Drs. Jacobs and DiResta both make points worth
taking seriously — self-respect in how we describe
our training matters, and so does the substance of
that training. But I think the debate itself, as
framed, is a distraction from the problem we’re
actually trying to solve. Here is the
uncomfortable truth: it doesn’t matter what we
call ourselves. What matters is what the market
we’re trying to influence calls us, and what that
market believes we are.
That market is not us. It’s the high school and
college students deciding whether podiatry is a
viable career. It’s the hospital administrators
deciding whether to grant privileges, build out a
service line, or hire a DPM onto a surgical group.
It’s the insurance companies deciding how to code
and reimburse what we do. Their perception is the
only one with commercial and professional
consequence.
We can settle, among ourselves, in the pages of PM
News, whether we are “medical students” or
“podiatry students,” whether our training is
allopathic, osteopathic, or its own distinct
category — and none of it moves the needle on
recruitment, on scope, or on reimbursement,
because none of the people making those decisions
are reading this argument, and even if they were,
they don’t experience our profession through
nomenclature. They experience it through outcomes,
through the letters after our name meaning
something predictable to them, and through whether
a DPM in front of them can do what they need done.
Dr. DiResta’s proposal — aligning clinical
rotation requirements and testing structures with
COMLEX and USMLE — is the more useful contribution
here, because it’s aimed outward. It’s not about
what we call ourselves; it’s about closing the gap
between our training and what the market already
assumes “medical” training means. That’s an
argument about substance, and substance is the
only thing that changes external perception over
time.
Dr. Jacobs is right that self-deprecation is
corrosive. But the opposite of self-deprecation
isn’t asserting our preferred label louder. It’s
doing the harder work of making the label come
true in the eyes of the people who don’t work for
us and have no reason to take our word for it.
We can keep polishing the language we use with
each other. Or we can turn the boat. I’d rather
turn the boat.
Bret Ribotsky, DPM, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
.png)
