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INOVA residents prob on same playing field as most other residents. Program’s attendings may have connections to land you some jobs, but most are prob crappy associate positions.
Post-residency salary inquires on SDN are plentiful. Use the search function and browse through the previous threads for more information.
Post-residency salary inquires on SDN are plentiful. Use the search function and browse through the previous threads for more information.
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I heard that most of them end up working for regional companies who just do nursing home care…
Ok but you should know that they specialize in trauma. So when grandma accidentally catches her long toenail on a sheet and splits it, they are ready to file the edges back down with an emery board.
Well, like many podiatry programs that used to have people do 2yr or 3 years and be done and be great surgeons, most grads now do a superfluous fellowship year. Since there are now almost 100 DPM fellowship spots (nearly all directed by guys who didn't do a fellowship!?!) with maybe only about 20-25 of those actually worthwhile, hopefully top program grads at least take one of the worthwhile fellowship spots. "Why do a fellowship if you already learned surgery in a good residency and it won't lead to any additional certification," you ask? Yeah, very good question. The answer is because you want to lecture, compete on paper with other go-getters for ortho/hosp jobs, you want to do a dozen more total ankles or triples (before inevitably having to do them on your own anyways)... or you plan start your own fellowship (kwayzee, huh?), etc.
But seriously, Inova or any of the top 25-50 name programs will tend to get more offers and be more competitive for good jobs. They will have nearly 100% board qual/cert pass rates. It is certainly a good place to be.
As someone presently in the job hunt right now, I can tell you that there is no world where all residencies are viewed equal. It's not even close. Networking and persistence can only get you so far before you need to have the goods, so the names on your CV, your case logs, and your boards and competence will make or break you. Some groups just want a bread-n-butter DPM, some (esp ortho or large DPM groups) want a heavily surgical one that many other DPMs or other docs can funnel cases to, most pod/MSG don't need amazing surgical skill but do prefer a ABFAS BQ/BC since they want you to take some call and are in a competitive metro where it's helpful to offer more services than the next group. I am fortunate to be competitive for all of those; at least half their applications half are not even close.
Some even want research chops for Univ or teaching hospital jobs (which I'm not very competitive for... but thankfully not too interested in either). Inova or PSL or DMC would always be more competitive than NoName-VA or ABC tiny community hospital. The former move to at/near the top of the list while the latter CVs often get discarded without even a return email or phone call. Does it automatically get you the job to have a solid program? No. The interview? Almost always. The only job where all would be considered equal is some junk associate job where they just want somebody who will accept low pay to do C&C (that place would probably rule out well-trained and BC docs since they wouldn't accept the pay or at least wouldn't accept it for very long).
If you have the grades to clerk or try to match for Inova, it's a very solid program and has been for awhile. Just ask the residents about what kind of jobs their alumni have taken. And then, after your 36mo there, you can enjoy your fellowship where you are somewhat likely to be more read and skilled than the director 🙂
But seriously, Inova or any of the top 25-50 name programs will tend to get more offers and be more competitive for good jobs. They will have nearly 100% board qual/cert pass rates. It is certainly a good place to be.
As someone presently in the job hunt right now, I can tell you that there is no world where all residencies are viewed equal. It's not even close. Networking and persistence can only get you so far before you need to have the goods, so the names on your CV, your case logs, and your boards and competence will make or break you. Some groups just want a bread-n-butter DPM, some (esp ortho or large DPM groups) want a heavily surgical one that many other DPMs or other docs can funnel cases to, most pod/MSG don't need amazing surgical skill but do prefer a ABFAS BQ/BC since they want you to take some call and are in a competitive metro where it's helpful to offer more services than the next group. I am fortunate to be competitive for all of those; at least half their applications half are not even close.
Some even want research chops for Univ or teaching hospital jobs (which I'm not very competitive for... but thankfully not too interested in either). Inova or PSL or DMC would always be more competitive than NoName-VA or ABC tiny community hospital. The former move to at/near the top of the list while the latter CVs often get discarded without even a return email or phone call. Does it automatically get you the job to have a solid program? No. The interview? Almost always. The only job where all would be considered equal is some junk associate job where they just want somebody who will accept low pay to do C&C (that place would probably rule out well-trained and BC docs since they wouldn't accept the pay or at least wouldn't accept it for very long).
If you have the grades to clerk or try to match for Inova, it's a very solid program and has been for awhile. Just ask the residents about what kind of jobs their alumni have taken. And then, after your 36mo there, you can enjoy your fellowship where you are somewhat likely to be more read and skilled than the director 🙂
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More like 99.9999%
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Nobody cares where you did your residency. You are still a podiatrist.
The only thing that matters from residency is if you got good enough training to do everything possible from conservative care to a surgical reconstruction of foot, ankle, leg.
