Should podiatry students call themselves medical students?

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I like how all the MD/DO students are like "Stoopid pods, U no doctur! We da only fee-zi-tions, u no doctur, big silly. Me da Big BOY, you small silly" While the nursing lobby is in congress with a battering ram changing state laws for Nurse Practitioners on getting parity with half the training.

How are you not banned?

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[Goro]

How are you not banned?

Nobody has reported him?

 

[Windom Earle]

I'd want to know more about where you are enrolled and what you've enjoyed about your studies thus far and how you got interested in that profession. And maybe you'd be interested to know more about me, too, and we could have a conversation. I'm more interested in people than in labels or titles.

I wish there were more people like you out there. Many of my peers, physicians, and family members think podiatry is a joke.

 

[deleted480308]

Care to elaborate?

it's not medical school. it's still a valuable and useful trade, but it's not medical school

 

[LizzyM]

it's not medical school. it's still a valuable and useful trade, but it's not medical school

do you insult all the professions or just podiatry?

 

[Lawpy]

I don't think it's insulting to say that podiatry school is not medical school unless you already believe podiatry is less than medicine. They're different schools and different careers. That's it. Differentiating the two doesn't mean one is better than the other.

Podiatry is a branch of medicine. It's not a different career. If anything, podiatry should be a medical specialty with residency/fellowship programs for medical graduates rather than a separate education pathway altogether.

 

[GypsyHummus]

Is DO school medical school? If so, why? What prevents Podiatry from being medical school, especially those that take classes literally side by shade with DO students (western, az, DMU).

it's not medical school. it's still a valuable and useful trade, but it's not medical school

 

[Lawpy]

I agree completely, but until that happens, it IS a separate education pathway with a different name.

Right but podiatry isn't a separate career from medicine. Podiatrists are physicians. It's the same reason why DOs are physicians despite having a separate education pathway. Podiatrists are focused on the diagnosis/management/treatment of foot and ankle diseases just as DOs are generally focused on using OMM/OMT in their diagnosis/management/treatment plan (granted they don't necessarily use OMM but they learned it in school).

 

[bobtheweazel]

I don't think it's insulting to say that podiatry school is not medical school unless you already believe podiatry is less than medicine. They're different schools and different careers. That's it. Differentiating the two doesn't mean one is better than the other.

This guy's got it right. They're really quite different careers. I mean other than the 4 years of undergrad, 4 years of professional school, at least 3 years of residency, independently treating patients, prescribing medications, admitting patients to the hospital, performing surgeries, all within the parameters of your specialty, they're completely different.

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[Lawpy]

This guy's got it right. They're really quite different careers. I mean other than the 4 years of undergrad, 4 years of professional school, at least 3 years of residency, independently treating patients, prescribing medications, admitting patients to the hospital, performing surgeries, all within the parameters of your specialty, they're completely different.

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So you think podiatry is a different career from medicine? What do you mean by "different career"? It's just a medical specialty.

Unless you're being sarcastic and I missed that

 

[de Ribas]

I thought this thread was closed back in March.

 

[bobtheweazel]

So you think podiatry is a different career from medicine? What do you mean by "different career"? It's just a medical specialty.

Unless you're being sarcastic and I missed that

Sorry, I was being sarcastic. That's why I said they're completely different careers (unless you count the reasons I listed as to why they're essentially indistinguishable). I agree that podiatry is essentially just another medical specialty. The public has already realized that, most states have already realized that, most hospitals have already realized that, it's just some premeds, some med students, and some MDs with big egos who haven't realized it, but they're in the minority by far.

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[Lawpy]

Sorry, I was being sarcastic. That's why I said they're completely different careers (unless you count the reasons I listed as to why they're essentially indistinguishable). I agree that podiatry is essentially just another medical specialty. The public has already realized that, most states have already realized that, most hospitals have already realized that, it's just some premeds, some med students, and some MDs with big egos who haven't realized it, but they're in the minority by far.

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Agreed. My bad for misunderstanding. That's why I suggested to @Goro earlier that having a sarcasm font helps

 

[deleted480308]

do you insult all the professions or just podiatry?

It’s not insulting to an apple to say it isn’t an orange

I still like apples just fine

 

[Lawpy]

It’s not insulting to an apple to say it isn’t an orange

I still like apples just fine

it's not medical school. it's still a valuable and useful trade, but it's not medical school

Might as well not consider DO schools to be medical schools but recognizing it's "still a valuable and useful trade".

 

[deleted480308]

Might as well not consider DO schools to be medical schools but recognizing it's "still a valuable and useful trade".

you do you, consider it what you want...

