This is a tough subject.
There is really,
REALLY a glut of "foot and ankle surgeon" nowadays.
After awhile of job search, the best they can do is the best they can do.
I would say to avoid the supergroups, but new grads take any decent base salary that they can find.
The supergroups just have very minimal learning value as they function different from most PP (rely on "ancillary services"). Even top grads are often taking very crusty jobs due to wanting an area, back to home/family, no better options, whatever. PE groups for podiatry are everywhere, and their base pay appears good (although it's nearly always just cut to ~30% collections after first year is over). It's easy to say "avoid them," but the honest truth these days is that you just have to know what to expect from them - and have an exit plan if they do take these ubiquitous podiatry supergroup jobs.
🙁
Example: the largest group in my state is PE now (was probably part PE a few years ago also, but now fully). Before the changeover, they had a mix of some TFPs and also some fairly good ABFAS BQ pods, a few were even BC. It was your typical 30% collection associate contracts, encouraged "grafts," protocols, many offices, revolving staff and docs, all that (offices in other states also). With the buyout/changeover, over half those decent-trained ones left immediately for other jobs (I had quit before all of that happened, but they lost 2 of the best 3 remaining docs immediately when they plopped down the "new contracts" for all of them to sign). Another fairly well-trained one stuck around a year or two (was a bit trapped as he'd "bought" a house), but he left last year, and only one well-trained was left (why... I have no idea). So, it was basically him and about 10 TFPs... group added a few new grads with below-average training also.
...Well, this year, same group actually hired a couple decent new grad hires (both residency at NM VA... fairly avg program, but "the best VA" and still many worse training programs). That's not a good harbinger for the DPM job market strength that this group basically fell apart... and are now getting decent grads again. I would bet that these two new ones won't be there at the PE job after a couple years, but who knows. It's their life. [I would actually like to see them stay as more well-trained DPMs are better for me, patients, area, profession rep, most things overall.] They will figure out how it goes and how supergroups run, but you never know what ppl value. The podiatry job market is very,
very saturated. It's an employer-slanted market with the massive debt grads have. You see even top flight residency/fellow grads taking these supergroup jobs now; that was unheard of even 10yrs ago (they'd work hospital jobs, ortho group, or at least multispec ones usually).
Sadly, the best you can do is the best you can do.
The supergroup jobs are very bad in areas with non-competes enforced for docs (knocks out out of whole metro or even half a state); they are somewhat bad in areas without non-compete (DPM can always jump ship to nearby hospital, other group, or start up solo). If grads do consider these supergroup jobs (sadly, 75%+ of DPMs coming out will have to at least consider them), it's important to contact an employ/medical attorney as many of the groups try to put in egregious non-compete radius (even if non-compete isn't enforceable at all in the state/area). They obviously don't negotiate the radius, but just know if it's real or a paper tiger. In the end, nearly any podiatry first job will be a "learning experience." 😐
...I still feel the best things for job seekers to do is, for any job they are pretty serious about, talk to as many of the group/hospital employee docs as possible. See what you can learn. They will probably just be all smiles and roses as it's their current job, but you never know. But ya, they're unlikely to say, "this supergroup gives me crap staffing, underpays us, no path to partner." But sometimes they have a bad poker face and the place is clearly not good.
The other obvious, and optimal, thing is to find out the group's turnover lately and try to talk to a DPM who's an ex-employee (or ex-partner, area competitor, etc). That is not always easy for normal PP jobs or hospitals, but it can definitely be the best source of info. For these supergroups, they have turnover of docs every year, so with some searching, it's actually pretty viable to contact a recently departed doc...
