Jarrod Shapiro, DPM
Practice Perfect Editor
Assistant Professor,
Dept. of Podiatric Medicine,
Surgery & Biomechanics
College of Podiatric Medicine
Western University of
Health Sciences,
St. Pomona, CA

A Conference With a Message

This past weekend, I had a conference experience different from my regular one. Most years, I attend one of the podiatric conferences such as the ACFAS meeting or the PRESENT Residency Summit. This year, I had the opportunity to attend the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) conference. The AAMC represents all of the allopathic medical schools and academic medical centers in the U.S. This is the first time I’ve attended this conference, spending a few fine days with Dean Harkless and a couple of my partners, learning information pertinent to academic medicine. When comparing this conference to many of the other podiatry conferences, I was taken with just how different this one was from ours.

The first difference was simply the size. This conference had 4,000 attendees, four times the size of last year’s Western Podiatric Conference. However, due to the venue, San Francisco’s Moscone Center, a giant sprawling building, this event seemed somehow smaller and more intimate than the ACFAS Conference. Perhaps some of that intimacy also stemmed from the sense of collegiality of the AAMC. Attendees and speakers all referred to each other by first name, rather than “doctor so and so.” I found this quite a change from some of our podiatry conferences in which so many try to advertise their doctor credentials.

Similar to the size, I had no problem remembering the attendees were of a quite different sort. These were all MD’s from schools such as Johns Hopkins, Washington University, Vanderbuilt, and many others. The one thing that struck me was the complete absence of podiatric medicine from this conference. Obviously, we’re small potatoes to this organization. Then I started thinking how few of these medical schools and academic training centers still do not have podiatric residency programs. Most of the people from these high quality medical centers have limited to no academic interaction with podiatric medicine.

Imagine how beneficial it would be to our profession to open residency programs at these institutions. Think of our residents training right next to theirs, functioning as integral parts of their services while on rotation. Consider our services doing trauma care or diabetic limb salvage at these hospitals. Picture the incredible research and education resources available that we’re currently missing out on by not being present.

Tonight's Premier Lecture is
Biology of Wound Healing
Suhad Hadi, DPM,FACFAS

If you don’t agree, just consider Harvard Medical School. In Boston, we have podiatric residencies with Harvard affiliations, such as Beth Israel Deaconess and Cambridge Health Alliance, both of which have very strong reputations and are doing good work. Just imagine the benefit to our programs - and to our profession as a whole - having our residents train side by side with the MD residents and students at more academic teaching hospitals. This would have a profound effect, earn us more true centers of excellence integration and bring us that much closer to our Vision 2015 goal of parity.

And yet podiatric medicine was almost completely absent from this conference.

Spending time here left me with the simple reminder about what leaders like Dr. Harkless have argued for some time: we need to open more podiatric residencies in these centers of excellent education. It’ll be an uphill battle, I’m sure, but it’s a battle worth fighting. The effect will be exponentially beneficial, bringing us closer to our goal of parity while increasing residency positions in the highest quality academic medical centers. What more could we ask for?

Podiatry lives professionally in the world of the MDs and DOs, and yet we have an incredibly small presence in their academic world. Isn’t it time for a change?