Wrong. Only an MD and a DO are fully licensed physicians in the United States. That is a fact. There is a movement to “fully license” podiatrists as full physicians in the U.S. It has not happened. I don’t think any such movement exists for chiropractors as they are pretty much considered laughing stocks amongst real doctors where’s podiatrists are considered real but limited physicians by doctors.
@rgcainmd could probably clarify.
In the US podiatrists are recognized as physicians. And chiropractors (who are a Doctor of Chiropractic) are in fact are also formally recognized as physicians whether we like it or not. I continue to bang my head on the wall. Sorry about the dent and all the red stuff on the floor.
They are recognized as podiatrist physicians… Not full physicians. And as far as chiropractors— you’re just plain wrong.
All my podiatrist friends would be appalled by the “real” comment. I’ve worked in surgery for around 25 years. When I see an orthopedic surgeon “attempting” to do foot surgery, I cringe and feel like telling the patient to run.
Podiatrists are “real” doctors. “A Doctor of Podiatric Medicine is considered a medical doctor of the foot and ankle and receives an education almost the same as that of a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) and Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.).” (Wikipedia) The one mentioned by the OP is just not a good doctor. period. or is having a horrible horrible day. There’s no excuse, but but also not a reason for clumping all podiatrists in with this pathetic example.
I’ve had bilateral foot surgery done by my favorite podiatrists, with great success. Then again, I’ve seen podiatrists that don’t have as much finesse as others. But that’s true of any doctor or surgeon of any specialty. They vary as do all human beings in personality and ability.
Precisely, which is why I earlier said for the poster to switch foot docs. Lumping them all into the same bucket is very unfair and inappropriate.
The folks suggesting “well, just see another doc…” are missing the “I drove 5 hours to see this doc…” bit from @TimmyMac. A lot of people in communities with less dense doctor availability and some folks with lots of doc around but fussy insurance end up with a short list of docs with whom to treat. I’ve had a few different podiatrists and they all seemed pretty good to me. I often seem to be lucky so I don’t know what to say about that.
Exactly! There’s LOTS of dentists, OBs, veterinarians, and chiropractors in our smallish town but only one endo practice (and it’s not well-regarded).
Wow, this thread exploded!
Let’s stop the arguments about whether or not podiatrists are real doctors, at this point I really don’t care. All I know is I’m not going back to this woman again.
@acidrock23 yeah you are mostly right about that. My insurance plan covers exactly 2 orthopedics. One of them quit 3 years ago, and the other is almost in another state.
I do have a fair number of podiatrists I can go to, I just went back to her because she was the one I went to the first time and I thought her follow-up appointment would have been useful. I was hoping I’d at least get a “I’m glad your ankle isn’t hurting as bad, now lets work on strengthening it so you can start running again without reinjuring it.” but All I got was a condescending, dismissive attitude.
I don’t even know if my ankle at this point is “better” or if the cortisone just hasn’t worn off yet. It’s gonna suck if I think I’m healed just to wake up one morning back in square 1.
Any chance you can switch at some point to a PPO plan? If you have HMO insurance (which I have refused to get since back in 1978, when I had it for one year) then it will be tougher to get good medical care (comparatively).
I’m not sure honestly. I’m getting insurance through the ACA right now, so it might be difficult
The other thing about this injury is that the general medical guidelines for sprain/ strain type of injuries is that they should be healed within a few weeks. If you follow sports, most guys with these problems will be out for a while and then they come back. Some guys sooner and some guys might take more time. From your description in your original post that your sprain sounds pretty serious and you’re probably lucky you didn’t break it.
I’d liked to have seen the doc offer a home exercise program, maybe sooner, but, if you have no pain or sensation of instability, I’d suspect that she’d presume you’re fine and clear you to return to normal activities. The thing about running is that it will likely pound/ grind on your ankle more. I sprained my ankle pretty badly in H.S. This was 1984 and the tx plan then was to put it into a cast for 8 weeks and then, to top it off, I was dxed with diabetes. $#!+!! You can google some exercises, I think typical ones are to raise yourself up and down on your toes, maybe on a step or stair to get through more range of motion, to ankle alphabets, where you pretty much write A-Z with your toes to move the ankle through a wide range of it’s motions. If running is too painful, walking is probably good to do too, although it may be somewhat embarrassing if you were out there running 6:30-7:00 miles and are reduced to walking but that’s about the best way to get back to running. Again, to look at pro sports, you read about different paths to recovery but people who come back quicker, one almost always reads that they are working hard at therapy and you can do that on your own. Figure out a plan and do it and see if it gets better. It may be that your ACA plan would require symptoms to mandate an rx for therapy but I’m not sure how controlling they are.
It’s very unfortunate that the doc didn’t rx this. My daughter dislocated her knee and had an RX for PT but found it tedious and, after like 2 sessions was like “I can do this at home on my own” and got back in action. My own injury had lingered for years and then my ankle would go out periodically, often while going down stairs or ramps, and it was a hassle. Tae Kwon Do seemed to help a lot. We did a lot of stretches for that (of everything…) and then the jumping up and down repeatedly. But that tends to be expen$ive too!