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Dr. Gangrene

AZPOD 2011
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I have always wondered why there seems to be a lot of peeps who can't choose between pod and dent. Maybe it is lifestye? If anyone knows, let me know!:laugh:

Anywhoo, if you have questions related to this subject, comments that are appropriate, or just want to express your general feelings on the matter, post them here. This should consolidate random dent, dat, dent vs. pod threads.

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I was originally predent but after applying for two years and not getting in, I shadowed a podiatrist and decided to change over. It wasn't the fact that I didn't get in that made me quit trying to become a dentist. It was the fact that the dental adcoms that I have dealt with are extremely high on themselves and they act that dentistry is the profession that will save the world. I just don't think that they treat everyone equally and they can be very rude. When I interviewed at podiatry school, the schools were very nice and willing to work with you in every aspect of the application and interview process. Personally I see it as dentistry looks at every one as a number, if you try to get information about your application they always seem to remind you that they have 3000 applicants for their 80 spots. I was treated professionally by the podiatry schools and they looked at me as a whole and didn't focus on only one aspect of my application. GPA is huge in dental school and I agree that it should be important but it shouldn't be the only criteria. They say that the DAT is important but to tell you the truth if you have average or less than average grades then you better have an excellent DAT in order to even be looked at. Podiatry schools from what I have seen on my own part look at the whole application and score based on every aspect. In my opinion podiatry schools show a lot more class and respect to applicants.
 
Hey
You have totally taken words right out of my mouth. I also applied to dental school 2 times and just was treated like crap anytime I tried to contact them or find out what I could do to improve my app. etc... Anyway, I was just sick of not knowing the right person or not having a 25 on the DAT like they claim all the other students did. I went to a podiatry interview after shadowing a down to earth podiatrist and I just cant tell you how happy I am. The school was amazing, the people were soo friendly and made me feel that I am an asset to the school. I have decent grades but my DAT def. put me over the top, so I agree that you better have a high exam score if you expect to get in. Goodluck and great post
 
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I got the same situation and agree with both of you as well for the most part. I am happy that I didn't get into dental either, because I've fallen in love with this field. But much of it also has to do with the number of applicants as well. I'm sure if there are 3000 applications to each of the podiatry schools the egos will all go up as that of dental. The same applies to MD schools dental was not always like this they didn't even have an interview process just straight applications in the early 90's so it all depends on competition.
 
I got the same situation and agree with both of you as well for the most part. I am happy that I didn't get into dental either, because I've fallen in love with this field. But much of it also has to do with the number of applicants as well. I'm sure if there are 3000 applications to each of the podiatry schools the egos will all go up as that of dental. The same applies to MD schools dental was not always like this they didn't even have an interview process just straight applications in the early 90's so it all depends on competition.

I agree with you. I believe that competition is what is making dentistry horrible. They have been getting so many applications that they forgot how to respect the applicants as people and not numbers. It would be great for podiatry if they get those kind of applicants but let's hope they don't forget how to treat people.
 
Hey
You have totally taken words right out of my mouth. I also applied to dental school 2 times and just was treated like crap anytime I tried to contact them or find out what I could do to improve my app. etc... Anyway, I was just sick of not knowing the right person or not having a 25 on the DAT like they claim all the other students did. I went to a podiatry interview after shadowing a down to earth podiatrist and I just cant tell you how happy I am. The school was amazing, the people were soo friendly and made me feel that I am an asset to the school. I have decent grades but my DAT def. put me over the top, so I agree that you better have a high exam score if you expect to get in. Goodluck and great post

yup exact same situation. 2 years in a row.... shadowed pod... changed my mind :D
 
Why is it that so little people apply to podiatry vs dental? If I understood the charts on aacpm, it appears that 696 people applied for 2005-6 and of that, 552 students matriculated to be first year podiatry students at their respective schools. Am I understanding this correctly? These odds seem much better than for dental students applying.
http://www.aacpm.org/html/statistics/stats_applicants.asp

Secondly, what are considered the top specialities in podiatric medicine? (comparable to ortho or oral surgery in dental). Are the top podiatric specialities equally as tough for students to get in to and only take the top 5%? I'm really interested in the sports medicine aspect of podiatry.
 
