Podiatry Career Path

[toshpharmd]

I'm a little confused as to what the career pathway for a podiatrist is. Here is what I have so far:

1) 4 Years of Podiatry School; take the boards after 2 years of classroom learning and complete last 2 years in clinics

2) Apply for residency program of 3 years; does this allow you to pursue surgery?

3) Pursue a fellowship program; what benefits would this have and why would someone want to do this?

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[AnkleGuy]

Pursuing a fellowship gives you a number of benefits. For one, a podiatrist pursues a fellowship as a "specialization" training in certain fields of podiatry. For example you can get a fellowship in ankle reconstruction to become a "specialist" in that field in podiatry. Or a specialist in emergency surgery in the trauma center. Also it helps improve your resume quite a bit and helps you become much more employable. In podiatry reputation and what you have accomplished is pretty important because there's a wide range of qualified pod's in the field. This matters to many orthpedic medical groups and hospitals because for some reason the medical field still does not completely understand what podiatrists are qualified to do.

Yes a three year residency is mostly meant to train you for surgery. Most old school podiatrists that you see who didn't do an extensive residency aren't very surgery focused because they didn't train in surgery very much.

You forgot #4, which is to join the secret podiatry club where you get exclusive news about medical practices and exciting trends in medicine. There's pizza Tuesday and casual Fridays at club meetings. And yes, I've been drinking tonight.

 

[pacpod]

You are pretty much on with the pathway.

1. Four years of undergrad* (Not necessary for bachelors degree as long as you meet pre-reqs and 90 credit hours)
2. Four years of podiatry school
   1. Part 1 of boards (APMLE) is after your second year.
   2. Part 2 of boards (APMLE - written) is just before interviews in your fourth year.
   3. Part 2 of boards (APMLE - practical) was between August-October of your fourth year this year.
   4. 3. Part 3 of boards (APMLE) is immediately after you finish podiatry school in some states. Others (like mine) required I complete so many months of residency before being able to sit for it.
3. Three years of residency
   1. Sit for ABFAS/ABPM qualification exams at the end of your third year of residency
4. Post-Residency
   1. Job search
   2. Fellowship then job search
   3. Sit for ABFAS certification exam(s) and submit case collections after attaining the required cases and diversity.
   4. Sit for ABPM certification exam after passing the qualification exam.

My $0.02 on fellowships. Be careful when looking at fellowships. If the fellowship is not CPME approved or ACFAS approved, proceed with caution. Some people may start one for the purpose of hiring help for 50k/year and no benefits under the guise of a fellowship.
Fellowships aren't for everyone and tend to be for two different categories of people. First, people who are not confident in their surgical training from residency and want additional training. Second, people who want to "sub-specialize" or get focused extra training.