Podiatry course advice

David,

The one thing I do agree with you about is the demographics necessary for a successful practice.

In my experience the problem is that 'practitioners' do not understand this so time and time again we see people starting up practices based on where they want to work.

In the main they fail, but at the same time they 'challenge' the existing practices, if there are only so many feet to do then every one done by a competitor is one less for the established practice.

IMO Podiatry is a crap profession to enter, it has very low status, irrespective of the 'arguable' high end practitioners and their super specialties.

Some in this thread have argued it is all about good business practice I suggest if those business skills were applied to other ventures then greater income could be achieved, tattoo artist seems quite lucrative nowadays.

Is this negativity or truthfulness?

Bob

 

Bob,

The demographics necessary for a Private Practice is an obvious.
Why do Pod Schools in the UK or the SCP not teach this? no idea.
In fairness I know of no other professional bodies or private trainers teaching this either.

GB - this thread did not evolve - it was hijacked on post 3.

 

Yet another closed thread

Yet again we see a thread randomly closed because it involves British Podo politics.

Well here is my response to David in my opinion it is polite and constructive, if it is deleted so be it, if I am banned from the site well so be it.

David

On my degree course many years ago the cohort was made up roughly 50/50 straight from school and mature students.

I would say less than 10% had any business experience. It was only after starting the course I was made aware of the private trainers.

I have always believed that the business model for Podiatry was flawed, predominantly that there was no ethos of practices having a ‘value’ and no ‘control’ over entry into an area.

In my time I have seen the ‘big’ players come and go, Scholl, Boots, Shiropody all tried to establish a brand.

Seems like your experience was lucky it cannot have been a disadvantage having a Dad who was also a Chiropodist? The Society however has NO business acumen at all, the Institute is technically bust and the private trainers continue to pursue their self interest offering a redundancy proof opportunity!

At the same time the market place has significantly changed, NHS posts have reduced and there is downward pressure on grades. Social enterprises have been encouraged by Government, the NHS and the stupid Society to undermine the ‘bread and butter’ work of the PP pod.

If you look at the location of the posters on this thread who are positive about the ‘business’ they are from the affluent SE. Surveys have shown that their fees are not significantly higher than the general but their cost of living is much higher. So is it just footfall that makes them a good living?

So am I painting a negative picture or a true one?

Your post #14 supports much of what I have said. I do not agree that post #3 highjacked the thread, but instead I would ask Sarah why on earth she would want to get into Podiatry given her background in Biomedical science and research.

Sarah would you not be better off doing a PhD in some area of applied biomedical science, advances in that field are the future, I see few advances in Podiatry unless of course you include all of the ‘clinically proven’ products on the Pharmacy shelves to cure all of the known foot problems.

Bob