Why is it that so little people apply to podiatry vs dental? If I understood the charts on aacpm, it appears that 696 people applied for 2005-6 and of that, 552 students matriculated to be first year podiatry students at their respective schools. Am I understanding this correctly? These odds seem much better than for dental students applying.
http://www.aacpm.org/html/statistics/stats_applicants.asp

Secondly, what are considered the top specialities in podiatric medicine? (comparable to ortho or oral surgery in dental). Are the top podiatric specialities equally as tough for students to get in to and only take the top 5%? I'm really interested in the sports medicine aspect of podiatry.

some big things that come into mind is because of the popularity of a podiatry.. ive honestly never heard of anyone going to a podiatry where as ive been to a dentist atleast 50 times in my life and know people that are or have gone...

there are more dental schools, which means more publicity and more widely known..

BASICALY COMES DOWN TO popularity
lol
hah
Danny
 
Why is it that so little people apply to podiatry vs dental? If I understood the charts on aacpm, it appears that 696 people applied for 2005-6 and of that, 552 students matriculated to be first year podiatry students at their respective schools. Am I understanding this correctly? These odds seem much better than for dental students applying.
http://www.aacpm.org/html/statistics/stats_applicants.asp

Secondly, what are considered the top specialities in podiatric medicine? (comparable to ortho or oral surgery in dental). Are the top podiatric specialities equally as tough for students to get in to and only take the top 5%? I'm really interested in the sports medicine aspect of podiatry.

visibility is a big factor - many simply don't know enough about the profession, while most don't know at all. Very few go into this field thinking "I want to be a DPM" without having some sort of exposure to podiatry. Also, many people have false misconceptions - i.e. assume that we study "4 years of feet", have no post-graduate training, and have limited job opportunities. Again, alot of this has to do with a lack of exposure to the public, but this is something that has been noticeably improving over the past 5 years at least, which I believe is attributed to more consistent surgical training.

As for the "odds" for applying versus dental schools, you should probably keep in mind that this is a total statistic for all 8 schools. The reality is that some schools have higher standards than others - and as a result, their matriculating statistics are much higher and are in fact, comparable to top professional programs. The ones that accept more students (some of which are underqualified, and unfortunately fail out after a year or two) tend to do so because they need the tuition money to survive - as they are private institutions first and foremost. And this again goes back to the factors that I mentioned in the first paragraph.

As for "specialties", we typically have two options in residencies - a 2 year asurgical residency vs a three surgical residency. The 2 year only allows us to sit for the forefoot surgery boards, but the 3 year allows us to sit for the reconstructive rearfoot, and ankle boards as well. There are fellowships available after residency, but the purpose of these is to further someone's training or interest in a particular area i.e. diabetes, sports medicine, and pediatric surgeries, and further surgical routes.
 
Hey,
I was just surfing SDN and came across this thread, it's really quite interesting, I wish I knew more about podiatry. I actually shadowed a podiatrist before deciding on dentistry. Are there any other residencies available besides the 2 year and 3 year surgical?
 
Hey,
I was just surfing SDN and came across this thread, it's really quite interesting, I wish I knew more about podiatry. I actually shadowed a podiatrist before deciding on dentistry. Are there any other residencies available besides the 2 year and 3 year surgical?
All residencies are trending towards the PMS-36 (3 year surgical... forefoot + rearfoot board elgibility) model. Some of the residencies which do not get enough RF trauma cases will remain PMS-24 (2 year surgical... only FF board elgibility). There used to be PPMR (primary podiatric medicine residency), RPR (rotating podiatric residency), POR (podiatric orthopaedics residency) and other 1 year models more focused on well-rounded - and typically non-surgical - basic podiatry, but those are being phased out.

