Why Podiatry Really Is The Best-Kept Secret In Medicine

While discovering podiatry, I was completing a master’s program alongside medical students at an osteopathic school. Our clinical instructor noticed my interest in sports medicine during a lower extremity workshop. He recommended that I shadow one of his close friends, a podiatrist. Like many of my colleagues today, my first question, and what would lead me to the path that I am on today, was “What is a podiatrist?”

Days later, I came to learn of my newfound passion for the field. Within my first visit to the podiatry clinic, I observed cases that encompassed orthopedics, neurology, dermatology and vascular medicine. For a person like myself who is constantly afflicted with “FOMO” (fear of missing out), I was quickly drawn to the all-encompassing nature of the field. It meant that I was not required to hyper focus my interests on one aspect of medicine in order to become a physician. Add the profession’s surgical component into the mix and I was completely sold.

Around the time I began shadowing the podiatrist, the American Osteopathic Association and American Medical Association were on the verge of an agreement to unite their residency match programs, a major step forward but also a nerve racking one for medical students. Talks of the implications and costs versus benefits were rampant across school halls. The anticipation of residency match day is a lingering stress for all medical students throughout their four-year education. However, it was at that point that I was able to appreciate the relative certainty that podiatry offers. Although podiatry students may not know where they will end up training until match day, they do know what their specialty is from the get-go and that removes a lot of stress from the equation.

As I began to share news of the path I was now taking on, one of the DO students told me that he wished he had pursued podiatry himself. In medical school, placement into a surgical specialty is very competitive but osteopathic students have an even harder time placing into surgical specialties than allopathic students. Nearly 60 percent of osteopathic physicians identify as primary care doctors but the DO student wanted to pursue orthopedic surgery.¹

Among the surgical residencies, orthopedic surgery is a specialty offered to only the top MD and DO students. Furthermore, an orthopedic foot and ankle subspecialty takes an additional fellowship that, in total, can amount to six years of post-graduate medical training. Despite the scope of practice differences, podiatric medical school offers a comprehensive pathway to achieving your goal of becoming a board-certified foot and ankle physician and surgeon with four years of medical school and a three-year surgical residency.

It would be naïve to suggest that podiatry is for everyone pursuing a career in medicine but the argument for its status in the upper echelons of promising medical professions is evident. You may agree with all this but still be wondering why the profession is considered a “secret.”

Consider this. For each application cycle, there is a fairly small pool of applicants for close to 675 spots across nine podiatric medical colleges.² In the 2015-2016 cycle, there were about 1,200 applicants, 674 of whom matriculated.² Entry GPA and MCAT averages for podiatry school applicants are on the lower end of the medical school spectrum. Many pre-medical students’ poor judgements of podiatry are premised on these facts. Ironically, this false dichotomy is what makes the “Best Kept Secret in Medicine” a self-fulfilling prophecy. The deceptive binary prospective students draw between low applicant numbers and matriculant mean scores, and the profession’s appeal are resulting in somewhat of a feedback inhibition loop, preventing a “gold rush” to podiatry.

Superimposed on this phenomenon are several other factors, such as a lack of awareness among health profession advisors at the undergraduate level. All these elements contribute to the circumstance of a field, which is constantly ranked among the top health professions, being less sought after than other medical careers. While less competition for admission could be a good immediate selling point, the benefits of a career in podiatry span well beyond the short-term considerations of a pre-medical student.

Once in practice, podiatrists can look forward to a balanced lifestyle. According to the latest Podiatry Management Annual Survey, 59 percent of podiatrists work 40 hours or fewer a week.³ The profession also generally has faster job growththan most professions, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.⁴ Since the U.S. population continues to age, so will the podiatric patient population. Also, like many procedurally-based specialties, practicing podiatry provides instant gratification. Many podiatrists express that one of their favorite things about what they do is being able to send a patient, who originally walked in with excruciating pain, out of the office smiling.

I hope I have made the case that podiatry is patently the best kept secret in medicine. Like most secrets, this one will not last long. It is only a matter of time before a revolution in outreach efforts, something the American Podiatric Medical Association is heavily focused on, will hit the threshold for an exponential increase in recruitment. In the meantime, you have my blessing to share this secret.

References

1. American Osteopathic Association. Future osteopathic physicians dedicated to providing primary care as family medicine remains largest matched specialty. Available at https://www.osteopathic.org/inside-aoa/news-and-publications/media-center/2014-news-releases/Pages/2-10-future-osteopathic-physicians-dedicated-to-providing-primary-care-as-family-medicine-remains-largest-matched-specialty.aspx . Published Feb. 10, 2014.

2. American Association of Colleges of Podiatric Medicine. Approximately one thousand applicants apply to podiatric medical school each academic year. Available at https://www.aacpm.org/statistics/ .

3. Donoghue SK. Managing positive practice growth. Podiatry Management. Available at https://www.podiatrym.com/Annual_Survey_report2.cfm?id=1935 . Published February 2017.

4. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational outlook handbook. Available at https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/podiatrists.htm .