If you did then your practice will have no limit allowing you to earn as much money as possible. That is the name of the game. Those with limited training limit their earning potential. PROVE ME WRONG
The only thing that matters from residency is if you got good enough training to do everything possible from conservative care to a surgical reconstruction of foot, ankle, leg.
If you did then your practice will have no limit allowing you to earn as much money as possible. That is the name of the game. Those with limited training limit their earning potential. PROVE ME WRONG
Yes, this is 100% correct. You always want the max training. It is foolhardy to limit yourself.
Doing basic residency training or failing boards will limit you to basically just most private practice, some MSG you can bamboozle, and very few hospital jobs (some rural/VA/IHS, etc). The vast majority of metro hospital jobs, MSG jobs, and probably half of private practice groups (most of the highest paying/producing) will be basically off limits with a lower quality residency or BQ/BC ABFAS since that is needed for most hospitals. It is never wise to be limited to essentially just the jobs that don't get better applications and interest.
Of course the bulk of your patients have no idea about training. The problem is that the training opens/closes doors which will cause the patients to easily find you or never find you. A lot of patients find you due to your group or your individual reputation.
The groups or hospitals hiring me don't really profit a ton when I do a peds flatfoot or ankle fx. It takes me time to plan, time to do the case, post-op visits, etc. What they DO care about is that if they don't have somebody in their group who does that work, then they lose a lot. The patient will never come to clinic or needs to get sent out if they do find a clinic without definitive care for it. They obviously lose that case and that kid as a patient... but in the coming years, they probably also lost the dad when he gets Achilles tendonitis, the kid's sister when she gets ingrowns, the mom for a fasciitis inject, the parents' neighbor who has a bunion and hears from them that your office is pretty good, etc. they want to become that family's F&A clinic, not let some competitor do that since they couldn't handle the work. So, they do profit quite a bit in the long haul.
Again, just because you don't learn recon or trauma or whatever, that doesn't mean the schedule just fills with warts and RFC and heel pain and easier stuff. No, it's not the end of the world if you can't or don't, but it is VERY beneficial to be able to treat it all, that will max your job options since that is what employers and referring docs are looking for. Give the ppl what they want 🙂
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Yes, this is exactly what it is:
It is business owners/partners in podiatry PP, hospital DPMs, ortho group DPMs, MSG DPMs, etc who are generally in charge of the hiring.
However, it is not specific facilities and is not the minority... it is the majority of groups/facilities. Also, it's not discrimination; it is merely preference to metrics and considering historical success of training since they're trying to predict success from the hire. It would be just like if you were hiring an office manager for a large podiatry group... if you had some candidates with training from Wharton or Brown or Harvard... and some without, which would you prefer? If you had some with exp in running other large medical or even podiatry groups and others without, which would you prefer? If some had their MBA or CPC or BA while others didn't, which would you prefer? It is not discrimination... it's simply about finding the person who is likely to do the best at the job.
I have had plenty of jobs where I was knocked out of the interviewing at some point in the process for the same reasoning (not enough exp, not BC yet, other candidates with better residency/fellowship than me or same training place as the hiring DPM, they picked a candidate who grew up in the city, not enough published research, etc). Likewise, I have discarded dozens of applications for spots at my past PP and MSG jobs for the same reasons when I am helping them screen for interviews of the ones that are most likely to get full area hospital privileges, will have maximal patient offerings, and do well in the group. There is simply no way or desire to interview them all, and there will always be filters. Sure, you will see primary care DPMs, minimally trained, etc in hospitals/MSG... but you have to realize many of those weren't hired to that situation... they were already there when the group was bought out by the supergroup or hospital.
The same logic goes for hospital privileging: it will almost invariably be a DPM gatekeeper who is fairly well trained - or at least delegates the credentialing to one who is. The hospital part can get a little more complex in some competitive places where even somebody who did UPMC residency and Cottom fellowship still won't get ankle privi or ankle referrals just because of the area and politics or because they're DPM not MD, but those are getting a little more rare.
...I say it all the time, but it is not a death blow to do an average or even poor residency. It is fairly restrictive to fail ABFAS, though. If a DPM ends up in one or both of those situations, they just have to get more creative. Solo practice typically becomes the best option (since the other main road is the associate mills). Most hospitals and MSG are off limits (for gatekeeper reasons above), but they can keep trying and trying and look for one that has never had a DPM before or one that has trouble finding/keeping a podiatrist (usually rural or VA/IHS). You will find the occasional group that is expanding fast and just needs bodies. They can try to play the hometown card in their home state or near their residency area, they can network and network and network more to find a group that might need their skill set, or they can even try to undercut on salary to see if a group will bite despite subpar CV. Those methods can work, and I have seen it done with success many times. It is sometimes just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. No doubt. The guy who trained at Coney Island and is working in an ortho group (doing surgery, not just orthotics and injects) is definitely the exception and not the rule, though. So, in the end, it is always better to never put yourself into that uphill battle to begin with... and Inova is one of the programs that will ensure you don't start off with one hand tied behind your back.