 

[Lawpy]

you do you, consider it what you want...

I'm saying your argument is illogical and I can just extend it to say that DOs aren't physicians. Arguing that DOs are physicians while podiatrists aren't is inconsistent.

 

[Lawpy]

Again, I 100% agree that podiatrists are physicians and they have earned the right to be called doctors. But the SCHOOL is different. You cannot go to MD/DO school and become a podiatrist. You cannot go to podiatry school and become any other kind of doctor besides a podiatrist. Thus, there is a difference between podiatry school and medical school.

ETA: And just glancing at the curricula for a few podiatry schools, I'm seeing some differences in the curriculum as well. There is a lot of overlap, but also a lot of courses that are obviously more focused on foot/ankle stuff than any class I have taken in medical school. So the coursework obviously has some differences as well.

If podiatrists are physicians, podiatry students are medical students. I can make a similar argument regarding differences in curriculum to say that students at new DO schools and DO branch campuses aren't medical students because their schools have weaker curriculums (or different curriculums focusing too strongly on OMM) and weaker clinical rotation sites.

 

[de Ribas]

Again, I 100% agree that podiatrists are physicians and they have earned the right to be called doctors. But the SCHOOL is different. You cannot go to MD/DO school and become a podiatrist. You cannot go to podiatry school and become any other kind of doctor besides a podiatrist. Thus, there is a difference between podiatry school and medical school.

ETA: And just glancing at the curricula for a few podiatry schools, I'm seeing some differences in the curriculum as well. There is a lot of overlap, but also a lot of courses that are obviously more focused on foot/ankle stuff than any class I have taken in medical school. So the coursework obviously has some differences as well.

DO and MD schools also have some differences in curriculum and exams. As well as chances to get into certain residencies.

 

[deleted480308]

I'm saying your argument is illogical and I can just extend it to say that DOs aren't physicians. Arguing that DOs are physicians while podiatrists aren't is inconsistent.

when podiatrists are entering FM/IM/EM/gen surg/psych/etc at acgme residencies I'll agree with you....right now I don't

I'm cool with disagreeing

 

[Lawpy]

when podiatrists are entering FM/IM/EM/gen surg/psych/etc at acgme residencies I'll agree with you....right now I don't

I'm cool with disagreeing

What you should realize is despite the scope of podiatry being restricted to foot and ankle focus, podiatry students can apply and match into medical and surgical residencies and fellowships that serve as the "foot/ankle" versions of most of those specialties you listed. That's why I said in my earlier posts that if we were to merge everything together in medicine, podiatry would be a medical specialty for graduates to apply to (and thus no different from FM/IM/EM/gen surg/psych).

I disagree with your first sentence. Just because the end result is similar in regards to the career does not mean the training is identical, which is the original discussion in the thread. NPs and PAs have similar roles and responsibilities in the clinic, but a PA would never say they were in NP school or vice versa. Somebody with a masters in social work and a masters in clinical counseling can both go on to become counselors, but those degrees are not interchangeable.

MD and DO training are not identical either. MDs don't have to waste time and effort studying for OMM, COMLEX and DO shelf exams.

For your second sentence, that's not "a similar argument" because I'm not making an argument about one curriculum being weaker than another. They are just different. Can a dental student say they are in medical school? What's the difference? They do 4 years of undergrad, 4 years of professional school, can do residencies, independently treat patients, prescribe medications, admit patients to the hospital, and perform surgeries too.

DO curriculum is necessarily different from MD curriculum. That's why the DO accrediting body exists in the first place to ensure these differences persist.

Dental students can say they're medical students if they want. Dentists are viewed to be doctors of oral health by the American Dental Association so I have no problem viewing them to be physicians. Just because they focus and specialize on one area doesn't mean they aren't doctors.

 

[deleted480308]

What you should realize is despite the scope of podiatry being restricted to foot and ankle focus, podiatry students can apply and match into medical and surgical residencies and fellowships that serve as the "foot/ankle" versions of most of those specialties you listed. That's why I said in my earlier posts that if we were to merge everything together in medicine, podiatry would be a medical specialty for graduates to apply to (and thus no different from FM/IM/EM/gen surg/psych).

We don't agree here...we aren't going to

 

[Lawpy]

We don't agree here...we aren't going to

I guess I don't see why you don't think podiatry is a branch of medicine. At this point, we're just discussing opinions vs facts.

