Jarrod Shapiro, DPM PRESENT Practice Perfect Editor Mountain View Medical & Surgical Associates, Madras, Oregon

Our Podiatry Community

Last week I had dinner with a group of Central Oregon’s podiatrists.  This small group of physicians began meeting a few months ago, organized by one of our new, young physicians, Amanda Westfall, DPM.  As a valuable new member of our community, Dr Westfall immediately displayed her strong leadership skills by bringing together several of our local podiatrists who, as far as I know, had not previously met in a more formal manner.  In the past, I had not participated with this group and realized afterwards what I had been missing.  I enjoyed the collegiality of our dinner and learned things I would not have known had I not attended.  My congratulations to Dr Westfall on her success; I’m looking forward to more of our podiatric dinners.  After our group’s dinner, I began thinking about our podiatry community.  Every day, it seems to grow increasingly stronger.

	Tonight's Premier Lecture is Therapeutic Angiogenesis: A Treatment Option for CLI by Vickie Driver, DPM, MS, FACFAS.

On both a community and national level, the effectiveness of podiatry as a specialty seems to me greater than it has been.  I may be wrong about this – I've only been actively involved in the podiatric community for the past 10 years (practicing for 3 ½ years, 3 years residency, and 4 years medical school) – but the amount of work our leadership accomplishes nationally and locally, the educational opportunities available, and the sheer amount of communication has reached a monumental level.

Let’s take an example on a more national level than Dr Westfall’s local organizing efforts.  When was the last time you logged into Podiatry.com? Did you know that there are 92  topics under discussion on the eTalk section of the site? Some of these topics have hundreds and even thousands of views. 

Our community is talking!  I’ve personally learned much from these simple conversations that I hadn’t known before.  Our educational opportunities have become incredibly organized.  Whether it’s PRESENT Podiatry’s lecture series, the APMA’s online lectures, ACFAS podcasts, the ACFAS surgical skills courses, or any of a number of conferences throughout the year (and the world), our ability to continue our education and hone our skills is better than ever.

Much of this is made possible by the interconnectedness the Internet allows.  I can have a conversation with some of the best and brightest minds of our profession, from the comfort and convenience of my own home or office...or a Starbucks !  But it’s not just on the Internet in which we’re excelling.  We’ve become the forefront specialty when it comes to wound healing.  More and more, we see the DPM suffix after the names of presenters at national conferences.  Two obvious examples are the Symposium on Advanced Wound Care and Cardiovascular Horizons.

We are also on the forefront of much of the general foot and ankle surgery.  I would ask our orthopedic colleagues, for example, why has there been such a rebirth of orthopedic foot and ankle surgeons when in the past there were so few?  The answer is clearly that the orthopedists have seen the work we’re doing and the increasingly large market share we hold and want to participate in a good thing.

Now, this isn’t to say we are perfect; we have plenty of work to do.  In many instances we can improve.  Our leadership is working hard to continue the parity of podiatrists with other physicians.  This work is clearly ongoing.  Although some excellent research has been published from podiatry — the SIDESTEP study comes to mind – we have a long way to go.  Much of our publication is still lower quality.  A nonrandomized study with 30 subjects or a cadaver analysis does not meet the standard level 1 research study.  I think we have more to learn from podiatrists like Drs Lipsky and Armstrong.  Two methods will help change some of our deficiencies: more multicenter studies involving more podiatrists and greater availability to learn research methods.  Since our power is in numbers, we need to involve more podiatrists to increase the sample sizes of our studies.  I’d also like to see something like an ACFAS surgical skills course that teaches us A to Z how to actually do a research study.  Perhaps some of our new bright stars like Stephanie Wu, DPM can lead more of us into a podiatric era of randomized controlled trials.  We have important questions still to answer.

So I congratulate our podiatric leaders, both local and national, for their hard work, caring, and love of our profession and podiatric society.  And I urge all of us to become even more involved.  Enjoy your next eTalk session!

What do you think? Join in on or any number eTalk Topics taking place on PRESENT Podiatry, or create one of your own.

Keep writing in with your thoughts and comments or visit eTalk on PRESENT Podiatry and start or get in on the discussion. We'll see you next week. Best wishes!

Jarrod Shapiro, DPM
PRESENT Practice Perfect Editor
[email protected]

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