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If one chose to do a Sports Medicine residency or fellowship, are they allowed to do knee surgery, is it considered lower extremity?
Question about Sports Medicine?
- Thread starter Haga
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It scares me that this question is being asked. That said, I'll leave it up to the more knowledgeable folks here to answer...
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seems like it can get confussing...
what if you have something affected your knee all the way down to the ankle/foot, or what do you do if you have to perform an amputation thats a little above the ankle or that's borderline? What can a pod do if problem or unjurt bridges from the foot to above the ankle?
what if you have something affected your knee all the way down to the ankle/foot, or what do you do if you have to perform an amputation thats a little above the ankle or that's borderline? What can a pod do if problem or unjurt bridges from the foot to above the ankle?
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Pods don't do knees anywhere. Knee is a surgical gold mine and ortho would never allow that (I certainly don't blame them). Also, knees would increase pod residency length, cause all kinds of unecessary conflict, and pretty much defeat the purpose of being a pod in the first place. We're foot and ankle experts... not entire leg. You certainly want to know the knee anatomy well since the joints all work like a chain biomechanical reaction, but a pod doing knees would be like having a hand surgeon do a rotator cuff... makes no sense when there are other guys who did different fellowships for that already.
Overall, 85% of foot surgery is done by pods. Pods do forefoot surgery virtually anywhere, and in some (well, actually most) states they do ankles if they have done the residency training for those certifications, it's in their state's scope, and they get hospital privelages for it. In the end, the rearfoot stuff is all fine and good, but pod started out as foot gurus and the best medical experts for those pathologies. If someone has a bad broken ankle, they just want it to work again. If they have a bunion, they want it perfect when it's done, and if they have a diabetic foot, they want you to save their foot as long as possible. The crazy trauma, pilon fractures, intermedullary nails, frames, etc generally hold a lot more interest for students and residents than they do for most practicing pods. It's good to know how to do all of that stuff and to have ex-fix, etc in your bag of tricks, but it's not really stuff the most pods do a whole lot of (there are cetainly exceptions such as residency directors, etc).
Overall, 85% of foot surgery is done by pods. Pods do forefoot surgery virtually anywhere, and in some (well, actually most) states they do ankles if they have done the residency training for those certifications, it's in their state's scope, and they get hospital privelages for it. In the end, the rearfoot stuff is all fine and good, but pod started out as foot gurus and the best medical experts for those pathologies. If someone has a bad broken ankle, they just want it to work again. If they have a bunion, they want it perfect when it's done, and if they have a diabetic foot, they want you to save their foot as long as possible. The crazy trauma, pilon fractures, intermedullary nails, frames, etc generally hold a lot more interest for students and residents than they do for most practicing pods. It's good to know how to do all of that stuff and to have ex-fix, etc in your bag of tricks, but it's not really stuff the most pods do a whole lot of (there are cetainly exceptions such as residency directors, etc).
D
Dr_Feelgood
No osseus scope of pods should never go past the tibial tuberosity. Even though scopes can be used for "soft tissue work" the knee is not our area. Foot and ankle orthopods generally don't scope the knee.
