06/16/2022    Dale Feinberg, DPM

“Who wants to be a podiatrist?” (Lawrence Oloff, DPM)

A recent posting by Lawrence Oloff caught my
attention when he stated that “I would not claim to
be smarter than anyone else in our profession and
anyone else could have done the same.” Thanks Larry
of the vindication of my career.

I came from a generation when only 50% of the 600
graduates in 1981 got a one year residency. I
failed to place in one of these coveted spots even
though I graduated in the top 10% of my class. By
the time that our fourth year rotations began all
spots were already allocated. Like a baby bird, I
was kicked out of the nest and on my own. My first
surgery, an arthroplasty 5th digit left, was
performed in private practice. The extent of my
CCPM surgical experience was throwing one simple
interrupted stitch during a surgical rotation
Thanks for the tutelage of three podiatrists, Drs.
Dan Altchuler, Marc Middleman, and Scott Nemerson,
I was able to pick up some basic skills but became
mainly self-taught.

The one year residencies turned into two years,
then three years, with each successive group of
newly minted surgeons thinking they were the best
and situating themselves to write bylaws that
claimed their level of training was the minimum
of required training for certain privileges.

The fact of the matter is the best trained and
smartest in our profession will never be recognized
as equal to the lowest foreign or domestically
trained MD. My beloved brother, a neurologist, told
me this 40 years ago and it regrettably still
applies today

My proudest professional moment was when my wife
told me her two friends, one a plastic surgeon and
the other a vascular surgeon, asked how her
husband, the podiatrist, worked less and made more
income than either of them.

Looking back at my career I wouldn’t have changed a
thing but in today’s environment podiatry would not
be in my sights The times they are a changin’.

Dale Feinberg, DPM, Yuma, AZ

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