American College of Foot & Ankle Surgeon Video

Should I choose a podiatrist or an orthopedist for my foot / ankle problem?

This is a long time question that has changed in how it is answered in recent times. Historically, podiatrists were called chiropodist, meaning those that treat hands and feet but mainly nonsurgically. As the profession and healthcare technology evolved round the world chiropodist in the USA were renamed podiatrists, D.P.M., Doctors of Podiatric Medicine and concentrated only on the foot and ankle. With this speciality limited by anatomy to the foot and ankle, numerous innovations have come about in the way of sports medicine, surgery techniques and research. With all the rumblings about differences of podiatrist vs orthopedist out there, the reality is that there are more similarities than differences in podiatrists of today vs prior.

Residencies are at least 3 years now after a 4 year podiatric medical school concentration on plastics, vascular, general orthopedics and podiatric surgery. Podiatric medical schools that are affiliated with major universities share medical professors the first two years for basic sciences and some clinical faculty for the last two clinical years. Concentration is heavy on surgery and perioperative medical management. During the clinical years in schools medical and podiatric medical students share rotations and rounds. Residency and internship are funded by the US government for Graduate Medical Educated, these are all 3 years in length with residents logging up to 1000 cases of varying difficulty. More residents now are opting for an extra year of fellowship after their residency for more exposure as the field of podiatric surgery has significantly expanded. The fellowships are headed by MD, DO or DPM’s, these programs also train a mixture of MD, DO and DPMS. Often DPM’s, MD, DO with foot and ankle fellowships are offered positions in group orthopedic practices to handle all the foot & ankle work. Some enter into a podiatric medical / surgical group to handle the bigger cases that the more senior DPM’s have not been trained in, or do not want to undertake anymore.

Nowadays, the differences are blurred and the hostilities between the profession is more about market share, untold truths, politics than actual patient care & skill of the surgeon. There are great foot and ankle orthopedic surgeons and podiatrists and some vice versa noted in both professions. Seek the individual not the letters, for the letters can be tricky.

Ask an OR nurse, hospital administrator, anesthesiologist:

• Who is the busiest surgeon doing these kinds of cases?
• Who does most of these cases?
• Who would you send your family to?