Oh my goodness, the unrelenting ego is strong with you. Such bravado. Such straw men arguments that give me the impression of a simian banging his chest shouting "I'M BETTER. I'M BETTER. RAWR." Is this the mentality of every orthopedic surgeon? Obviously not, but this post was so hilariously off base and inaccurate that I could not pass the opportunity to respond.
How about the 5 years of doing routine cases in foot and ankle during our residency. Maybe this skipped your rudimentary math, but 5 years >3 years.
Please refer to the pubmed sources I linked above. Orthopedic surgeons train in
all aspects of musculoskeletal disorders, and not just the foot and ankle. I made this
very clear in my initial post. What exactly is hard to understand, here? It is well documented that those in an orthopedic surgery residency do not receive adequate foot and ankle training, period. You will most certainly need a fellowship if you hope to specialize in that area. Your orthopedics residency program
routinely takes on complex foot and ankle cases? Are you sure you aren't in a podiatry residency?
"Anyone who denies the excellent training of today's podiatric residency grads, simply has his/her head in the sand." This comment is so far off I don't even know what to tell you. What planet are you from?
The thing is...you don't. This is all you say. Nothing to back it up. I'm not reading an actual argument here other than a thinly veiled attempt of an insult. Essentially, more straw-men. Strong work.
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At our program, the PODs pick up scraps from the ED to fulfill residency requirements. The orthopedics department probably does on average three times as many foot and ankle cases a week as the podiatrists perform.
I can't figure out where you are practicing but I can tell you that this mentality is largely limited to that area. Your last sentence is simply false for the rest of the developed country/world. If anything, I will be sure as h*** to avoid your residency program, as it is clearly one of malignancy and superiority complexes. Again, do you actually have sources that directly compare and contrast the number of foot and ankle cases a podiatrists performs over the 7-9 years of training they receive versus an orthopedic surgery resident?
Don't kid yourself. Yes, we all aren't going into F/A but I assure you as orthopods our training (at my institution) is FAR superior that what the podiatrists receive.
This was the case 10-15 years ago. When one of my attendings graduated, there was one residency slot for every 4 students. But residency was not required. By law, it now is.
Especially in the last decade, podiatry has evolved largely into a surgical sub-specialty. Now, the only residencies available are surgical residencies. The majority of students now do 3 or 4 year surgical residencies in addition to a fellowship.
By contrast, foot and ankle orthopedists, before deciding that's what they wanted to sub-specialize in, do, at
most, 3 to 6 months? Not even a full year. Just for clarification though, we
are still solely talking about foot and ankle training, and not general orthopedics. Let me reiterate: we
are still solely talking about foot and ankle training, and not general orthopedics. You seem to be a bit rather slow in that regard.
Don't make generalizations. Why does it take our podiatrists two and half hours to do simple bimal fractures when we bang these out in 30 minutes? Experience.
I have been all over the nation and, in fact, have not been to a hospital (Level one and two) where ortho touched below the knee. I will agree that there are pods out there that probably shouldn't be doing some of the things that they are doing. But that can be said about a lot of different docs. You're touting everything you're saying as if it is a fact. This is careless and, in my opinion, dangerously misinformative.
At my program, you aren't better trained. Not even close. Maybe other programs are different, but don't paint with such a large brush.
Your program is probably terrible, sorry to say. Not all podiatry residencies are created equal, and this has been known.
In the state in which I practice podiatrists can't admit patients, they can't do H&Ps, they can't see workers comp, they can't field routine floor calls, they don't take trauma call, they have no privileges to ankle and foot fractures and quite honestly we are left cleaning up what they mess up.
F&A orthos get good training but in no way is it superior to the training that pods have been getting for the last 10 years. Generally speaking in reference to training, pods will perform more foot and ankle procedures in their residency as compared to orthos, F&A ortho included.
And I definitely agree that as the well trained pods continue to take over the field, the way podiatry is viewed will change. This is already being seen in many parts of the country as pods are now chief of medical staff, chief of surgery, etc. In the city that I am currently in, the major hospitals have just changed policy to include podiatrists as medical staff with full admitting privileges. So, slowly but surely, it is coming to pass.
Their residency is in essence diabetic foot wash outs and bunionectomies that come through their attending's office.
Incorrect. And dangerously misinformative once more.
I am writing this to stop you guys coming onto our forum trying to prove yourselves. You can't, won't, and will not convince people you are better trained; so stop. It is getting old and you look desperate. I am tired of reading your comments on our forum. Live with the reality and move on.
I've said it in the past and stand by it, in the end, it just really doesn't matter. In this day and age, there are definitely more similarities than differences in the education. Especially the first couple of years. For the sake of argument, podiatrists find themselves in a very different perdicament than most other health care professionals. Because of their schooling/training, in most cases they end up in the same place as their MD/DO colleagues with the exception that they chose foot and ankle surgery from the beginning and MD/DO's decide towards the end of their schooling.
Podiatrists have admitting privileges and medically manage patients. Podiatrists have full rx rights. Podiatrists are surgeons and take ER/Trauma call, as well as hospital floor call. They are consulted and work with many of their MD/DO counterparts. Podiatrists can be found as hospital CMO's and even Chief of Surgery. How is this any different than an MD/DO specialist?
I've got buddies that are general surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, hospitalists, anesthesiologists, etc and they all practice within their given scope and do a much better job than I would do. I'll practice within my scope and do a better job than any of them. And in the end, we all sit in the Physicians Lounge and make fun of each other. Except for you...maybe you're "that guy" whom everybody in the hospital hates because he has such a chip on his shoulder and a god complex larger than Bono.
