12/26/2014    

RESPONSES/COMMENTS (NON-CLINICAL) - PART 2

RE: Becoming a Certified Foot Care Nurse (Elliot Udell, DPM)

From: Stephen Peslar, BSc, DCh

 

I wholeheartedly agree with Elliot Udell, DPM. His comments and insights should be very seriously considered by podiatrists, wherever they are in practice. I read an interesting article about the chiropractic profession. From this site, I copied and pasted the following: "The podiatric medical profession focused on a particular set of problems for which allopathic medicine had little interest and a limited ability to deal with effectively, i.e., common foot disorders. A key occurrence in the development of the podiatric profession was when the AMA determined that medical physicians should not get involved with "minor" foot problems. This opened the door for podiatrists to flourish in their chosen area of specialty, and retain complete control of their scope of practice without fear of intrusion by organized medicine." [6]   

 

6.  Skipper JK, Hughes JE:Podiatry: A medical care specialty in quest of full professional status and recognition. Soc Sci Med 1982,17(20):1541-1548.

 

My question is: Have too many podiatrists decided that they only do bone surgery and biomechanics, and has this therefore opened the door for nurses to treat "minor" foot problems and for physiotherapists to treat DFUs? 

 

Stephen Peslar, BSc, DCh Toronto, Ontario