Good answers above. To hit the high points above with my main agreements:
It will take a few years of financial hurt on schools due to lowered applicants. That's already happening. Applicants have become wise to the very poor ROI of podiatry school. The two newest 2022 DPM schools (and probably the two opened even before that 2009 and 2004) should have seen the saturation of podiatrists + decreased apps and just cancelled, but that's just not the capitalist and avaricious way.
Another residency crunch will also soon develop in a few years (like the shortage after Western Univ Pod initially graduated) in a profession/career that already has far too many joke "approved" residency spots. Even if the national boards lower standards and let pod schools pass and graduate the dum dums, there just won't be enough pod students. The pod schools will start to undercut each other on tuition, give/tease more scholarships, more ads, more dean videos, keep more flunked students in "extended program" study... but something has to give (just like pharma). Schools
will begin to close. It's not "if," with the 2022 schools opening, it's definitely a matter of
when at this point. Speaking of which, did LECOM find a podiatrist dean after the first one lasted less than a year?
This is common knowledge. Fellowship for the vast majority of podiarists is a last-ditch effort to buy time and/or audition for a pod group job. There are very few (academically) worth doing...maybe the top 5 or 10 ACFAS ones only (CORE, OFAC, PFAI, etc). By and large, they don't change one's specialty for podiatry; they mainly just delay the inevitable (face rough job market, start paying student loans, take off the training wheels, begin trying to talk 80 year nail patients into bone/joint recon for boards numbers).
- The DPM job market will unfortunately get worse.
Newsflash: it already is worse than a decade or two ago. Even top grads are having a tough time now (they had options not long ago). The pay for surgical DPMs (which every one is now) relative to tuition debt is worse... versus inflation is worse. Pods will increasingly undercut each other, density will get worse.... more fraud, more ads, more chiro-type scams. Insurance payments do not go up much, but debt goes up fast. We will have upcoming years with all-time highs of graduating DPMs (remember, all surgeons, most in huge debt). There are 20k podiatrists in USA (and nearly all coming out now think they're surgeons, but retiring ones were mostly C&C). It's just waaay too many DPMs (relative to any other
legit medical specialty). You hardly even need to see the actual numbers... simply look at Google maps anywhere for podiatrists versus any other specialty that gets paid more than us(all of them), and you see it quite clearly.
It will get to the point of where attorneys were and pharmacy currently is where a decent % of grads default on loans and/or change fields. Many other pods will go to supergroup jobs (podiatry's version of Walgreens/CVS/Walmart for pharmacy) and get fairly meager money and benefits once you consider taxes and loan payments. Hospital podiatry jobs were fairly hard... are now hard... will be
very hard - fellowship or not. It's a loud and clear sign that VAMCs have a tough time getting even the bottom-of-the-barrel MDs to apply... yet they often get hundreds of podiatry apps. Tough sledding in podiatry PP also as more areas get more saturated and competitive for refers, hospitals/supergroups push on smaller PPs, etc.
- Less podiatry student apps has little effect on the job market.
Podiatry schools have
basically 100% accept rate... always have. If one school doesn't take them, another will.
Whether there are 400 or 500 or 700+ pod students, those effects aren't seen for quite awhile (remember, roughly 20k pods in USA... soon more than orthopedists of all types/specialties). The podiatry grad numbers would have to be under ~300/yr and stay there
for decades to do anything about the saturation and jobs/pay. That would be awesome in that residencies could be closed/consolidated. Won't happen anytime soon.
...so in the end, $$$ talks.
Follow the money, and see what'll happen...
- Students need ROI, and podiatry's ROI is not good.... ~$300k-400k debt for ~$150k-$200k job (roughy 2:1 debt:income, very bad when you consider 7-8yrs grad+residency).
- Pod schools need profits... some will close eventually if they can't fill the seats. They'll get pressure from within or from sponsor univ/DO schools.
- Pod grad debt needs to be paid, ppl need to eat... they'll take whatever jobs they can, "compete" very hard for good jobs, not have negotiation power and/or even underbid each other. That is the saddest part.
Historically, and back when I was in pod school, the "doom and gloom" of podiatry was definitely the subpar training, lack of medical respect, discrimination, varied hospital acceptance. The way to bust out of that stuff was to get rare good podiatry training, and you'd be in demand. Debt was manageable. You'd get surgery and boards and job since most DPMs didn't do much/any surgery.
Present day, the issues are wholly the financials of podiatry... it costs way too much, jobs are thin, the jobs are underpaid relative to the massively increased debt (vs DPMs of the past). Training is still far from perfect, but there are just way too many of us - and nearly all trying to be surgeons. It's not sustainable.
I remember two guys well who both told me not to buy into the doom-n-gloom... and that podiatry had treated them
veeery good. Those were back in my pod student and resident days. Later on, one got kicked off MCR for fraud and had to change professions. The other one landed in even bigger legal/financial problems than that.
This is a common law school tactic. They offer a first year scholarship based on maintaining GPA, then have the professors grade on curves so that only 1 or 2 students can reach it for the next year.
Yeah, many pod schools do this already... first year about half (or probably now nearly all with "admission crisis") get a scholarship, 2nd year maybe it's a quarter maintained it, 3rd year basically all have lost it. It's based on gpa or % class rank or or whatever (which gets increasingly harder as the
podiatry schools all have attrition much higher than MD/DO schools).
For most pod schools, I would say it's not easily maintainable scholarship unless it's a 3.0 gpa requirement. It just can't be counted on beyond first year towards total cost of attendance. The pod school hopes students plan on having it all 4 years (and doesn't know they may not only lose the scholly - but also turn into a "5 year program," "6 year program," etc student).
