I have looked on the "net" for Pod jobs and found only 2. Are there enough jobs for new grads every year? 7 schools x ~ 50 grads = at least >300 DPMs per year. Toe and efs please comment as were to look for jobs.
Originally posted by efs
I have heard of a couple of people that put together some pretty convincing material, and presented it to a hospital. The short end of it was that they convinced the hospital administrators that adding them would be profitable. In essence they created their own hospital based jobs.
This profession is wide open, you can do what you want to, but it may require some work on your part. Don't expect anyone to hand you anything, but force your way into what you think will work.
The services of DPMs are not needed currently (or not thought to be needed), and if nobody needs your service you don't make an income.
We can bicker about education all we wish, but awareness is not going to magically turn into profit, or a greater job satisfaction among prodiatrists, or opportunities for new podiatrists.
We're never going to join mainstream medicine unless we raise the standards for admission, lower the cost of attending, vastly improve the education to mirror a traditional medical education, standardize and improve the current residency system and spend a whole lot of money on lobbyists to make sure that podiatry doesn't fade away into the night. Do you think this is going to happen? I don't.
They learn EVERYTHING!
How is it any different for, say, an ophthamologist who is going to do a corneal transplant vs. a podiatrist who is going to perform a below the knee amputation? Neither of them are psychiatrists, dermatologists or general surgeons, but the ophthamologist went through a lot of training that the podiatrist didn't. They're both responsible for the post-op complications. They're both responsible for the general anesthesia. They're both responsible for the post-op care. The patient can expire in both cases. Why did the ophthamologist go through a more rigorous clinical experience than the podiatrist? Why should the ophthamologist be trained more as a "physician" than the podiatrist?? The podiatrist cannot "pass the buck" because he/she is a podiatrist. They have the exact same level of responsibility as any other doctor.
I feel that podiatry started out as chiropody and gradually added things like surgery and prescription rights. Chiropody education didn't require any hospital experience or any kind of "residency". As podiatry progressed, the exposure to traditional medicine also increased, but at a very slow rate. The educational experience also increased, but, again, at a slow rate. In my opinion, the two are not meshing very well and are both inadequate. They've kind of reached a zenith and are no longer moving forward. At the very least, if we are going to be inside a hospital as an intern, the schools need to PUT us in hospitals like the med students are and at least teach us how a hospital functions and what to do with an ICU patient (for example).
For me and many others, becoming a physician an almost sacred achievement. It signifies that you have proven that you are exceptionally competent, academically, intellectually and socially. You are the cream of the crop. You have earned the right to enter this rare world of human medicine and be trained as complete physician. To be called "physician", in my opinion, is something that is earned through long years of toil and sacrifice and only a handful of people are given this incredible reponsibility.
Originally posted by heelpain
Going off the topic a little...We could say the same thing for dental training too. Since, medicine is all connected; the dental students should have the same rotations as the med students. For instance, a dentist must know that under certain circumstances a root canal can cause damage to a sinus lining. Dentists treat patients for neuralgia. They would also benefit from doing a psych rotation. Unfortunately, there would be no time for all of these rotations.
Originally posted by Toejam
It might be a complex issue, but I don't see it that way.
When I was a 3rd year student, a few of my colleagues and I were so upset at our lack of clinical training that we set up a meeting with the then Dean of Students. He was nice enough, but basically said that the reason we didn't have more clinical training (mostly in hospitals) was because of money and not all hospitals would welcome podiatry students as regular medical students. This really deflated me, to say the least. At that point I really began to feel like a second-class citizen. I kept thinking to myself, "if it's money, why do other med students who are paying the same tuition as me and sometimes less have the opportunity to rotate through hospitals during their final two years"? And, if it's because we're podiatry students, then are we really being trained to be doctors, or some peripheral health care provider"?
The explanation that some hospitals were reluctant to have podiatry students as regular medical students REALLY ticked me off. I felt some serious indignation at this thought because I knew that our coursework in the first two years was at least 90% identical of what a medical student experienced. . . . .
They persistently look at pod students and podiatry as some kind of ancillary branch of medicine, but not as medical students and physicians. . . .