02/10/2025    Lawrence Oloff, DPM

Why Podiatry School Applicants Remain Low (Allen M. Jacobs, DPM)

Why are applications down? Everyone who has
weighed in on this is correct: too many schools,
lack of identity, competition, costs, etc..
Everyone who has suggested solutions is also
correct: profession, schools, practitioners all
need to reach out more for effective recruitment.
The problems and solutions are multifactorial. How
do you fix this. I don’t think you can close
schools, however economics will eventually solve
this problem. I do not think that all the schools
will survive economic down turns forever.

I was talking to a businessman recently about
this. His perspective was not what i expected. He
began to cite the supply and demand curve. He
thought if the supply of podiatrists went down and
the demand was the same or greater, then the
salaries of podiatrists would likely go up. I am
still thinking about what he said.

Is the demand there? I would say yes. I enjoyed
reading Barry Blocks publication over the years
and hearing viewpoints of colleagues. However it
does sometimes reads like a Yelp review. Negative
reviews predominate in Yelp because happy people
post less than unhappy people. The way of the
world. Negative after negative comment about the
profession. Do outsiders and prospective students
read this?

So is podiatry a worthwhile fulfilling profession?
Yes. This is not the same profession I entered
almost 50 years ago. The knowledge base and
competencies have incredibly advanced since then.
Some have argued three years residency is too
much? “There needs to be more medicine
training”.“There is too much emphasis on surgery”.
I do not agree. Podiatry needs to function in an
allopathic medical world not a podiatric medical
world. If you want to be accepted in the world of
medicine you better walk the walk and talk the
talk. People who do so are now becoming partners
in orthopedic practices, wound care centers, and a
variety of areas of mainstream medicine. So let’s
not keep talking down the profession. Our
residents get a lot of medicine training. It is
required by CPME. The only area in our training
that I feel is lacking is biomechanics and that is
a shame. It is one thing that distinguishes us
from the pack.

How about financials? Can you make a living?
Absolutely. But the prime objective of joining
health care is to help people, is it not? Teachers
enter their field not for the money. That being
said, there is tremendous financial opportunities
for those who are motivated as Allen Jacobs
stated. Private practice has drawn the short straw
- declining insurance reimbursement, coupled with
increasing staff salaries, and all other costs of
practice. The era of private practice is slowly
disappearing for these reasons. This is not just
podiatry but all of medicine. Hence the exodus to
multidisciplinary practices and institutional
medicine.
I would like to see a breakdown of salaries based
on type of practice. I am sure it was published
somewhere comparing salaries of each practice
type. I say that because when I look at the
starting salaries of new practitioners in my area,
the new doctors joining institutional medicine are
starting at almost twice that of private
practices.

I was in a previous life the managing partner of a
large sports medicine orthopedic group. The
advantage we had was ancillary income: surgery
center and MRI. One Orthopedist in our group had
90 percent overhead. The only thing that allowed
him a reasonable living was the ancillary income.
Our problems are not podiatry problems. They apply
to all practices of medicine.

Last remarks. I agree with Dr. Tomczak. We all
need to recruit. In another past life I was
Academic Dean at the California school. We use to
hold an over the top event at a Ritz Carlton hotel
in southern California for college health career
advisors. Very fancy. The money was worth it. We
got the message out. We received many applications
as a result. One student recruited from this venue
more than made up for the expense. The profession
and the colleges need to go big in this area.

Lawrence Oloff, DPM, Burlingame, CA

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