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Great post Feli. No more IHS??
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Inova has been producing strong DPMs for a long time. I would rank the program if its a good fit.
If I were in charge of hiring our next DPM and an Inova grad put their name in the bucket they are getting an interview. But thats because I know several Inova grads and I respect all of them. I know they trained well.
If I were a non podiatrist hiring it wouldnt matter because I have no idea and I would pick the yale DPM grad for the interview.
If I were in charge of hiring our next DPM and an Inova grad put their name in the bucket they are getting an interview. But thats because I know several Inova grads and I respect all of them. I know they trained well.
If I were a non podiatrist hiring it wouldnt matter because I have no idea and I would pick the yale DPM grad for the interview.
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I tend to agree with you. In my experience even many pod attendings aren't up to date on which programs are good. I went to a historically very strong program that was below average to terrible in a lot of ways during my time there. The vast majority of the pods I interviewed with assumed my program was still as amazing as it was in the 80/90's and especially the older pods immediately assume my training was the best. Even alumni from my program had no idea how far it had fallen.
To a non-dpm, the challenge is even greater. They may never have heard of the better podiatry residencies, so a more recognizable name, like the yale or wake forest program, appears better. Same idea applies with a fellowship, a pod with a fellowship is immediately superior to a pod without one, to some in the non podiatry world.
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This is a very important statement. Most Podiatrists, unless they are very actively involved in a Residencies haven't a clue about the status of programs. And they really have no need to. Once out of residency, your professional goal is to build a practice. To support your family. And it takes a lot of effort to do that.
I will admit that even though I am heavily involved in our local residency, I don't make an effort to keep up with what the others are doing at all. I mostly hear it from Externs, and that's it. I just don't have the time to be that involved in something that doesn't effect me at all. And Podiatrists out there who don't work with residents...they truly couldn't care less.
Ya, it wasn't for me.
I think the VA/IHS stuff is fine if you "grow up" in that environment or are looking to relax at the "last job," but the lack of efficiency and no incentive to produce annoys you if you are accustomed to private podiatry/ortho/MSG and trained that way. I had too many mornings where I only got two cases done since the OR starts ~0800 and turnover is over an hour. It is an environment where seniority and networking (brown-nosing) the boss gets better hours and better pay... productivity is minimally considered. It almost seems like it is a contest among docs (and all staff) as to who can take the most days off for vaca/sick/conf, block their schedule for meetings, etc. That is encouraged by the govt setup because they still get the same pay regardless of whether they do 100 or 10 surgery cases per year and whether they see 7000 or 2000pts in office per year.
It was a cool exp and some interesting cases... and you save a lot of money due to the rural low cost and few things to waste money on, but it's not for everyone. I also think my girlfriend was ready to be back in civilization. Every location and supervisor is different, though... not a terrible place to get your numbers for boards and smash down loans, and for those who can look past the inefficiency, some locations might even be good enough for the long haul.
I will be going back to eat-what-you-kill setup in a large west DPM group/supergroup setup... can update sig link when contracting is final. I considered buyout of a solo retiring doc, but he had an emotional attachment to the office and wanted way too much for what it had produced lately (tale as old as time!). I also looked at another East supergroup and a SW conventional public
Yes, this is a very key point.
Unless it's a program known to be dynamite, I always recommend attendings hiring grad residents look at the PRR case logs and possibly call the director. I just had a successful west coast PP doc text me yesterday, "hey, do you know anything about XYZ Chicago program?" It was a crap program (aren't 95% of Chi ones?), but he was screening a potential associate and I just suggested to him how to have the resident send him logs so he can evaluate that person or others. Sure, logs or the director discussion doesn't show you what the resident can do, but it at least shows you what they were exposed to. The logs are preferable since the director will be biased, but at least he/she can tell you what types of cases the program focuses on. After residency, they can just look for ABFAS BQ/BC or PLS logs primarily.
At the end of the day, it is a personal decision. You can't fake it in the OR once the time-out is starting. Do we want to be excellent at surgery or have a great CV? There are plenty of fairly average podiatry programs with a great Ivy league or well known hospital name associated, and some are adequate and some are junk. Fellowships are the same way... most of them add very little skill outside the top few, but it is a CV boost just to say "fellowship-trained." As you said, a HR person or MD might bite on the name Harvard or UPenn or Yale even though almost anyone in podiatry knows Preseby St Lukes or Dekalb or Grant are quite a bit better.
