06/15/2013    Philip Larkins, DPM

Unmatched Residency Placement Currently Stands at 92 (Lawrence Kansky, DPM)

There has been much chatter about the unfortunate
graduates the last few years who have not matched
residencies. This is deplorable for our
profession, and should not happen, end of
statement. The podiatry schools have now crossed
into a place of “for-profit” scorched earth.
These schools do not care one bit about what
happens to the graduates of their programs. They
are all about the money, and it smells very
similar to those ‘other’ for profit schools:
Kaplan, Phoenix, etc., just to name a few.

These schools are PREDATORS! They take advantage
of humans who really want nothing more than to
better themselves and have, for many reasons,
difficulty with more traditional educational
programs. Let’s face it, getting into Podiatry
school is not as difficult as getting into
traditional medical schools in the contiguous
U.S. I know, I was accepted to all podiatry
schools I applied to and NONE of the medical
schools I applied to.

To top it all off, these podiatry schools are
accredited and its students are allowed to seek
federal backed student loans. THIS SHOULD STOP
immediately until the podiatry schools can 100%
guarantee placement into a residency program for
all students desiring to do so.

It is time for the board of directors and
trustees of these podiatry schools, to once and
for all, fold all of these programs into fully
traditional medical school programs in their
respective areas. This would allow podiatry to
flourish at a time of crisis and allow for much
more significant collaboration with its medical
peers.

One final note. I recently checked on the annual
tuition cost of my podiatry school (Barry
University). It was $45,000 per year. I paid
about $18,000 a year, and thought that was way
too high in my humble opinion. Future podiatry
students, buyer beware! You are going to pay
almost $200,000 in tuition alone, and not have a
guaranteed residency position when you graduate?
What a shame to our profession.

Philip Larkins, DPM, San Diego, CA,
larko33139@yahoo.com

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