something to consider

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jconway

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OK so I have been looking through all of these posts on podiatry and its very clear that there is alot of misinformation out there about the profession. I do not pretend to have all of the answers, but I do have a few, so, I am going to try and clear up a few things:

As far as a podiatrist being a physician, well that depends on the podiatrist. I have met many DPM's who should never be allowed to hold a blade, a nailclipper, or even an aspirin(but you can say the same about alot of quack md's/do's/and dds, hey malpractice isnt only a podiatry issue). On the other hand I have met many practicing DPM's who are some of the most skilled physicians around. I have seen some tackle diabetic wounds and infections that alot of vascular guys wouldnt touch because they seemed to be a lost cause or too high risk. Likewise a podiatrist can and should be trained to deal with various types of ankle fractures that would give alot of orthopedists trouble. Now true, I will admit that some states, like NY for example, try to limit alot of what podiatrists can treat but in all honestly alot of that stems from a very ugly orthpedist/dpm war that has been raging for awhile and which I don't really care to comment on. Bottom line is that podiatrist can and should have the training to help people, to save limbs, improve mobility and improve a pateints quality of life; and contrary to many of the views expressed in this forum, many of them do.
Keeping all of that in mind, podiatry is what you make of it, if you are willing to go for a good residency program and stay up with new information as it comes in you find little if any limiting aspects of being a dpm, true you wont practice above the knee or in many cases above the ankle but you also wont have any need to if you love what you do and stay current in your education.

As far as respect goes, well that varies with peoples stupidity level. Some people will look down on the profession because they are just ignorant people who really do not know what they are talking about, at the same time alot of DPM's do deserve to be looked down upon. What you have to remeber is that there are people who show contmpt for all types of physicians and likewise many physicians do not deserve respect; there are quacks in every profession people do not forget that.
Inside of the hospital, well the respect you get is up to you. I have seen many podiatrists who are gifted doctors and as such really have the same amount of respect as any other docotor in practice, and there are the crap dpm's who no one will respect no mater what job they have. Hey look, bottom line, my father(DPM) serves as the president of the medical board at a NY hospital, this is a position he was elected to by other physicians the likes of which include orthopedic, cardiothorasic and neurosurgeouns; THE RESPECT IS OUT THERE IF YOU DESERVE IT. If you need more proof check out some of the programs dpm's have going in GA or Ill. The professionj os not dying, it is not on life-support the profession if anything has grown immensely in the last 20 years; hey when my dad graduated he was still reffered to as a chirapodist(sp?)
As for the money issue, is it tough to make a living as a young dpm with loans on your head?...of course it is...but make no mistake..its hard as md too. In any profession you need to seperate yourself from the pack, make a name for yourself and work you a$$ off in the beginning; no profession is any different, dont ever forget that. It's not like an md is just going to hang up a shingle in nyc and see the big bucks come rolling in, who wants to go to some random endocrinologst or oncologist in his first year of practice, not me and probably not anyone who else who is reading this right now; any physician needs to network and work hard if they want to hit paydirt and thats the honest truth.


As far as dpm's eating there young and not paying the new guys alot of money....Come on people that is the basics of running any business; no dpm or md or do or dds is going to pay a new recruit the amount of money they generate unless they let them buy in as partners. Doing anything else would not be a good business move. Think about it, a young md sees 10 patients the practice is only going to pay him 5 patients worth of money, otherwise the practice is going to lose money, there is more to running a practice thehn just payng the docs, businesses have overhead expenses, this is elementray stuff here.

And to clarify the money is definatly out there for dpm's whether you go into an established practice or not. You just have to work and not go into a saturated area and be willing to go out and get patients on your own, without doing that horriffic advertising that many professionals engage in; no big foot signs, no billboards, professionals dont advertise the way budweiser does people; jesus show some respect for you proffesion(incindentally his applies to alot of plastic surgeons and chiropractors too). With that in mind I have seen lots of DPM practices that generate more money than alot of healthy mds practices do. Hey my father made his practice on his own by doing rounds in nursing homes everyday for crap money, but now; he cant get people in out of the door fast enough to keep his waitlist below three weeks(awkwardly written but you get the idea).

To conclude:
This field, like any other field from law, to accounting, to other branches of medicine to politics; is all about how hard you want to work. The days of docs, doing little work for huge money has been gone for sometime now. If you can love what you do, you'll be fine so do you research and figure out what suits you best.

hope this was helpful

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Very well said, j

There's nothing wrong with most podiatrists. There are some DPM's who shouldn't be holding a roll of gauze. But, then again, there are some DO's, MD's and DDS's who shouldn't be seeing patients in any context.

Podiatry is most certainly what you make of it. It's just harder to make a living at it

Toejam, DPM - soon to be DO
 
Conway,
you are a douchebag.
 
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brownman...u r a brownman
lol
for a second i was mad..then i realized it was u
u douchebag
 
Good post Conway. There are lots of opinions about every profession, especially podiatry, but it's nice to hear a positive one online. Most negative people are generally more vocal so the positive stuff isn't as easy to find. I think what you say is very true. Good luck to you.
 
Thankyou very much for that reply, it was a fresh of breath air. Too much bad energy out there from a lot of the DPM world. I figure if you don't have anything nice to say about someone or their livelihood, you should remain quiet.
 
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