It's funny that you mention that, because I have read podiatrists' websites on which they boast about doing lots of high-profile ankle reconstruction work even though they've only completed 2 years of residency.
I thought the completion of a 3-year residency was a legal requirement for performing rearfoot procedures?
You need to realize the PM and S residencies are only a few years old. So now you can either do a PM & S - 24 or a PM & S -36 (there are five 4 year residencies left, but you are still granted a PM/S - 36 at the end). All pods finishing residency
these days will at least have some surgical training (unlike the past). These fresh DPM's
need to complete a 3 year PM & S in order to be certified in FF/RF/Ankle surgery.
Before this changeover, residencies were like alphabet soup (primary podiatry residency, podiatric surgical residency, orthopedics residency, etc). Some were even
1 year in length. