While I agree that you should weigh the good aspects with the bad, my only problem with the Kansas example is that the poor circumstances are either a function of the state's (location's) lack of knowledge about podiatry (and consequently its inappropriate/limiting legislation) or the specific podiatrists' lack of business savvy (setting up/keeping practice in a state/location where conditions are unfavorable and continuing to stay there while doing nothing about it despite a dearth of available patients to see and/or diversity of procedures to perform.) I still think the profession itself is awesome regardless of these mitigating and (hopefully/possibly/presently) temporary circumstances in specific locations.
Also, I think the negative sites and forums are simply made by trolls and losers who, as jonwill said before, are lacking in some respect and want to rationalize their failures by blaming the profession rather than themselves. It's my belief that if someone works hard in school and strives for some sort of excellence (personal/professional/etc.) then the pattern isn't just going to stop once they graduate/go through residency; these types of people aren't going to just give up, roll over, and start complaining on internet sites once things get rough. These people will work hard after graduation/residency to improve their circumstances either by networking with the local medical community to improve the visibility of podiatry in the overall community, demonstrate their skills in hopes of doing the aforementioned, try to get some sort of political will going with patients/other podiatrists to improve legislation in their community, or move on to better pastures. Complaining about frivolous or fixable problems on the internet rather than trying to improve their circumstances is just lazy and defeatist on their part; this attitude is probably much similar to their attitudes throughout school.
On the salary thing, I don't know if this has been posted yet, but when I asked the first podiatrist I shadowed (who, btw, was truly happy with his profession and subsequent success despite being part of that over admission generation with a lack of residency spots) about different demographic and/or salary information, he called the APMA and they faxed over results from a survey taken by podiatrists in 2005 that had some of this info. Of course, only about 1/5 of podiatrists in the US (~3,000 out of 15, 000?) responded to the survey, but I thought it was satisfactory for my purposes (those purposes being pure curiosity.) I don't think there would be any school recruitment bias in this survey unless there are about 3000 podiatrists who, as individuals, are making a concerted effort to help out all of the schools at once.
Here's a summary on the APMA website:
http://apma.org/s_apma/doc.asp?CID=11&DID=19585
And if you want the survey methods, who responded, # years practiced, other useful info., etc., you can check out the whole article at:
http://www.japmaonline.org/cgi/cont...e=3/1/2006&tdate=4/30/2006&resourcetype=HWCIT
Of course, I don't know if the article is accessible to everyone, but I bet we can copy/paste some pertinent info. or something. This one was released in March/April 2006, so we might be able to wait a few months to get a newer report in order compare it to the info. provided.
One last thing: Is there a way to put a sticky post that addresses the blatantly negative/troll-filled websites like the network54 et al.? We don't necessarily have to state an opinion one way or another on the pros/cons of sites like this, but it'd be nice for people to know that people at SDN know about those sites and for those new to SDN/podiatry to see some thoughts on the reliability of these sites without having to start new threads all the time. I just remember when I first found out about pod and my excitement reading the SDN boards and then the subsequent-and, thankfully, ameliorated-disappointment/let down when first reading those other sites.
P.S.: What ever happened to Whiskers? Despite his/her negativity, at least he/she was funny. I miss the randomness.