Nearly all good podiatry programs rotate chief status among pgy3s.... and I've barely seen a CV that didn't claim "chief resident" (and I've seen a ton of podiatrist CVs). For podiatry, it means nothing.
Most do something like:
4/yr = Jul-Sep chief, Oct-Dec, Jan-Mar, Apr-Jun
3/yr = Jul-Oct chief, Nov-Feb chief, Mar-Jun
2/yr = trade off "chief resident" every month or two or three
Face it : in podiatry, chief is basically just academic schedule and settling any bickering among students or junior residents. No pgy3 really wants to do that anyways, but all want the title... so rotate it.
A lot of
MD programs are
much bigger (and longer) than podiatry programs (since they are in legit teaching hospitals 300-100+ beds). So yeah, they have many more total residents within the program and in the hospital overall. Those gen surg or ortho or ER or FP or IM or OB or etc programs that take 4 or even 10+ per year and are 3-5+ years do actually name one chief resident and actually need that structure to dictate call rotation and board prep and other legit purposes. For them, chief is actually an important decision and tends to mean much more than it does in smallish DPM residencies at VAs and little hospitals.
...and hey, it no longer matters anyways. For those living under a rock, podiatry has fellowships (to learn more podiatry), so those are now the new normal. Residency shall be known only as "podiatry pre fellowship"... pgy1,2,3, will be changed to podiatry pre fellowship years ppfy1, ppfy2, ppfy3.