promote podiatry.....

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anyone ever went on this site /
 
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I started a pre-podiatry club at my school to help get the word out to students and get more people interested in the career..... If every school had a podiatry club I bet the amount of people applying would increase and therefore so would the admission standards. The podiatry schools were also really happy to see on my app that I had started a pod club.
 
NYCPM is a big promoter of podiatry. after my mcats they inundated my email with solicitations, and it worked. even though im probably going somewhere else, they got me interested enough to check out the field.
 
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One of the problems is that if you just stated to a kid that is pre-professional and you just mention to him that you just need a 3.25 GPA and you are accepted and you still get to eventually become a doctor I know a bunch of kids that wouldn't care for what podiatry does and just drop being pre-DO to go to POD.
But again it is kind of the profession where if you know about it you will like it or hate it. Either you would like working on feet or you would get disgusted with working on feet all day.
I have realized that I want to be a DPM over a PA, now I just have to tell my parents of my decision.

Another thing. If I promote podiatry to my pre-PA group at MSU I would get laughed at b/c it would sound like after 3yrs of realizing I want to be a PA I switch in a matter of one semester...oh wait that is what I did.

There are always those kids that just want to become a doctor for the money and NOT the autonomy or altruism, and I feel as if you mention the GPA requirement to get accepted and the money you would make some kids would join it just for those two reasons. I am also basing the fact that at my Honors College here at MSU I run into a lot of those kids that don't care about what they do in life as long as they make good money.
 
I agree, Podiatry should be more highly promoted and so people know that they are part of the "medical teams."
 
it will probably be looked down and viewed as a crappy profession if the academic requirements do not get more competitive.. even 30/40 years from now
 
hughesn2 said:
One of the problems is that if you just stated to a kid that is pre-professional and you just mention to him that you just need a 3.25 GPA and you are accepted and you still get to eventually become a doctor I know a bunch of kids that wouldn't care for what podiatry does and just drop being pre-DO to go to POD.
But again it is kind of the profession where if you know about it you will like it or hate it. Either you would like working on feet or you would get disgusted with working on feet all day.
I have realized that I want to be a DPM over a PA, now I just have to tell my parents of my decision.

Another thing. If I promote podiatry to my pre-PA group at MSU I would get laughed at b/c it would sound like after 3yrs of realizing I want to be a PA I switch in a matter of one semester...oh wait that is what I did.

There are always those kids that just want to become a doctor for the money and NOT the autonomy or altruism, and I feel as if you mention the GPA requirement to get accepted and the money you would make some kids would join it just for those two reasons. I am also basing the fact that at my Honors College here at MSU I run into a lot of those kids that don't care about what they do in life as long as they make good money.
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if your post was pertaining to me, then I don't think you understand what I was saying... the point of starting a pre-pod club was not to say "hey you can get in with a low gap/ mcat and make great money." The point is because many undergraduate students have no idea what podiatry even is... this is part of why the entrance stats are lower.

For instance, at the student club fair this year the pre-pod club was wedged right between the DO and MD clubs, a couple of the DO kids laughed at first thinking of it as a fall-back choice but then they asked me what podiatry even is... they had no clue. By having the club people get to learn about podiatry first hand. NYCPM has already visited my school this year and presented, and quite a few pre-DO pre-MD students have signed up for the club.

What I was saying is that if you guys would really like to promote the profession, get a head start on it by promoting your college peers. Even if the pre-med students don't switch to podiatry they will get a better understanding as to what it is, and that will only help us to achieve parity in the future as many current pre-med kids are future doctors.
 
im all about promoting the profession and raising the caliber of students, as long as they enter after me and dont make it harder for me to succeed. OK? 😀
 
I was about to say...that thread appears to be full of a number of a DPM's who couldn't cut MD/DO and hopped on the podiatry train to be called "doctor".
 
preDO12345678 said:
anyone ever went on this site /
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Can't believe website like this would exist in the 21st century.

At least make it attractive 😀 The web design looks like it's from the...errr...80s? Even the ones I did in elementary school was way better 🙄
 
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golfandmedicine said:
if your post was pertaining to me, then I don't think you understand what I was saying...
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No, it was not pertaining to you. I am saying the kids I know at MY school that know that they can get into DPM with a 3.3 GPA instead of the need to take more classes to get into PA school.

