Questions
by Eric Steen (no login)

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It would be part-time, with preceptor/fellows dividing their time between intensive training sessions with instructors and working in their own practices where they will be able to profitably implement the new fruits of their training, and the preceptor/fellow positions would NOT need to be compensated positions--many established practitioners will already have practices and incomes. It would be part-time, with preceptor/fellows
dividing their time between intensive training sessions with instructors and working in their own practices where they will be able to profitably implement the new fruits of their training, and the preceptor/fellow positions would NOT need to be compensated positions--many established practitioners will already have practices and incomes.

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I foresee a problem with this. If you plan to have the preceptor/fellows working at their own practices while they undergo this training you are going to be concentrating the practicing podiatrists in the places where there are already podiatrists.

For the field of podiatry it might be far more productive to teach people how to work in new areas. Teach them not only what they need to know about podiatry, but also what they need to know about running a small business. This is essentially what we will be doing. I see this as a big shortcoming of the current educational system. 

I don't have any easy answers for it. Business management seems to be a big part of actual practice of podiatry, but it is more or less ignored in the educational process. There is no way to teach every aspect of business
management during school. It seems we are supposed to pick this up during our rotations. Some people actually go to business school for three years to learn how to run a business. Is this just something we should be able to
pick up on our own? I know that most of us are smarter than the average bear. Does this mean we don't need to spent the same amount of time learning business skills? I really don't think I need to spend three years in business school to learn how to do things right, but I should expect to spend some time on it.

I personally plan to spend as much time as possible learning what I might need to know to run my own practice. Unfortunately I think there are many of my classmates that are more focused on the short term goals of passing
tests. Academics is only a small part of the equation. I would be very interested to hear the opinions of those in practice.

Thank you,
Eric

Posted to Podiatry Forum on Aug 30 2000, 9:44 PM
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