How I Became a Podiatrist

How I Became a Podiatrist – And Continue to Re-Invent Myself

By: Christopher R Hood JR, DPM

Making decisions about one’s career, especially in medicine, can be daunting and overwhelming. There are so many options and factors to consider in specialty choice: what region of the body, type of job (e.g. medicine vs. surgery), style of practice (e.g., office based, hospital-based, academic, research, etc.), type of patients treated (e.g., young vs. old, athletic vs. sick, acute vs. chronic illness, etc.), lifestyle afforded (e.g., banking hours vs. shift work, call responsibilities, etc.), and so on. The variability is endless!

At first, I had no idea what my priorities and preferences were and how I could possibly make these decisions. Due to playing competitive soccer through high school and college, I knew I had an interest in the foot and ankle. During that time I saw both orthopedic and podiatric physicians to treat my various injuries from toe fractures, ankle sprains, and even undergoing ankle arthroscopy surgery. After shadowing physicians in both fields during college, I found myself drawn to podiatry. Since podiatry has a designated school and curriculum, enrollment sets your career as a “podiatrist” from the get-go. This is opposed to medical school where you do not need to make a final decision on your specialty choice until your final year. However, I thought of it as no different as those choosing dentistry, pharmacy, or physical therapy.

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It was reassuring to me that choosing to attend podiatry school did not limit my options for the type of practice, lifestyle, etc. in any way and I would still have the ability to shape my “perfect practice.” As I progressed through medical school, residency, and fellowship I was exposed to podiatric physicians who all focused on lower extremity medicine but specialized podiatry on different niches based on their own preferences.  They worked for private group practices, hospitals, or were solo business owners. They worked a few days or the entire week with varying degrees of practice or hospital call. They focused on general podiatric medicine, diabetic care, wound care and limb preservation, sports medicine, traumatology, dermatology, pediatrics, nerve surgery, and so on.  The surgical volume varied greatly between physicians.  While outwardly it seems a career in podiatry is limited due to practicing strictly foot and ankle medicine, but in fact, this was far from the truth.

My idea of what I wanted to do and how I practice has changed multiple times in my short career and I owe that ability to the nature of a career in podiatry. My residency experience was filled with mostly general podiatric medicine, surgery, and diabetic limb salvage care.  While I enjoyed the practice my attendings had built and their lifestyle, after three years of residency, I had a decision to make: job or fellowship. More and more fellowship options (www.acfas.org; www.cpme.org) were sprouting up. These often included performing some of the more complicated procedures in our field that may not be as readily performed during residency. In wanting to learn more (you can never stop learning) and being exposed to other procedures (e.g, total ankle replacement, high energy trauma) and techniques, I was fortunate enough to be accepted into a fellowship supervised by a podiatrist working at an orthopedic practice. It was an intense year filled with complex patients and procedures that not only expanded my skill set, but also reshaped my future career goals.  I became more interested in a career with an athletic population where I could focus on trauma surgery. 

Following fellowship, I joined the orthopedic practice where I had completed my training. However, as life likes to be unpredictable, so can be a career in medicine (especially when your spouse is also a physician). My wife was accepted into a urology fellowship in Nashville and in an instant, my career changed.  After two years with an orthopedic group, I took a job with a large private practice podiatry group.  This new opportunity required me to refresh my skills in general podiatry diagnosing pathologies and performing procedures less encountered over the latter years of training and the first few years of practice. Ultimately this will make me a more complete physician. It will also give my wife and I our lives back – both having a more regular schedule with no call, nights, or weekends to work. During my previous job, when we would finally get to cook a meal together, one of our pagers would inevitably ring with the need to head to the emergency room during our shifts on call.  In moving to Nashville, I have also had to educate the local medical community regarding the scope of practice of “newer/younger” podiatric physicians. This has included the need to expand hospital privileges to reflect current skill sets, an endeavor I hope will make it easier for future podiatrists coming to town.

Just as organ systems overlap and interplay within our bodies, so do the fields of orthopedics and podiatry. This can be confusing to patients and other providers alike.  It is always important to be honest about your training, credentials, and scope of practice. While at the orthopedic practice, I explained to patients who were confused or unaware that I am a podiatric physician about my training, and am proud of that. I wanted to strictly treat foot and ankle pathology and found that pursuing this goal via podiatry allowed me to get there in a shorter amount of time (3-4 vs. 5-6 years). Though my education was focused on the foot and ankle, as opposed to the entire musculoskeletal system, my experience has given me the skills to treat the foot and ankle with a focused 4 years to that specific anatomy. Additionally, I have the understanding of how related systems (e.g., dermatology, neurology, rheumatology, vascular, endocrine, etc.) and anatomic regions (e.g., knee, hip, back) play a role in the development of lower extremity issues and how to treat that problem, whether myself or through proper referral. 

In an odd start, my university pre-medical society office had sub-societies and bulletin-boards for medical, dental, pharmacy, and nursing school, but nothing for podiatry. Initially, I thought the only route I had to my current position was through medical (MD, DO) school and a fellowship in foot and ankle surgery, until I learned that podiatry school even existed.

My personal goal in the field is to expand the recognition and exposure of podiatric medicine to both potential future podiatric physicians as well as the medical community. To that end, I have built a website to place all the information that I found helpful during my process from student to 4-year practitioner into one location (footankleresource.com). The website has pages dedicated to podiatric medical school and residency information, job search resources, educational information, and new practitioner tips. I felt somewhat blind going through the process myself and turned to the internet finding resources all over.  The goal of my site is to centralize that information into a “one-stop shop” in order to make the process more streamlined for trainees and early career podiatrists as well as supply educational content for the foot and ankle physician, both podiatrist and orthopaedist. Additionally, I serve as a mentor for anyone interested in a career in podiatry (dpmnetwork.org) and am on the American Podiatric Medical Association boards for both young member initiatives and social media promotion of podiatric medicine. I recommend anyone with an interest in the field checking the mentor website out to see if any local physicians offer their time for you to visit. 

I am glad incredibly thankful that one day when searching the internet about foot and ankle medicine, I realized podiatry could offer everything I wanted in a career. I am happy that I took a chance on the field. It has paid me back many times over already in both personal satisfaction in my job but also the flexibility to do what I want in a field, re-invent myself many times over, and still be a specialist within a specialty.

Dr. Hood is a fellowship trained foot and ankle surgeon. Formerly of Premier Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine in Malvern, PA, he recently joined Neuhaus Foot and Ankle (www.neufoot.com) in Nashville, TN. Follow him on Twitter at @crhoodjrdpm or check out his website www.footankleresource.com, which contains information on student/resident/new practitioner transitioning, as well as links to academic and educational resources found throughout the internet related to foot and ankle medicine.

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