 

[de Ribas]

I disagree with your first sentence. Just because the end result is similar in regards to the career does not mean the training is identical, which is the original discussion in the thread. NPs and PAs have similar roles and responsibilities in the clinic, but a PA would never say they were in NP school or vice versa. Somebody with a masters in social work and a masters in clinical counseling can both go on to become counselors, but those degrees are not interchangeable.

For your second sentence, that's not "a similar argument" because I'm not making an argument about one curriculum being weaker than another. They are just different. Can a dental student say they are in medical school? What's the difference? They do 4 years of undergrad, 4 years of professional school, can do residencies, independently treat patients, prescribe medications, admit patients to the hospital, and perform surgeries too.


All US DO and MD schools have to meet certain criteria through the LCME and whatever the DO accrediting body is. Podiatry schools have different criteria. All US MD and DO schools offer the opportunity to take the same board exams. Podiatry schools do not. All MD and DO students have the opportunity to go into any specialty. Podiatry students do not.




And again: I'm absolutely not saying podiatry is inferior to other medical specialties. It's not. And if you are continually taking "different" to mean "bad," then perhaps that is a result of your own internal biases.

Are Caribbean schools meet criteria of LCME and do they have exactly same curriculum as US MD schools?

What about FMGs? They complete med school in other countries. They have different standards.

If I am correct, about 20-25% of all US practicing physicians are IMGs and FMGs.

 

[Lawpy]

But again, you are illustrating that they are currently different training paths. I agree that it would make sense to merge them. But right now they're different schools and residencies. The end result is a physician, yes, but medical school and podiatry school are not interchangeable.

There is still significant overlap between the podiatry and medical curricula that's been discussed in depth by podiatry students and residents. I defer to them since they know more about podiatry than I do.

But I'm glad we reached an agreement that podiatrists are physicians.

There are variations in curriculum between and among MD and DO schools, yes, but the differences are not so great that DO students cannot sit for the same boards, apply to the same residencies, etc. That's the difference.

DO students had their own residencies that they can apply to before the residency merger. MD students couldn't apply to those DO residencies. Even after the residency merger, program directors at former DO programs have expressed strong interest/favoritism for DO students based on title alone. Same goes in the other direction, where MD residencies filter out DO students based on degree alone. So degree differences play a role when applying for residency.

MD students don't take COMLEX. DO students are mandated to take COMLEX but are free to take USMLE. There are still significant differences between the two. The only point of disagreement here is you don't think these differences are significant enough.

But do you think it's accurate if a dental student says they're in medical school?

I have no problem personally. I don't think there is a clear definition on which definition of medicine is accurate since there have been too many differences and separations that have happened historically and politically.

If medicine = US MD + US DO + IMGs + podiatry where everything is merged under a single unifying system, I wouldn't consider dentistry to be medicine under this framework.

 

[Lawpy]

Curiously, osteopathy isn't considered medicine outside of US.

The Difference Between U.S.-Trained Osteopathic Physicians and Osteopaths Trained Abroad

I don't have a clear, universal and objective definition of physician. There are too many arbitrary distinctions that arose due to historical and political reasons.

 

[GypsyHummus]

Now there is uniformity in residency accreditation, but even now, DOs dont have to take the USMLE, just like pods dont have to take the USMLE. If a DO takes the COMLEX, does this mean they are less of a physician vs someone who took the USMLE? I soppose that is why there is an effort to standardize MD and DO.

Just like the DOs use to have, Pods have thier own accrediting body. Are DOs who graduated before the merger still physicians? What exactly constitutes a "physician"?

Also, to my knowlage, there are two schools in California that have started letting their DPMs take the USMLE. We shall see if they adopt this to all pod schools.

All US DO and MD schools have to meet certain criteria through the LCME and whatever the DO accrediting body is. Podiatry schools have different criteria. All US MD and DO schools offer the opportunity to take the same board exams. Podiatry schools do not. All MD and DO students have the opportunity to go into any specialty. Podiatry students do not.

 

[GypsyHummus]

If a dental student had the same curriculum as a MD, DO, or DPM student, I would say yeah, its accurate that a DDS student says their in medical school.

If a dentist goes on to do a residency in dental medicine, I dont think its outside the realm of possibility for them to be considered "physician" in the eyes of the law. This is just my speculation however. And dental students can go to MD school to become oral surgeons.

But do you think it's accurate if a dental student says they're in medical school?

 

[GypsyHummus]

Its a joke to people until they have foot problems. Then they are on the podiatry bandwagon.

I wish there were more people like you out there. Many of my peers, physicians, and family members think podiatry is a joke.

 

[Lawpy]

But DO students have been able to apply to MD residencies for some time now, correct? And before that was the case, I would have used the qualifier "osteopathic" when describing DO medical students.

