As stated, the doctors that were shadowed may not perform surgery because they weren't surgically trained. Or they may simply not want to perform surgery. Surgery is not always the best way to earn an income for some doctors, given the time to travel to the hospital/surgical center, the time at the facility for pre op, intra op and post op, the time to travel back to the office and the fact that surgical fees aren't always tremendous and you can not bill for follow up care for most surgical cases for 30, 60, or 90 days depending on the procedure and/or insurance company.
I've mentioned this many times on this site, but one of our practice partners who IS surgically trained and ABPS certified has decided to no longer perform surgery. However, he is still one of the top producers for our practice.
The situations you described are an excellent opportunity. You just have to look at it a little differently. Many graduating residents are actually benefiting from the type of scenario you described, since they are often being hired by these practices to offer services (surgical) that were never available before for the patients.
Many of the non surgically trained doctors no longer want to refer surgery to another practice, and want to start offering the full spectrum of services, including surgery. That's when a graduating resident has a great opportunity to step in and help the practice.
However, as per a prior post, the majority of DPM's are not in the O.R. every day. Judging by my past experience being on staff on many hospitals, the majority dedicate one day weekly to surgery, and some dedicate less time. Of course there are those who perform cases more than once weekly.
We have a relatively busy surgery schedule, but also have an extremely busy practice. Therefore, I dedicate one full day weekly to surgery, but often have to go to the O.R. (as well as the other surgical docs in our practice), to perform urgent/emergent cases on other days.
There is a lot more than surgery in this profession, even if you are surgically trained. Even most orthopods I know don't spend 5 days a week in the O.R. Most dedicate 1 or 2 days weekly.
Yes, there are many excellent opportunities for graduating residents. Some include working with an existing busy practice, some include working with a practice that formerly did not offer surgical services, some include solo practice, some include working with an orthopedic group, etc., etc.
Just understand and be prepared for the fact that you will probably do more than just surgery in the vast majority of practice models you may enter. There are a lot of pathologies that patients need our services for that are not surgical, but just as rewarding.
