This is common knowledge that most lower end podiatry residencies are basically inadequate... too much clinic, far too little surgery, bogus logging, too few good attendings and acadmics, and a recipe to fail boards. That sets people up to do nothing but wound care and C&C menial work that you could do without residency in most states. Big waste. It will be very dangerous to scramble in coming years once newest schools are pumping grads out.
However, you guys would honestly be surprised how many good or average podiatry training programs also have pgy1s do little besides inpatient rounds, "research," and run the clinics. There are only so many attendings, so many surgery cases, and so many residents they can scrub in on each case. They have to send most of the residents elsewhere to keep them busy - especially in months when they may have clerks they want to get into the OR. Even at some higher end podiatry programs, pgy1s basically just do the I&D slop work and second or third scrub anything recon or trauma. It's unfortunate but true.
Meanwhile, ortho pgy2s can bang out ankle fractures or radius fractures, pgy2 gen surg can do breast surgery or hernias and most other basics (to them) stuff fast and well... and they can also manage ICU patients. They even make weekly and daily academics between OR work. Hmm.
There are some very good and some very underrated DPM residencies where you will be legit busy from day 1 of pgy1.
Clerk and check out some of the Detroit and Kentucky or Texas programs and find out for yourself.
It is is imperative, in podiatry, that one maxes out clerkships and visits and creates good options. It's critical to get best training, skills, job options, and best ROI for tuition that's possible.
- "Students don't scrub in" = bad ... "We're outta residents since there are so many cases on the board today, so extern Bob is going to go do hammertoes with the attending" = good.
- "Required research" and "putting together a PowerPoint for Dr. B" = make the attending famous ... XR and M&M and organized academics = good pearls from seniors and attendings, good board prep.
- Rounding in groups of 4 and 6 and then rounding again with attending = uh huh ... Rounding resident solo or resident + student = legit busy.
- Pgy1s and even students doing surgery or parts of it = good ... pgy1s nowhere to be found except in the library, 4th assist doing nothing, or looking ragged from hospital rounds or C&C clinic = danger, Will Robinson.
- Pgy3s taking common cases because they need to learn = bad ... Pgy3s mainly teaching juniors and taking only rare/toughest cases = the way it should be.
There really is a
huge lack of cases and good attendings in nearly all DPM residencies compared to MD/DO. It's sad but true. Even our elite programs mostly have issues (because CPME always pushes them to add spots due too added grads, which dilutes training). Most DPM programs also lack academics and teaching hospital sponsor, and we wonder why our ABFAS board pass rates are bad. Worst, now we are taking surgical cases out of residencies to put them in candy azz fellowships since pgy3s haven't had enough reps, lack enough real exp, and job market demand for them is low... basically just creating a 4th year of residency elsewhere. But hey, let's open some new schools.
