What is the argument for more students?

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caliking87

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Hello, I’m curious what the argument is for more schools and more students. Most people I know agree that podiatry is over saturated and underpaid, with most first jobs paying in the low 100k’s. Yet there is a large group still who promote podiatry and try to recruit students. What is the argument? Why are we trying to pull more students in to a mountain of debt with horrible job prospects?
 
Because podiatry. Or should we say anyone graduating will be called a 'doctor' and is a foot and ankle surgeons after residency training as a selling point. The belief that there's a shortage of us in the coming future and we are part of the medical community that's in need, old generations retiring, yada yada. All of this comes down to money. Advocacy leads to money. Seats need to be filled and they'll do whatever to fill those seats. They don't advertise toenails and calluses.
 
The argument (a bad one) is we have an aging and increasingly diabetic population so there will be a shortage. You do not hear it as often now, but I also used to hear we need to increase numbers for public awareness and dollars for lobbying and we will all somehow benefit as a result. Podiatry is more mainstream than it used to be, but is still mainly private practice in areas that are often saturated.

The reality is no school wants to reduce enrollments. It is a business. I don't see it happening due to extreme demand, but if the DO profession was somehow saturated their schools would still want students also.

Bottom line is buyer beware.
 
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I've argued elsewhere on SDN that it has nothing to do with podiatry and everything to do with politics.

As the population ages, voters will want to ensure that their nails will be trimmed. Clearly, any nursing assistant who is plucky enough can do this for people. The question is who's going to pay for it. A nursing assistant can trim nails but only a doctor can bill medicare. The powers that be want to make sure that medicare beneficiaries have ready access to such services. So it's a grand game of chess between Medicare and beneficiaries and we podiatrists are all just pawns in this game.
 
There is no real argument... it's a bunch of stuff they have tried to sell to pre-pods forever (diabetes, boomers, surgery, be a doc, etc etc).

It's just a cover-up for the real motive: which, as always = $$$.

The reasoning is that people want podiatry "leadership job$," they want sponsor company monies, dean job$, admin job$, faculty job$, they want resident$, fellow$, they want PP associates' pay low, boards want more member$ and exam$, etc. The glut of students and seats is just a feeder for more revenues and jobs, and it's too bad.

For the 9538th time, we don't need more DPMs than orthopedists (all specialties combined) or almost as many as gen surgeons. It's ludicrous. We should have much fewer pod schools and pods... around the number for plastics or uro or ENT or other niche specialties. But why protect the demand and income of grads? That merely helps the public and the training/income of the grads, not the "leaders."
 
heybrother said:
The schools are winning. Looks like applications/matriculation are back up albeit divided over a large denominator.
Click to expand...
1734491536883.png

1734491666523.png
 
Feli said:
There is no real argument... it's a bunch of stuff they have tried to sell to pre-pods forever (diabetes, boomers, surgery, be a doc, etc etc).

It's just a cover-up for the real motive: which, as always = $$$.

The reasoning is that people want podiatry "leadership job$," they want sponsor company monies, dean job$, admin job$, faculty job$, they want resident$, fellow$, they want PP associates' pay low, boards want more member$ and exam$, etc. The glut of students and seats is just a feeder for more revenues and jobs, and it's too bad.

For the 9538th time, we don't need more DPMs than orthopedists (all specialties combined) or almost as many as gen surgeons. It's ludicrous. We should have much fewer pod schools and pods... around the number for plastics or uro or ENT or other niche specialties. But why protect the demand and income of grads? That merely helps the public and the training/income of the grads, not the "leaders."
Click to expand...
Which I guess begs the question: What are MD/DO schools doing to prevent what seems to have happened to podiatry?
 
Dermato Fight Club said:
Which I guess begs the question: What are MD/DO schools doing to prevent what seems to have happened to podiatry?
Click to expand...
Residency/specialty level control... ACGME controls both MD residencies and what were formerly "DO residencies."

Specialties limit themselves.
 
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