Are You Doing Your Part To Make Vision 2015 A Reality?

Did you meet the deadline for your Vision 2015 assignment? You had better check to make sure because you are on the line for getting this done.

What? You thought this was an American Podiatric Medical Association (APMA) deal? Well, most of us did but at the APMA House of Delegates meeting, it became imminently clear that the APMA alone can not accomplish this paradigm shift. It will take everyone — from the executive director to the last student admitted to a podiatry college — to accomplish parity with our allopathic colleagues.

I was sitting in the guest section during a presentation about the Vision 2015 Program at the House of Delegates meeting. APMA Trustee Frank Spinosa, DPM, was giving his presentation and bringing the house up to date about accomplishments to this point. They were significant and I was impressed. The program has accomplished much but there was a naysayer in the audience and a loud one at that.

“And what has been accomplished at this point?” asked Dr. Spinosa.

One person spoke out quite audibly, “Nothing.”

That person was the one who had egg on his face when Dr. Spinosa finished his list of Vision 2015 accomplishments. I was personally glad because when Dr. Spinosa listed what was necessary, there were measures that everyone in that room was probably already doing or should be doing as a modern, successful podiatrist.

• Interacting with MDs and DOs in the doctors lounge at the hospital
• Making and discussing your referrals with those same physicians

In other words, we should be interacting with physicians from other specialties so we can affect their opinions about what we do and who we are. It is all part of Vision 2015 and achieving parity with those other physicians.

It is as simple as that. Do not wait for some other DPM (or the APMA) to do it. We are responsible for doing it ourselves.

Do not be the heckler. Be the person who is getting the job done.