12/15/2025    Rod Tomczak, DPM, MD, EdD

What Does the Undergraduate Pre-med Major Think?

It doesn’t matter much to the undergraduate pre-
med major in Tuna Fish, Wyoming if a
podiatrist father and his scion are making
$600,000 per annum. The Wyomingite is
interested in multiple specialties, not just
podiatry. They could be attracted to podiatric
sub-specialties like limb salvage, vascular work,
plastic surgery as applied to the lower
extremity, trauma, etc. This is best achieved by
becoming a DO rather than a DPM, where matching
into a DPM residency offers him or her a low
potential of fulfilling dreams if the residency
match doesn’t meet their wishes at that time.
Fellowships are, well, not approved.

If we want to keep podiatry alive we had better
start listening to students’ wants and needs
rather than pontificating over their choices by
telling them how we listened to what we were told
by our elders and how lucrative DPM podiatry has
been to us and our families. Undergraduate premed
advisors will be alerting pre-med students to the
multipotential aspect of increased DO seats. If we
need to provide attainable podiatry options within
a DO framework for a graduate of an osteopathic
school, we can keep the profession alive but with
different initials but the same title…podiatrist.
If we don’t, the Wyomingite will follow a
different DO specialty completely avoiding
podiatry.

There are students in medical school who have
never heard of podiatry, but with ACGME-approved
residencies and listings in postgraduate program
publications they will quickly become aware and
hopefully attracted to our profession. Hell, we
might even end up with a few MD podiatrists. We
need to make DO podiatry desirable in all facets
of the profession that are not easily attainable
as a DPM with a limited license.

Being a jingoist DPM cheerleader is detrimental to
the future of podiatry. The Tuna Fish, Wyoming
undergraduate student doesn’t care how rah-rah
infatuated some DPM podiatrists are with the
profession. There are graduates of clown college
who daily espouse what a wonderful profession they
have found. The potential podiatrist doesn’t
care because the over sell alienates them. For
every student dying to be a DPM, there must be a
dozen who think osteopathy is a viable
alternative. But, they have yet to be awakened to
podiatry because we offer an unfamiliar degree and
there’s a chance a premed advisor may be just as
unfamiliar.

Could a DPM school still exist with a major switch
to a DO degree? Probably for a while, but
accreditation and administrative costs to keep a
single school viable would mirror the original
Still school of osteopathy necessitating a DPM
school merger with a DO school if not already the
case and DO aegis to keep it accredited.
Regardless, the person adamant about preserving a
single DPM degree for podiatry as it is today is
looking at obsolescence of the total podiatric
profession, both DPM and DO.

Rod Tomczak, DPM, MD, EdD

There are no more messages in this thread.