And I also love this comment: "im all about promoting the profession and raising the caliber of students, as long as they enter after me and dont make it harder for me to succeed. OK?"
That is entirely true. If I tell all these other pre-professional students at MSU "Oh hey, by the way you can go to DPM school and make $100K a year for your entire life or you can go into PT, PA, or Nursing and take a many years to get into the $100K region"
The people I know would start to re-think. If I promote Podiatry school to 15 other pre-professional students then there are 15 more people I have to compete with.
 
hughesn2 said:
No, it was not pertaining to you. I am saying the kids I know at MY school that know that they can get into DPM with a 3.3 GPA instead of the need to take more classes to get into PA school.

And I also love this comment: "im all about promoting the profession and raising the caliber of students, as long as they enter after me and dont make it harder for me to succeed. OK?"
That is entirely true. If I tell all these other pre-professional students at MSU "Oh hey, by the way you can go to DPM school and make $100K a year for your entire life or you can go into PT, PA, or Nursing and take a many years to get into the $100K region"
The people I know would start to re-think. If I promote Podiatry school to 15 other pre-professional students then there are 15 more people I have to compete with.
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Not necessarily true. When I tell people I'm going into podiatry, the first reaction I get is "eww feet, I don't think I could do that". It may be a lower standards, but some people just shy away from the lower extremity.
 
Shinobiz11 said:
Not necessarily true. When I tell people I'm going into podiatry, the first reaction I get is "eww feet, I don't think I could do that". It may be a lower standards, but some people just shy away from the lower extremity.
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This is what I get as well, and I think this will keep the market from getting too flooded.
 
hughesn2 said:
One of the problems is that if you just stated to a kid that is pre-professional and you just mention to him that you just need a 3.25 GPA and you are accepted and you still get to eventually become a doctor I know a bunch of kids that wouldn't care for what podiatry does and just drop being pre-DO to go to POD.
But again it is kind of the profession where if you know about it you will like it or hate it. Either you would like working on feet or you would get disgusted with working on feet all day.
I have realized that I want to be a DPM over a PA, now I just have to tell my parents of my decision.

Another thing. If I promote podiatry to my pre-PA group at MSU I would get laughed at b/c it would sound like after 3yrs of realizing I want to be a PA I switch in a matter of one semester...oh wait that is what I did.

There are always those kids that just want to become a doctor for the money and NOT the autonomy or altruism, and I feel as if you mention the GPA requirement to get accepted and the money you would make some kids would join it just for those two reasons. I am also basing the fact that at my Honors College here at MSU I run into a lot of those kids that don't care about what they do in life as long as they make good money.
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Hey, I'm at undergrad at MSU too. Heavily involved with the Pre-Med Association and I've been trying to think of ways to promote DPM as another option/path to becoming a physician. I don't know if there's enough demand for a Pre-Pod group (considering our organization only has a tiny fraction of premeds at MSU, and only a fraction of them show up to meetings/events) but I guess we could always get a DPM to speak at one of our meetings.
 
pacpod said:
This is what I get as well, and I think this will keep the market from getting too flooded.
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I know! Look at all the miserable posts about market oversaturation in the pharmacy and optometry boards. Quite depressing.

Does anyone know when the APMSA website is going to be completed? It got hacked a while ago, and they're now working on trying to revamp it. It could have alot of potential, you know.
 
90watt said:
I know! Look at all the miserable posts about market oversaturation in the pharmacy and optometry boards. Quite depressing.

Does anyone know when the APMSA website is going to be completed? It got hacked a while ago, and they're now working on trying to revamp it. It could have alot of potential, you know.
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I asked that in a thread a month or so ago and they said right around the new year (pretty sure that was the response...). So, hopefully in less than a month?
 
HopefulSpartan said:
Hey, I'm at undergrad at MSU too. Heavily involved with the Pre-Med Association and I've been trying to think of ways to promote DPM as another option/path to becoming a physician. I don't know if there's enough demand for a Pre-Pod group (considering our organization only has a tiny fraction of premeds at MSU, and only a fraction of them show up to meetings/events) but I guess we could always get a DPM to speak at one of our meetings.
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I agree. At MSU most of the pre-professional people (especially in Briggs) are either DO, MD, PA, or PT. I don't know anybody that knows that much about DPM. I went to pre-PA groups but I am not going anymore since I have switched completely to DPM over PA.