As in you'd call them osteopathic students? Or osteopathic medical students?

Yeah, and some PDs filter out students below a certain step 1 score or students who have failed classes or students who didn't have enough research. The personal preferences of PDs at certain programs is different from not being able to apply to any medical residency program at all

Even some specialties are becoming increasingly out of reach for DO students.

Yeah, exactly. This is what I've been trying to say all along.

Then we have to disagree because the differences are in fact significant to the point that going to DO schools becomes a sort of a career handicap that closes doors before starting education.

I mention the DO stuff to counter the arguments that used differences in curriculums and residency applications to say that podiatry students aren't medical students. The distinctions are made too arbitrarily and inconsistently and I can use them just as well to show DO students aren't med students.

The argument that could be reasonable is the scope of focus but podiatry students said their curricula overlap a lot with the med students. Dental students say similar. There's a lot of preclinical overlap in early part of the education with differences arising at the clinical level.

Regardless what labels we use, MDs, DOs, IMGs, podiatrists and dentists are all medical professionals and experts in their fields so I'd easily put them on top of the healthcare organization. I don't mind nor care if podiatry students and dental students call themselves as med students.

 

[DexterMorganSK]

This thread has run its course people..time to lock it away!

 

[FutureSurgical]

I think podiatry should be a medical specialty and podiatry schools should be converted into residency and fellowship programs. Podiatry is a branch of medicine and podiatrists are physicians. Due to historical and political reasons, the podiatry leadership decided to keep podiatry separate from medicine.

But what would the difference be between that and say, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in foot and ankle surgery? Or a SM practice that takes in a lot of cases to treat foot and ankle injuries/pathologies?

 

[Lawpy]

But what would the difference be between that and say, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in foot and ankle surgery? Or a SM practice that takes in a lot of cases to treat foot and ankle injuries/pathologies?

There would be some reorganization in the fields once podiatry gets reintegrated back into medicine. There is already overlap between medical specialties anyways (see interventional cardiology vs cardiac surgery etc.) so the answer becomes specialty specific.

 

[bobtheweazel]

But what would the difference be between that and say, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in foot and ankle surgery? Or a SM practice that takes in a lot of cases to treat foot and ankle injuries/pathologies?

There are differences since podiatry is a regional specialty rather than a systems based specialty (ortho) or a sports medicine type of specialty. Podiatrists regularly deal with derm, ortho, neuro, vascular, and infectious foot/ankle/leg problems including surgery and things like sports medicine and wound care.

So that's a significant difference from ortho who may do foot and ankle surgeries but isn't really gonna be treating fungal infections or doing diabetic foot exams and wound care. And it's also significantly different from sports medicine which is a nonsurgical specialty and again probably isn't gonna be doing a lot of the other things podiatrists do in the foot/ankle area.

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[Windom Earle]

I don't think it's insulting to say that podiatry school is not medical school unless you already believe podiatry is less than medicine. They're different schools and different careers. That's it. Differentiating the two doesn't mean one is better than the other.

It's called "podiatric MEDICAL school." And podiatrists get a "DOCTOR of Podiatric Medicine" degree.

 

[DexterMorganSK]

Then say you're a podiatric medical student. Not just a medical student.

lol

In that case, I hope you call yourself either an Allopathic or Osteopathic medical student and not just a "medical student"

 

[LizzyM]

I took issue with podiatry being called a "trade" rather than a profession. I thought that was an insult to what is a profession.

 

[deleted480308]

I took issue with podiatry being called a "trade" rather than a profession. I thought that was an insult to what is a profession.

I don’t see a difference in denotation between a trade and profession but I guess there might be a connotation depending on your background.

I spent most my adult life working with manual/skilled labor tradesmen. It’s not an insult from me

 

[LizzyM]

I don’t see a difference in denotation between a trade and profession but I guess there might be a connotation depending on your background.

I spent most my adult life working with manual/skilled labor tradesmen. It’s not an insult from me

I understand. See VM -- The Privileges and Demands of Professional Self-Regulation, Apr 05 ... Virtual Mentor regarding what is meant by a profession. I believe it applies to podiatry as well as medicine as separate self-regulating and licensed professions.

 

[bobtheweazel]

I think from here on out I'm going to start calling myself a podiatry student because apparently the two degrees are identical

I hope nobody thinks that anybody here is talking about podiatry students saying they are MD or DO students or attempting to mislead people into thinking that. People are simply saying that podiatric medical students are a subset of medical students. Easy peasy.

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[Oso]

 

[Lucca]

I think this thread has lived past its utility. Closing.