If I had to pick the one most important change which has taken place in Podiatric Education in recent years, it would be the rapidly progressing integration of our profession into mainstream medical education centers. Within the past 10 years, there has been a steady move toward our schools, residencies, and continuing education activities being closely aligned with our colleagues in the MD, DO, and PhD arenas. Most of you now train shoulder to shoulder with MD’s and DO’s in residency programs that share rotations, rounds, and didactics with allopathic medicine. Our schools are affiliated with health science campuses, and DPM’s can be seen in large numbers attending and speaking at a wide variety of high profile CME meetings such as the ADA, APHA, and AOA.

During my residency, I was assigned to be the first DPM resident to rotate on Orthopaedics at the major teaching hospital for the region. Working with senior residents from 2 prominent medical schools, my first weeks were met with plenty of political challenges from all directions. However, that atmosphere very quickly changed for the better when those I worked with understood what our training and skills have to offer the patients and the care we participate in…

I encourage each of you to Get Out There and continue this great momentum in our profession. Seek out additional opportunities to get involved with the other services in your hospitals. We have a tendency to underestimate what we have to offer medicine and its patients…so try not to make that mistake. Residency is probably the only time in your life that you will actually be paid to learn, so make the most of it!

If you have something you would like to suggest for a topic for a future Residency Insight, please email it to me at jsteinberg@podiatry.com