I think this is a interesting question. I am a 4th year student , and I have pondered this very question. Why are we (podiatrist) so gung ho on being called physician? Here is what I come up with.
It all comes down to money, in order for podiatrist to have parity with MD/DO in insurance reimbursement you have to fall in the physcian category (they get paid the most). That is why we fight so hard to be label that term.
The term itself really means nothing if you think about it in the real world. A GP , nurse pracitoner or dentist is going to treat a bacterial infection the same way I would, thats order abxs accordingly. Lets face it the ama which for the most part is main stream medicine does not consider podiatrists physcians although we have the same rights and responsibilities within our respective scopes of practice and held to the same standards as a "physcian". When we are sued by a patient for malpractice(hopefully this doesnt happen) the defense "I am not a physican", will not stop the jury from slapping your but with a huge judgement. Other than that its more about ego than anything else.
Now lets move on to the issue of training. I will be the first to tell you 3rd and 4th year for pod school is different than med school or DO school. In pod school your 3rd and 4th year can be easy as pie or hard as hell depending on the externships you choose. One externship exposed us to plastic sx (which was one of the coolest specialties I have been exposed to, although I wouldnt want to do it for a living), ortho, gen surg, and rheum plus podiatry. We would round at 5:30am to 6ish with gen surg (which I hated) then go to round with podiatry(usually avg 10 patients in house) at 6:30ish depending on how long gen surg rounds lasted. Then go to pod clinic until 2:00pm. After clinic we would cover the service we were assign to where you just didnt observe you participated fully ( for some reason when I get there they become busy). Those clinics would generally end around 7ish depending on the day and service and if you were not on any service for that afternoon you had podiatry preop or postop clinic. After that you had to catch up with the pod residents and do inhouse or ER consults, notes and any scutwork they came up with for you. After that, preop and post op case discussion and journal club . I wouldnt get out of the hospital until 10:30 or later sometimes just to do it all over again. Now that was a bi*ch! Another externship I had we started at 8😳oam and was done by 3:30pm and no weekends, you cant get any easier tha that. 3rd year our clinics start at 9:00am with class at 7:30am and we would get out the latest 4:00. Compared to the 3rd yr Med students I see in the hospital who bust their a** all day and some weekends (some saturday and sunday nights). There is a big difference in our education. Internal med rotation in the 4th yr for us at some hospitals is the watered down version although I hear different things at different hospital. In the 3rd year our internal med rotation (phys diag) is not even worth mentioning compared to med students 3rd year rotation. With that been said, Med student are NOT better trained than pod students we are the best trained at what we do and they are the best trained at what they do. I am just as competant to do a podiatry residency as they are to do internal med residency or whatever specialty they choose. (more to come)
CG
