|
|
|
Search
01/22/2025 Steven Spinner, DPM
Why Podiatry School Applicants Remain Low (Kathleen Neuhoff, DPM)
Kudos to Dr. Neuhoff’s post. When I had the opportunity to address the APMA House of Delegates as president of ABPS, I argued against the homologation of our residency training model. We are not a surgical specialty…we are a diverse profession which has foot and ankle surgery as one of our sub-specialties. When I was done with my presentation, I was approached privately by who if I remember correctly was the executive director at that time. He confided that I presented a strong argument but the APMA had to protect the “grass roots “podiatrists, and the profession believed that all podiatrists, regardless of training, had a right to do foot surgery. I remember asking him if he had a daughter, and if he did, would he rather a doctor from my training model or his do her surgery. He leaned in closely and said, “well, yours of course, but I can’t tell anyone that.”
So there are 2 issues. The first is that, as Dr. Neuhoff said, that not all of our graduates either want to be “surgeons” or have other talents which do not translate to the operating room. The second issue is that program directors are being forced to share a diminishing pool of resources and divide them “equitably” among all residents in their program. This only serves to diminish the training for those residents who truly have the desire to take their training forward and deliver a quality result for their patients, and force other residents to meet minimal activity volumes or they can’t graduate.
So, in my humble opinion, everyone loses. The resident who could have benefited from additional cases, the resident who had no desire to do reconstructive foot/ankle surgery and was forced to do those cases, and most importantly the patient, who is being denied the DPM with a more intensive training experience. I do, however, disagree with Dr. Neuhoff on one point. I do believe that a minimum of 3 years of residency training should continue to be mandatory. But it should be up to the discretion of the program director and the desire of the resident to dictate the allocation of the program’s resources.
Steven Spinner, DPM, Plantation, FL
There are no more messages in this thread.
|
|
|
|