02/13/2014    Thomas Graziano, DPM, MD

Time for a Degree Change (Robert Bijak, DPM)

I am sorry to disappoint you Dr. Bijak, but
unfortunately a degree change for podiatry will
not happen in our lifetimes. I would like to echo
a previous post by Dr, Wunderlich, who stated that
when he was a 1st year student in 1992 there was
talk of just that idea. Well, when I was a student
graduating in 1982 there was "serious" talk about
the same topic.

Did you ever watch a soap opera? You can come back
to the show years later and the same characters
and content will be there. Well it's the same with
podiatry. The powers that be in this profession
lack the experience to assimilate into medicine.
This is not a criticism, it's an observation. They
haven't realized that podiatric and medical
education are not mirror images. One doesn't just
turn a key and things magically change.

Let's make changes that are possible. Follow the
lead of dentistry. In dentistry, those who wish to
be oral surgeons go on to do a residency in oral
surgery. General dentists refer to those who have
that expertise. In podiatry, we're almost
mandating that everyone be a podiatric surgeon
with three years of residency. It's ridiculous.
Not everyone is meant to be surgeon. Every
podiatric graduate should, however, have a post-
graduate internship so that they can later work in
concert with their medical colleagues. Let's stop
the posturing and effectively train podiatric
students to be podiatrists. It appears that we've
lost our focus in that regard.

Thomas Graziano, DPM, MD, Clifton, NJ,
TGrazi6236@aol.com

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