Future of Podiatry

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Hi All,

Interested to find out peoples views on the future of podiatry in Australia (next 10 years or so)- especially in regards to: scope of practice;titles;specialities and public perception.
Positive / negative?? What say you!

Merry Christmas:santa:

 

The future is good with the likely expansion of the retired population and increases in recreational sporting/exercise activity. Lots more people with sore feet and lower limb injuries. The challenge for podiatry is to become the primary health care provider for disorders of the lower limb. I think we still lag behind GP's and Physios.

 

Interestng thread, :good:

I think to allow more perspective it may be of value to open the discussion to include Podiatrists globally to provide a world wide view.

I would be interested to understand the progression of Podiatry from its humble beginnings of barbers etc. as corn cutters, to the emergence of Podiatry as it is perceived in different countries today.

eg. The evolution & progression of Podiatry in the United States. Only my personal opinion although I feel this may give insight into the potential growth of Podiatry in the future regarding other countries.

Anyone?

Many thanks,

Mandy

 

According to my well-worn copy of Principles & Practice of Podiatric Medicine, Chapter 1, Levy, The Evolution of Practice - the following are some key historical points about the growth of podiatric medicine in the US.

Maybe some slightly greater accomplishments by the US profession over Commonwealth nations? We have a long way to go, and could be at least 50 years behind in some respects politically and professionally...

Time to get back to my drug prescribing submission to our local state government...

(This information was directly sourced from Dr Levy's chapter, rather than the original sources.)

LL

 

Thank you very much LL,

Really helpful & informative.

:drinks

Mandy

 

Even though I never have been much of a politician, I do greatly respect those more politically-minded podiatrists before me here in the States that have devoted a good part of their lives towards making things better for future generations of podiatrists. Their efforts have made it better for all podiatrists here in the US, including myself, and I am deeply endebted to them for their sacrifices.

I suggest, if you really do want to make it better for your profession in your own country, you must make a decision to collectively strive for excellence, band together with common goals, and fight for what you think is right with the hopes that future generations of podiatrists in your country will have the medical privileges they deserve and will enjoy a more respected position within their medical communities.

 

netizens

There is a dearth of electronic information relating to the origins and practice of chiropody/podiatry. In the interest of sharing information I compiled a detailed historical review of the profession of podiatry back in 2004. Starting with humble beginnings as corn cutters the essay casts a critical eye over the historical influences which eventually forged the modern specialty of podiatric medicine. This wass not intended to be a definitive history, merely a personal interpretation with strong reference to previously published works, which because of age and obscurity are not readily available to students of the profession. Much progress has been made since 2004 but this is out with the remit of the attached essay.
The essay also excludes the US history primarily because there already exists some excellent works. These are however not easily available to the general reader.

In compiling this work I am grateful to the following people: Eric Lee, practitioner, UK; Alan Crawford, Queensland University of Technology; and George Dunn, UK. All of which shared their considerable research to make this a valuable resource to fellow researchers. The essay was dedicated to Colin Dagnall, certainly the most well read fellow in the history of podiatry, I have had the pleasure to know.

toeslayer

 

Interesting thread...
My $0.02:

I would hope that we could improve some of our image problems (I had my first 'I've tried everything, seen everyone for my foot pain (except a podiatrist)' the other day). I do wonder if a different approach to aged care, that was more assessment focussed than nail care focussed, could be one part of this?

I wonder if we might see nursing roles re-absorb some of the nail cutting and conservative sharp wound debridement more consistently (I know it's happening in some places, but am surprised at how much it isn't happening in my area, which has relatively few podiatry services - funding, geography, and physical infrastructure i.e. space probably limits the ability to which these needs can be fully met by podiatrists in some places).

In terms of podiatry, possibly expansion of things that are already happening:
Multidisciplinary clinics
More specialised public services or more federal funding to do these things privately - high risk foot, orthopaedics, rheumatology, vascular, paediatrics
Podiatric surgery
Maybe more supervision/training of non-podiatrist foot carers (e.g. allied health assistants, nursing roles)
Maybe more footwear modifications, given lack of medical grade footwear suppliers/bootmakers in some areas?
Maybe increased role in AFO prescription/manufacture?
More non-medical prescribing? Access to S4 drugs? More diagnostic testing access?

I think there's a great lot of variability from service to service, place to place... Quite promising, in some regards, but as has already been said, a coordinated approach, less adversarial within the profession, more political action, probably is important in moving anywhere.

e.

 

Australia and Great Britain appear to have remarkably different podiatry scopes of practice and in a much less pivotal position than their US counterparts who, in the 1960s,70s and 80s brought the profession -with funds garnered from the lobbying dollars largely derived from the automobile industry. In essence Detroit was the capitol of podiatry for many years. In societies where scope of practice and state legislatures have little or no reliance upon fiduciary tides little may mirror the manifest destiny of podiatry in America. In the US the future podiatrist will have trained post podiatric college in foot surgery for three years and become hyperspecialized in foot and ankle surgery. Diminishing numbers of podiatrists and political action will subsequently lower the number of podiatrists in practice as many of the older podiatrists will atrit via age, infirmity and death. The chiropody of GB and Australia may aspire to greater foot care but will as in most cultures require a general medical education and qualification to proceed. The future of podiatry in the US is indeed difficult to compare to other nations or cultures because podiatrists themselves in the US have not found much unity in their profession and it is -to most observers and abberation, a mutation which will follow the natural laws and like the dinosaur, become a footnote in the history of healthcare.

 

I think in Australia where we have significant streams of health care in both public and private arenas there are more interest groups and powerful bodies at work lobbying for their own preferred outcomes for the future. Large factors include
1. The govt trying to provide an expanding range of services to an aging population as cheaply as possible.
2.The training organizations like Unis and Tech Colleges being forced to try to make money out of education, which makes for corner cutting and a lowering of clinical education ratios and standards.
3.Rural vs city issues in Aus create anomalies in circumstances where community health and hospitals become significant competitors with private practice in areas of low population.
4.Nurses and footcare assisstants doing things in footcare that are beyond the scope of their training and insurance cover, but they can make a buck out of it and nobody cares enough to stop them.....even if they could.
I think podiatry has a solid future, but there will be plenty of change along the way
regards Phill

 

LL,

I would like to know the focus of the drug submission to the state body, and more importantly what is the focus? Is the focus, aimed at expansion for up skilled general pods (as seen in Victoria), or is the focus for surgical pods access?

Also, the drug submission is obviously a long and tedious process. Are there significant advances being made, and what effect will National Registration have?

Thanks for your comments.

Clinton

 

Clinton

Podiatry Arena (as a public forum) is probably not well suited to discussing this.

I think it would be fair to say though, that it is probably the goal of every state and territory podiatry organisation to have changes to drugs legislation of a similar nature to the Victorian model (ie prescribing by any podiatrist with suitable qualifications and training). National registration may assist in facilitating this (eg developing standards and clinical pathways for prescribing), but local drugs laws will still need to be changed through hard work, political lobbying and stakeholder involvement.

LL