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11/29/2024 Rod Tomczak, DPM, MD, EdD
Gratitude
All things considered, I think the readers of letters to PM News have a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, for those that consider gratitude an emotion, it can also be thought of as the shortest lived of all the emotions. How quickly we turn on the profession that has allowed us to raise a family, sheltered them in a nice dwelling, purchased cars and sent our kids to college when we feel wronged. Just as quickly we condemn those insurance companies, hate the malpractice tariffs and the attorneys who are responsible for what we believe to be outrageous fees for protection against spurious accusations.
We also have the luxury of an almost real-time sounding board. If something in the realm of podiatry angers or upsets us, we have an immediately available venue through which we can, hopefully with tempered emotions, relieve the frustration and lessen its effects so that we aren’t as angry when we get home or take the resentment out on a week’s worth of patients. I’m talking about sending a letter to Barry Block, DPM, JD and PM News. Let me be upfront about this.
I am not trying to curry favor with Barry. I’ve never met him and have spoken with him on the phone once when he corrected my writing style to coincide with the American Podiatric Medical Writers Association. The reason for this missive is to call attention to the vehicle he provides to air our feelings about the profession we all belong to. This is true even when those feelings do not mesh with the company line that emanates from Rockville, MD. And, incidentally, I’ve never been to Rockville either.
APMA and its approved family members such as ABFAS, ABPM, FACFAS, and stepchildren organizations send out these well-constructed advertisements we all get in the mail. None of them address current issues plaguing the profession. The website called My Next Move lists thirteen such certification organizations. The majority of the organizations sends out glossy material with happy, smiling 30 something models or podiatrists. The material espouses and promotes what they have to offer after everything is sanitized and buffed like the chart of an unhappy patient before it is released to a malpractice attorney. T
here is the politically correct ratio of DEI wok pictures. These images make one wonder why Mother Teresa wasn’t an American podiatrist. This is not the case with Barry’s PM News. I don’t think he edits for controversial content, but rather welcomes it. I’m not sure if any other physician specialty group offers this type of real- time publication. Some of us well experienced podiatrists prefer to feed our young the truth rather than eat our young. Sometimes the reality is tough to swallow, but the truth should ultimately spare the young in our profession the pains we went through.
If you look at the youthful board members’ pictures in these brochures, you realize we were suing hospitals, insurance companies, and each other before they were born. PM News is the vehicle that allows us to bring these issues to the front today, not a month from today. The direct mail leaflets and fliers never alert the readers to such issues. We must wait until the youngblood members of the societies deem it necessary to alert the profession to what is really going on by letter. Come to think of it, Mother Teresa was a believer in freedom of information, no matter how bad it was. I met Mother Teresa (not really) and Barry is no Mother Teresa, but he does offer us the vehicle to publish the truth every day. And for that we should be grateful.
Rod Tomczak, DPM, MD, EdD, Columbus, OH
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