While there are only two different "types" of residencies now, there are still vastly different programs. One PMS-36 might be markedly different from another. Some may be your inner city level 1 trauma centers or surgical hospitals where residents will be in the OR almost all day every day, and those residents might cover their required surgical volume 3-5x over and have very little time for primary or conservative care podiatry (nails, corns, calluses, etc). Other programs will have much lower, yet still adequate, surgical volume but be highly focused on academics, medically managing podiatry inpatients, and resident research/presentations. There are programs which are known for diabetes focus and wound care/plastics teaching. Also, there are still plenty of the "old school" residencies which offer exposure largely to toe and forefoot surgeries with a good volume of routine conservative care like nails, tinea/verruca, orthotics, padding, etc. While some of those "classical podiatry" residencies may less competitive or viewed as boring due to low surgical volume and trauma, they teach skills that will pay the bills and some of them actually tend put their graduates in great shape upon completion due to a lot of office exposure and reptitions with the "buisness side" and billing codes/paperwork of podiatry.

In the end, it all depends what you want to do. Some residencies will make you Mr. Trauma who can fix any ankle or foot fracture but has barely done any nail care or filled out an insurance billing form in the past 3 years. Some programs might get you published 5 or 10 times by graduation and have you set up well to obtain the fellowship of your choice or join a university faculty upon completion. There are ones where you will leave knowing the ins and outs of running a practice and ready to join a booming business or even start your own right out of residency. Ideally, you want a reasonable balance since podiatrists are viewed as comprehensive foot and ankle experts. The "best" residency for a particular person might depend on what they see themself doing, though...

The only problem with the residency models is that pretty much every pod wants to do surgery, and now we're all trained for it (well, some much better than others, but still...). It essentially ends up that, after graduation, most average practicing pods do 3-4 days of clinics per week and 1 or 2 days of surgery. I'd like it more if it was like dentistry where only the best grads got surgical residencies, so they did surgeries nearly every day in practice and perfected them. Likewise, other pods would become quite excellent at primary care, podopeds, sports podiatry, wound healing, etc and just refer out their surgeries to the best qualified colleagues... much like dentistry.
 
All residencies are trending towards the PMS-36 (3 year surgical... forefoot + rearfoot board elgibility) model. Some of the residencies which do not get enough RF trauma cases will remain PMS-24 (2 year surgical... only FF board elgibility). There used to be PPMR (primary podiatric medicine residency), RPR (rotating podiatric residency), POR (podiatric orthopaedics residency) and other 1 year models more focused on well-rounded - and typically non-surgical - basic podiatry, but those are being phased out.

While there are only two different "types" of residencies now, there are still vastly different programs. One PMS-36 might be markedly different from another. Some may be your inner city level 1 trauma centers or surgical hospitals where residents will be in the OR almost all day every day, and those residents might cover their required surgical volume 3-5x over and have very little time for primary or conservative care podiatry (nails, corns, calluses, etc). Other programs will have much lower, yet still adequate, surgical volume but be highly focused on academics, medically managing podiatry inpatients, and resident research/presentations. There are programs which are known for diabetes focus and wound care/plastics teaching. Also, there are still plenty of the "old school" residencies which offer exposure largely to toe and forefoot surgeries with a good volume of routine conservative care like nails, tinea/verruca, orthotics, padding, etc. While some of those "classical podiatry" residencies may less competitive or viewed as boring due to low surgical volume and trauma, they teach skills that will pay the bills and some of them actually tend put their graduates in great shape upon completion due to a lot of office exposure and reptitions with the "buisness side" and billing codes/paperwork of podiatry.

