Practice options for pods

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koolboy

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so I understand that pods are able to work in clinic and at hospitals. And I realize that freedom allows a pod to do as much or as little in each area as he prefers.

My question(s) are these:

working in a practice, how many patients would you see on average? I am interested in pediatric podiatry, so I would like to focus on that rather than handling cases of diabetes and nail care.

if a pod worked in a hospital, which patients would you see? Say that none of the inpatients were admitted by you. What would a pod be required to do in this case? I only ask because I shadowed a doctor and on a particular day, he told me that I would not be able to shadow him because he had to do alot of rounds at the local hospital

thanks in advance for clearing up my confusion

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I had a similar question regarding pediatric podiatry so I brought it up with the podiatrist I shadow. I asked him of any local pediatric podiatrists in the area and if all his patients were children or majority children. My podiatrist said that even though he specializes in pediatric podiatry, he doesn't see many children (not many need to be seen I guess) and that the bulk of his work is also for adult patients (including nail care, etc). I'm not sure how it is for other pediatric podiatrists, but that was the case for this particular podiatrist.
 
working in a practice, how many patients would you see on average? I am interested in pediatric podiatry, so I would like to focus on that rather than handling cases of diabetes and nail care.

There really isn't a "right" answer for this question. I know you'll hate that, but it's honestly the truth. It all depends on the practice that you have - is it a 9-5, M-F practice? Are you 24/7 on call? Are you in a group? Where are you located? Etc, etc, all these questions affect how many patients you have.

Just a word of advice: one thing I'd be hesitant to do if I was you would be to "choose a specialty" before getting to school/residency. I ran into this with dentistry, and it has made my career choices very difficult and stressful - try to keep an open mind with podiatry as a whole, not just peds. That being said, (I have no idea if this is what you meant/feel or not) if you are "grossed out" by diabetic wound care/fungal (or diabetic) nail care, podiatry might not be the career for you. Again, I don't know if that's what you were insinuating or not. Remember that you have 7 years schooling/residency where it will be obligatory that you deal with diabetes and nail care.
 
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I am interested in pediatric podiatry, so I would like to focus on that rather than handling cases of diabetes and nail care.

When you get into practice you have to be willing to do and see it all. It takes years to cultivate a niche in your practice, and even though you may want to only see kids in your practice, there are only a very few who achieve this goal, and it takes years of schmoozing to get there.
 
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