Also, another issue I had with MSU and DPM was that when I went to see Janae Currington, who is suppose to be the Natural Science's best ALL Pre-Professional advisor, and she had no clue what Podiatry schools were. She couldn't even give me any advice on DPM school. I went to her to schedule an appointment assuming she would know something about Podiatry school and she was a waste. I woke up at 8am on my day off so I could listen to her tell me "I know absolutely nothing about Podiatry school, SORRY!"
 
hughesn2 said:
I agree. At MSU most of the pre-professional people (especially in Briggs) are either DO, MD, PA, or PT. I don't know anybody that knows that much about DPM. I went to pre-PA groups but I am not going anymore since I have switched completely to DPM over PA.

Also, another issue I had with MSU and DPM was that when I went to see Janae Currington, who is suppose to be the Natural Science's best ALL Pre-Professional advisor, and she had no clue what Podiatry schools were. She couldn't even give me any advice on DPM school. I went to her to schedule an appointment assuming she would know something about Podiatry school and she was a waste. I woke up at 8am on my day off so I could listen to her tell me "I know absolutely nothing about Podiatry school, SORRY!"
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I saw Mo Gerhardt (who I personally think is the best counselor in NatSci, but I'm pretty biased and the only other one I've met with is Heidi Purdy who is good too) earlier this week and he actually had a pamphlet from a podiatry school on his desk. First time I've seen that. Preprof advising has some stuff on podiatry school on their website, so you'd think all the counselors would be on the same page. When it comes to advising, the vast majority of the information the advisors have is nothing new to us industrious types who look take time to research our options anyways.
 
We hosted NYCPM at GVSU just NW of you guys in lansing this semester, I invited all of the pre-health advisors to the event and now they all have tons of pamphlets in their offices and are learning more about the field since they know there are interested students... not to say it would work out the same way at MSU though... MSU seems to push MD and DO since they offer those programs.
 
My advisor has a squishy foot thing that says "Scholl" on it. It's sitting on her desk!
 
hughesn2 said:
I agree. At MSU most of the pre-professional people (especially in Briggs) are either DO, MD, PA, or PT. I don't know anybody that knows that much about DPM. I went to pre-PA groups but I am not going anymore since I have switched completely to DPM over PA.

Also, another issue I had with MSU and DPM was that when I went to see Janae Currington, who is suppose to be the Natural Science's best ALL Pre-Professional advisor, and she had no clue what Podiatry schools were. She couldn't even give me any advice on DPM school. I went to her to schedule an appointment assuming she would know something about Podiatry school and she was a waste. I woke up at 8am on my day off so I could listen to her tell me "I know absolutely nothing about Podiatry school, SORRY!"
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I'm sorry you were dissatisfied with your appointment, but just some clarifications as there seems to be some confusion: I never said that. I have information all over my desk about podiatry schools and also talk with them on a regular basis and know quite a bit about the profession as well as being a competitive applicant. I also regularly promote it as a viable options for students who are interested in health professions. Perhaps you are mistakingly recalling a meeting with a different advisor, as I certainly remember our appointment. Also, there is no "best ALL Pre-Professional advisor" in our office. All of our advisors are well trained and there is no ranking between us.
 
I'm still blown away at the fact that you had to see an adviser to learn about a particular field. Are people that lazy that they can't use google and read the information themselves? Do students think advisers have some magical knowledge that isn't public?
 
jonod1107 said:
I'm still blown away at the fact that you had to see an adviser to learn about a particular field. Are people that lazy that they can't use google and read the information themselves? Do students think advisers have some magical knowledge that isn't public?
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That's very true
 
jonod1107 said:
I'm still blown away at the fact that you had to see an adviser to learn about a particular field. Are people that lazy that they can't use google and read the information themselves? Do students think advisers have some magical knowledge that isn't public?
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Only thing I am gonna say to rebuttal to my one time adviser, but I knew about the profession. I just thought it would be a smart idea to ask someone who I thought would be great knowledge other than people on here or just using Google, but in my case I don't believe it was as effective as it had been with my other college adviser. I could care less if the adviser I saw ONCE has a huge disagreement with me b/c I felt disrespected for when I asked more about podiatry.
And no, I did not see a single sheet of paper during that half hour meeting that said PODIATRY on it.
 