In the end, it all depends what you want to do. Some residencies will make you Mr. Trauma who can fix any ankle or foot fracture but has barely done any nail care or filled out an insurance billing form in the past 3 years. Some programs might get you published 5 or 10 times by graduation and have you set up well to obtain the fellowship of your choice or join a university faculty upon completion. There are ones where you will leave knowing the ins and outs of running a practice and ready to join a booming business or even start your own right out of residency. Ideally, you want a reasonable balance since podiatrists are viewed as comprehensive foot and ankle experts. The "best" residency for a particular person might depend on what they see themself doing, though...

The only problem with the residency models is that pretty much every pod wants to do surgery, and now we're all trained for it (well, some much better than others, but still...). It essentially ends up that, after graduation, most average practicing pods do 3-4 days of clinics per week and 1 or 2 days of surgery. I'd like it more if it was like dentistry where only the best grads got surgical residencies, so they did surgeries nearly every day in practice and perfected them. Likewise, other pods would become quite excellent at primary care, podopeds, sports podiatry, wound healing, etc and just refer out their surgeries to the best qualified colleagues... much like dentistry.

Thanks for the very thorough answer, that was very informative. I read some other posts about how people though pods weren't respected enough in the medical community, but from my knowledge I would have to disagree with this. My sister had to get implant surgery on her midfoot to correct overpronation (in both feet) and we did not think twice about who to go to. Podiatrist are without a doubt the experts in that field, so why in the world would MDs, DMDs, or DOs question their legitimacy? Like other's have said, in the healthcare industry we all rely on each others unique specialty training like a team to help treat patients. When an general physician finds that his knowledge about a particular part of the body trails off he refers to a specialist, whether that be an MD/DO who sepcialist, a DPM for the foot and ankle, or a DMD for facial structure and dentition.
 
Thanks for the very thorough answer, that was very informative. I read some other posts about how people though pods weren't respected enough in the medical community, but from my knowledge I would have to disagree with this. My sister had to get implant surgery on her midfoot to correct overpronation (in both feet) and we did not think twice about who to go to. Podiatrist are without a doubt the experts in that field, so why in the world would MDs, DMDs, or DOs question their legitimacy? Like other's have said, in the healthcare industry we all rely on each others unique specialty training like a team to help treat patients. When an general physician finds that his knowledge about a particular part of the body trails off he refers to a specialist, whether that be an MD/DO who sepcialist, a DPM for the foot and ankle, or a DMD for facial structure and dentition.

I wish everyone would see it the way you do, because that's the right attitude! I have a friend who is a pharmacist (PharmD) at the hospital and he tells me how his colleagues feel marginalized. An Anesthesiologist on one of my cases referred to his profession as "red-headed stepchildren." My Orthopedic surgeon brother-in-law called his profession "blue collar surgery." It goes on and on. Everyone feels as if they drew the short straw, and the grass must be greener elsewhere. Everyone just do your job and appreciate that you're doing good for someone.

Nat
 
Well Stated!!:thumbup:
 
All of you should come over to the optometry forums once in a while!! You all have a great attitude and the right idea!! It is very admirable what the podiatry profession has accomplished and how they have solidified thier position in the medical community. Optometry should take notes!
 
