/hospital I guess you mean that the hospital would pay you?

You can be on call for the hospital and get paid when you go to see a patient if any come in that need podiatric care. You would get paid for your evaluation and any treatment that you render if the patient has insurance or is able to pay out of pocket.

Most podiatrists will end up in private practice of some sort: solo practitioner, associate to solo practitioner, partners in small group of pods, multi-specialty practice (ortho, pods, family practice, GI, infx disease, OB/GYN), kaiser, large group of pods, foot and ankle guy/gal in the ortho group. There are other options I'm sure, but these are the most popular.

Please shadow a few pods to see what it is like.

 

[cool_vkb]

foot and ankle guy/gal in the ortho group.

I dnt know "F & A guy/gal" sounds funny.lol!