Conversely, there are plenty of programs with little name value outside podiatry (Detroit and Kentucky programs are probably best examples of that), and you will have done 500-1000 more procedures than the programs - yet you need to plan to push your case logs and explain your competence in most place.
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Don't get me started on this crap. I graduated from a good program. Have close to 5 years of experience. Done thousands of cases from toes to TARs. Board certified in foot and ankle/rearfoot. Built a program at hospital from nothing to a 1000 RVU a month practice.
Please tell me how a fellowship trained DPM is superior to me? The answer is........they are not.
He is just talking about non-DPMs evaluating podiatry CVs. The majority of them will be intrigued by a fellowship.
He wasn't attacking you though... simply saying that Joe Blow, HR MBA might think Suzanne Ivy who did "Harvard" residency 3yrs and then a 1yr fellowship is better than Becky Plain who went to Swedish residency 3yrs and direct to practice. Sure, anyone in podiatry with half a brain would give strong preference or higher offer to the latter, but that's not the case for MD/HR types - and even some DPMs who are out of touch with training.
And yes, fellowships are bogus... we all know that. The very fact the the majority of fellowship directors are 2 or 3yr trained with no fellowship themselves tells you that fellowships are superfluous. The only couple dozen fellowship spots worth doing are taken by graduating residents who don't need them (already did name programs... already very good surgeons... already highly competitive for good jobs) just to pad CV and compete best for ortho/univ/lecture jobs. The other remaining fellowships are not too useful and basically only for people who did a subpar residency to get more cases or wanting "fellowship-trained" on the CV.
My residency class in 2012 was the second-to-last to not even apply for fellowships. We had one of the longest running good surgical programs 40+ years where nobody had done a fellowship afterwards (besides some mini-AO). Nobody needed to. Soon after that, some people from my program caved in to the trend and were doing fellowship, some residents I trained from other very good Michigan programs were doing them and asking me for fellowship rec letters, etc. l honestly think that, for many of them, they didn't find a job they wanted and just took a fellowship to network more and beef the CV. I know of a couple where one did a specific fellowship to try to get a job with the group that runs the fellowship. That is crazy to me... basically a one-year job internship?!?! Now, don't get me wrong, if I were an immortal vampire living 1000yrs+, then I might do one of the fellowships with a real elite surgeon I like who has a diverse refer base just to see cool stuff and for my academic interest. But we don't live forever, the training at good programs is plenty good, you can always watch videos or read articles on the oddball cases, and you have to take the training wheels off sometime.
That still doesn't change the fact that the average non-DPM might think 4yr Wycoff >> 3yr Jewish... or fellowship >> non-fellowship. Doing interviews in my last year of residency, I seriously had one southern hospital tell me that they had another candidate who did a *podiatric dermatology* fellowship and ask why I didn't do or plan to do a fellowship! No joke. I had to try to keep my composure as I explained to them that I can do anything the patients might need (and left out why that 'fellowship-trained' candidate was almost surely a wound wizard or derm diva who is unlikely to be able to even do a gastroc or 5th met fx well). Now, in fairness, I think that was CPME and not ACFAS fellowship, but the point is simply they don't know and like the "additional training" when doing the screening interviews and narrowing down the candidates.
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Was not feeling attacked. Just saying that fellowship trained DPMs are not special. And they are not more experienced or better surgeons than 3 year trained DPMs who did a solid residency, board certified, and have significant clinical and surgical experience in practice.
I was fortunate to land a hospital job but I got one because I created the position by picking up the phone and calling.
Most hospital jobs that are posted online these days won't even consider a non fellowship trained DPM. Fellowship still doesn't mean good IMHO.
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I guarantee you that was someone from the programs who send residents to GA to sit around the Bako offices for 2 weeks. I’ve seen multiple people who have done that listing “Podiatric dermatology fellowship” on their CVs/Bios.
They aren’t “fellowship trained,” they hung out with Brad for 2 weeks. Probably partied. Maybe did coke. Either way I’m sure it was a good time. And nowhere near a “fellowship,” which is what any random hospital CMO or admin would assume. You put fellowship somewhere and they are going to have a traditional allopathic 1+ year fellowship in their heads. They have no idea and probably didn’t even bother asking the candidate to explain it.
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Brad made me take care of his dog.
Then he made me feel like I owed him for being there. Instead of teaching me he talked about how much he hated his ex wife and how much money he’s made in his career, his Tesla, and talked about his boat.
He invited me to go on his boat but the day we got there it was in maintenance and he proceeded to have a melt down and scream obscenities on the dock like a child.
Then he made me anesthetize myself with local and perform a skin biopsy on myself while he watched.
Alpharetta, GA sucked terribly.
“Great experience”
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That's about par for the course from what I've heard. Why would anyone subject themselves to that? No need to have be around that.
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My residency program made me. Waste of time