hughesn2 said:
Only thing I am gonna say to rebuttal to my one time adviser, but I knew about the profession. I just thought it would be a smart idea to ask someone who I thought would be great knowledge other than people on here or just using Google, but in my case I don't believe it was as effective as it had been with my other college adviser. I could care less if the adviser I saw ONCE has a huge disagreement with me b/c I felt disrespected for when I asked more about podiatry.
And no, I did not see a single sheet of paper during that half hour meeting that said PODIATRY on it.
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I just want to say that this happens a lot since Pod has changed a bit over the 5-10 years.
The school I went to was super pre-med with a medical school of its own. I would say about 20% of each graduating class goes into MD, DO, Dental, or Vet school so you would think that my school knew about Pod right? Nope. I remember going to the career center and read a book about Pod school that was so old, it only had 7 schools of pod on there.

My pre-health adviser had no idea that Pod schools are starting to accept Health Committee letters that med schools accept. I pretty much learned everything about Pod on the sticky on this forum and the application FAQ.
 
How did you start your club?
 
I'm pretty sure pod schools could quickly and easily up their GPA and MCAT standards. They definitely have enough of an applicant pool to make things a bit more competitive, but they just chose to do so at a ridiculously slow pace. They're filling a niche in stats under DO which follows under MD.
 
Moose A Moose said:
I'm pretty sure pod schools could quickly and easily up their GPA and MCAT standards. They definitely have enough of an applicant pool to make things a bit more competitive, but they just chose to do so at a ridiculously slow pace. They're filling a niche in stats under DO which follows under MD.
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The only way what you are suggesting would happen is if the schools accepted about 40% less students across the board. In other words, they don't really have the applicant pool.
 
MaxillofacialMN said:
The only way what you are suggesting would happen is if the schools accepted about 40% less students across the board. In other words, they don't really have the applicant pool.
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Hmm. Residency shortage solved, and podiatry becomes a competitive field. Unfortunately, the pod schools would go bankrupt with such a policy being enforced.
 
Moose A Moose said:
Hmm. Residency shortage solved, and podiatry becomes a competitive field. Unfortunately, the pod schools would go bankrupt with such a policy being enforced.
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In all seriousness, podiatry should really be looking to increase their enrollment by at least 1.5x (I'm more in favor of something like 3x with expanded scope (e.g. primary care in rural settings, etc etc)).

That's an interesting notion you've brought up there - the inevitability of pod schools bankrupt if they accept less students. How sure are we that is inevitable? If certain podiatry schools can remain solvent at 30 students, how can we suggest that another NEEDS 120 students to keep their doors open? Obviously their financial model would need to change, but I don't think any reasonable person would suggest some of the larger schools would go bankrupt if they took less students.

This is particularly interesting when we think of schools like Midwestern. It has about 30 students, and is the second newest program. That means it has about 25-33% of the students of some of the larger schools with like 1% of the supporting alumni base. I'm not well versed in finances of professional schools, but I know for undergraduate institutions a significant portion of the operating costs are covered by alumni donations. Obviously this isn't the case for Midwestern. Sure they take classes with DOs so there is redundancy, but there is no way the DPM program is operating at a loss.... right?

All that being said, I'm really not a huge fan of the CPME invoking enrollment caps on schools just because I think the free market would do a better job, but unfortunately a lot of the schools will over-enroll and dump their graduates out on the streets without residencies and it would take a few years for the market to stabilize after the restrictions are lifted. People will start getting excited when we dump a couple hundred students without residency...

Man, what an exciting Saturday night I'm having....
 
Schools with multiple degree offerings will be able to generate multiple income streams and spread overhead costs across their student population.
 
heybrother said:
Schools with multiple degree offerings will be able to generate multiple income streams and spread overhead costs across their student population.
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Don't all schools have multiple degree programs (exception NYCPM). I get there are facility costs associated with Temple and KSUCPM that wouldn't be associated with some of the shared campus schools, but is it really all that significant? NYCPM had a significantly lower class a few years ago (i think?), and their campus was in New York - talk about overhead costs! Again, I don't pretend to know the inner-finances of running a school, but perhaps we shouldn't care if they can sustain themselves, I don't know.

On the other hand, we could get three new Westerns spring up to take the numbers of a Temple and because they are smaller they might have better "numbers" or whatever.

What a mess we've gotten ourselves into!
 
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