07/26/2013    Michael Cohn, DPM

Death By Podiatry

This week, my friend and classmate Larry Rogers
died, in large part from the stress of podiatry.
He was 66. He was near the top of his class and
did not get a residency. He took and passed the
written part of the APBS board exam, the first
time, because he really knew his stuff. He failed
the orals several times, because he froze up in
this artificial situation. He never got board
certified.

For the next 30+ years he struggled. He was often
behind on his taxes and his bills. I say the
stress contributed a lot to his early demise. I
want all of you successful podiatrists who are
reading this to think about how it would be if
the next time you had to apply for any privileges
or contracts, you had to put down "none" under
residency and "none" under board certification.
Then try to be successful. I dare you.

I guess this is just history, except that it is
still going on. We graduated from ICPM in 1980.
Why can't this profession figure out how to fit
into the modern world of medicine?

Why does everyone need a 3-year residency in
order to be licensed? Is there no place for a
podiatrist to practice mostly in an office and
not be primarily a hospital practitioner? Where
did the podiatry go that I learned and practiced
for all these years? Is our never ending search
for parity making us destroy our profession to
try to be accepted by the MD community, who will
never see us as equals if we have different
letters at the end of our names? Is there no
place for the foot surgeon of years gone by? Who
would want to go to podiatry school at great
expense and debt, when he or she may never be
able to practice, regardless of academic success?

I clearly have been too moved by my friend's
death. But I blame this profession in part, and
want us to stop perpetuating the systems that
destroy some of our own good and talented
doctors.

Michael Cohn, DPM, Albuquerque, NM,
michael_cohn@msn.com

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