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- Feb 2, 2007
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Yeah, exactly.... if ortho is really upset about elevating osteotomies, kellers, Gastroc lengthenings I&Ds/amps then ortho is really not busy. ...
But, just because ortho (or gen or vasc) is too busy now, that doesn't mean they always will be. If they're ever not busy, they will then start to gobble up more foot fx, injuries, amps, even wound care if they need to in the future. It's a risk. The wound care - esp non-op - is a niche that's fairly safe for DPMs, but the hospital would pick a semi-retired gen surg or IM or vasc doc 9 times out of 10 even for that too (if they were available at same/similar rate... typically they are not).
Podiatry is a very good and useful service (training and residency-dependent), but we're just not necessary.
A lot of DPMs take those non-op jobs and minimal surgery ones hoping they can add surgery, more surgery, ankle, etc in the future.
That's usually not possible.
The MD/DOs usually know what DPMs can do... and they're happy to hire the best-trained pods to allow them to do a small fraction of what they could do.
In some places, it's a matter of money; podiatry gets paid less to do the work the MDs don't want... and maybe whatever other scraps they can quietly find.
In others (usually univ or big name hospital systems), it's just egos; they know very well that good DPMs can do a Jones fx or even a trimall fx just fine but won't allow it. They will put any podiatry cases on Fridays, noon, 5pm, etc to prove a point.
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