09/07/2013    Michael Forman, DPM

I Want to Work as a Podiatrist (Bryan Markinson, DPM)

As usual, Dr. Bryan Markinson's analysis of our
profession is right on. I have learned from my
younger colleagues and my friend Michael Turlik
that our medical decisions should be based on
evidence rather than anecdotal stories.
However, I would like to give you my anecdotal
opinion which unfortunately is not evidence
based.

1. Our schools cannot train a student to be a
podiatrist.

2. In my opinion, a minimally competent (accent
on competent) podiatrist should at least be
trained to do the "meat and potatoes" of foot
care, i.e., most forefoot surgery and "lumps and
bumps" of the rearfoot. That is how I practiced
for the past 45 years, having fun and earning a
decent living.

3. The profession has to determine how much post-
graduate training is required. My uneducated
guess is a two-year, hospital-based program.

4. A basically trained podiatrist in such a
residency has the opportunity to specialize,
i.e., diabetic foot care, routine foot care,
biomechanics, dermatology, or whatever he/she is
comfortable to do. Six-month or one-year
fellowships can be offered in any of these
fields. Who wouldn't benefit from spending six
months or a year with Dr. Markinson or Dr. Kirby?

5. A certain percentage can train for an
additional 1-2 years to learn reconstructive
foot and ankle surgery. Dr. Markinson states
that only 600 podiatrists in the country
practice strictly surgery. It sounds like a good
number to me. his would mean that there would be
approximately one reconstructive foot surgeon
for every 23 practicing podiatrist.

6. The end result in this paradigm would be that
every podiatrist could make a good living.

Michael Forman, DPM, Cleveland, OH,
im4man@aol.com

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