Why have podiatry schools at all?

[Sarah613]

I was wondering if anybody knew the history behind why in podiatric medicine one goes to "Podiatry School" and for other medical specializations you must go through medical school and then specialize? I was just curious to know why that is. It seems sort of weird to take one part of the body and have a special school just for the treatment of it's ailments.
Are there any pros/cons to this approach to education?
Just curious, I hope I do not offend anyone by the way I asked 🙂

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[SAFOOT]

I was wondering if anybody knew the history behind why in podiatric medicine one goes to "Podiatry School" and for other medical specializations you must go through medical school and then specialize? I was just curious to know why that is. It seems sort of weird to take one part of the body and have a special school just for the treatment of it's ailments.
Are there any pros/cons to this approach to education?
Just curious, I hope I do not offend anyone by the way I asked 🙂

I think for the same reasons why dentistry, optometry, chiropracty (not sure if I spelled that right), PA....etc, came about, it allows for increased specialization in that area from the start of the education process. From the beginning your focus is the foot, or the teeth or whatever, even though your learning everything. Your studying the part that you have an interest in as opposed to lets study everything and then lets see what part I really like to focus on. You relate the entire body to the feet, the cause and affect, balance, basically you learn as much as you can learn in general but also in relation to the feet. However in the general MD way the way I see it by the time you find your interest you spent 4 years learning about little of everything then your specialty only becomes 2-3+ years where you learn and relate to that particular part. Through this route (podiatry, dentistry...etc) your getting more emphasis on the part of the body that you want to learn about and therefore get more knowledge and experience in that part, and the residencies fine tune and give additional knowledge to that particular body part of interest. Thats just my point of view.

 

[Feli]

...Are there any pros/cons to this approach to education?...🙂

Pros:
-finish sooner (current podiatry would probably be a 4-6yr ortho/derm/inf dz residency)
-better anat/specialty knowledge since, even in general sciences, you know what to really focus in on
-don't suffer through a bunch of classes/rotations that have little/no application or relavence to your future specialty (OB, psych, etc)
-better knowledge in pertinent areas due to more podiatry-focused courses (lower extermity anat, radio, biomech, vascular diseases, wounds, diabetes, sports med, pod med, etc)

Cons
-can't switch specialties since the degree is podiatric medicine and not general medicine
-knowledge in a few areas might be weak due omitted or sparsely covered areas of medicine (however, those are the areas that aren't really relavent or consulted by pods anyways)
-some people don't fully understand the profession because the degree is different

...Podiatry has its own schools because that's how it's been for 100 years; you can find more info if you run a search. Just like dent, a need was there since most MDs didn't want to deal with the cases or they weren't all fully capable.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=371332

 

[jonwill]

I was wondering if anybody knew the history behind why in podiatric medicine one goes to "Podiatry School" and for other medical specializations you must go through medical school and then specialize? I was just curious to know why that is. It seems sort of weird to take one part of the body and have a special school just for the treatment of it's ailments.
Are there any pros/cons to this approach to education?
Just curious, I hope I do not offend anyone by the way I asked 🙂

I think it is also important to realize that podiatric medicine has not always been the way it is today. I was speaking with one of my attendings yesterday and he was talking about all the ways it has changed since he graduated in the 90's. Imagine how much it has changed in the past 50 years. Podiatry used to be calluses, corns, nail trims, and orthotics. The dean of the Des Moines school often speaks of the first contract he signed that forbid him from breaking the skin!

Only in the last decade or so has podiatry evolved into what it is today. Even ten years ago, residency training was not required to practice in many places. But in this day and age, the majority of pods are now doing 3 year surgical residencies and are leaving residency very highly trained.

At this point, you could argue that podiatric surgery should be an MD/DO specialty. But that is only because the profession had evolved into a surgical sub-specialty. Thirty years ago, I'm not sure you'd have too many MD's coming out of medical school wanting to clip nails and trim calluses!

 

[efs]

To really understand this you need to get into the history of podiatry a bit, and even into the history of medicine for that matter. Most people don't realize how much things have changed, or how fast it has been changing.

To put things in perspective a bit, consider the changes in orthopedic surgery. Even 100 years ago, orthopedics wasn't a surgical specialty. There was a bit of surgery being done, but not on the scale it is today.

Modern anesthetics didn't really get started until the mid 1800's. Lister promoted aseptic techniques in the late 1800's. The 'Golden Period" of antibiotics was from 1945-1970. AO/ASIF was founded in 1958.

It wasn't until all of these things came together until we got started in the current era of elective surgeries. Since the 1970's there have been dramatic changes both in orthopedics and in podiatry.

Chiropody was the predecessor to our current system of podiatry and really was organized around the turn of the century. The first dedicated school was established in 1911 (NYCPM). Originally chiropody mostly dealt with nails/calluses/etc, but as with everything else in medicine it progressed. In the 1950's the degree changed from DSC to DPM and the typical practice began to include more surgical procedures. I would think that this evolved around the same time as antibiotics, making elective procedures safer. Since the 1970's with changes in AO/ASIF dramatic changes have been made in both orthopedic and podiatric procedures.

Things that are typical to current podiatric practice have really only been common since the 1970s. It really is amazing that it developed along a secondary pathway, but that seems to be what happened. Current practices have largely been shaped by things that have only been around for about 30-50 years.

 

[Sarah613]

thanks everyone for replying, it's really quite interesting. 🙂

 

[krabmas]

To really understand this you need to get into the history of podiatry a bit, and even into the history of medicine for that matter. Most people don't realize how much things have changed, or how fast it has been changing.

To put things in perspective a bit, consider the changes in orthopedic surgery. Even 100 years ago, orthopedics wasn't a surgical specialty. There was a bit of surgery being done, but not on the scale it is today.

Modern anesthetics didn't really get started until the mid 1800's. Lister promoted aseptic techniques in the late 1800's. The 'Golden Period" of antibiotics was from 1945-1970. AO/ASIF was founded in 1958.

It wasn't until all of these things came together until we got started in the current era of elective surgeries. Since the 1970's there have been dramatic changes both in orthopedics and in podiatry.

Chiropody was the predecessor to our current system of podiatry and really was organized around the turn of the century. The first dedicated school was established in 1911 (NYCPM). Originally chiropody mostly dealt with nails/calluses/etc, but as with everything else in medicine it progressed. In the 1950's the degree changed from DSC to DPM and the typical practice began to include more surgical procedures. I would think that this evolved around the same time as antibiotics, making elective procedures safer. Since the 1970's with changes in AO/ASIF dramatic changes have been made in both orthopedic and podiatric procedures.

Things that are typical to current podiatric practice have really only been common since the 1970s. It really is amazing that it developed along a secondary pathway, but that seems to be what happened. Current practices have largely been shaped by things that have only been around for about 30-50 years.

Just to add a little more to the history of medicine...

Surgeons used to blood let and cause blisters and other things that we would not consider surgery today back in the 1700s. They did not go to medical school or learn anatomy. There was no anesthesia either. They learned from the surgeons before them based on "gospel", not science.

For a good history of how surgery became what it is today read "The Knife Man". It is a story about John Hunter, considered the first modern surgeon. He is why the adductor canal is called Hunter's Canal... he created the surgical treatment for popliteal anuerisms that we still use today.