I was pre-dent initially, or at least for the last 9-12 months. Did the pre-dental society, shadowed multiple dentists, specialists, etc for my entire last semester, sent in my AADSAS, the works. However, the more I thought about it, the competition just to get into the schools was going to be tough for me (average grades) and even worse I'm sure once you get into school. I saw an oral surgeon work and thats what I wanted to do, like everyone else, and realized that its nearly impossible for dental students to get into that program (being only top %5 or so). Ultimately, I really wanted to do surgeries. I learned about podiatry when someone mentioned that I could use my DAT scores for applying. I've read the SDN, met with a few practicing pods, researched the field as much as I could, and I really love it. I was just down at Temple the other day (live outside Philly) and shadowed one of the professors there at their clinic and toured the facilities. Out of all my shadowing experiences with dentists to compare to, this was my favorite. The doctor and I just sat talking about me, him, our lives, how he got into it/why I want to get into it. It was just a genuine experience that I have not had. It was really the tipping point in my decision making. I like how in the field, you are a specialists. You can diganose and try to analyze the situation and come up with a treatment through rehab, medicines, or surgery - the best of both medical worlds (if you watch Scrubs which I love, I can be Turk and JD at the same time). I aspire to be like [SIZE=-1] Dr Richard Steadman (knee specialist in CO) but for the ankle. I want to be a team podiatrist in whatever city I live. The doctor I shadowed at Temple previously was the team pod for the steelers and pirates out in Pittsburgh. I always wanted to do something like this and specialize in the lower extremity region and never knew how much a pod does until recently. I know I will never mock anyone who is thinking about the field. You really need to look into it or understand it all before you can pass judgment, which I think is something a lot of people don't do. They hear pod = feet = clipping nails, fungus = disgusting. Its really unfortunate for them but lucky for us to have people in this field who truly understand and love what they are doing.
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I have always wondered why there seems to be a lot of peeps who can't choose between pod and dent. Maybe it is lifestye? If anyone knows, let me know!:laugh:

Anywhoo, if you have questions related to this subject, comments that are appropriate, or just want to express your general feelings on the matter, post them here. This should consolidate random dent, dat, dent vs. pod threads.

I know some pre-dents switch to podiatry as a back-up because some podiatry schools accept DAT scores... not that this should be the only reason for pursuing podiatry, but I'm sure it's a factor.
 
I know some pre-dents switch to podiatry as a back-up because some podiatry schools accept DAT scores... not that this should be the only reason for pursuing podiatry, but I'm sure it's a factor.

I think this was more of the case in the past few years when enrollment dropped for pod schools and they began accepting different placement tests besides the MCAT. However, I believe this may change somewhat as 5 of the 8 pod schools switched to "MCAT only" for the upcoming application cycle (september 2007)
 
I think this was more of the case in the past few years when enrollment dropped for pod schools and they began accepting different placement tests besides the MCAT. However, I believe this may change somewhat as 5 of the 8 pod schools switched to "MCAT only" for the upcoming application cycle (september 2007)

Do you think podiatry schools will ever administer a podiatry admissions test, equivalent to the MCAT or DAT?
 
Do you think podiatry schools will ever administer a podiatry admissions test, equivalent to the MCAT or DAT?
I don't really think it's nescessary; it would cost quite a bit for pod or DO schools to create, analyze, and modify their own new test which would be largely similar to the MCAT anyways. MCAT works fine as a prognostic indicator since the programs are pretty similar. If pod schools need any new test revamping, it's probably with the step board exams for students.

I hope all pod programs quit taking the DAT soon. Nothing against the exam, but it just was designed only as a prognostic indicator for dent programs, not others. I like that the MCAT has physics; that's highly useful in physiology as well as just seeing if a student/applicant can think logically.
 
Who chose POD over dental w/o applying to dental first. I applied with "below average" grades and I never felt belittled or as if the adcoms were high and mighty. I had some hard questions during my interview about grades and they were valid questions.

All fields of medicine are relevant and each has it's place however, dental should not get a bad rap because of a few jaded applicants that did not get accepted.

-C
 
Nobody here is saying anything that is not true. Many of us have had bad experiences with dental and if you read through most of the forums "generally" pod schools are friendlier and get more involved with the applicants. I'm glad you had a good experience and honestly it's refreshing to know at least some people had some good experiences. I had fairly high marks and above average DAT score myself but I felt my experience with pod schools was much more pleasant. Either way, nobody is here to bash dental schools or pod schools. I think it is just good to share your personal experience with others to maybe give them an idea of how things MAY be when they go through the process. I know for darn sure that if I knew about SDN a few years earlier, my application process would have been 1000x easier
 
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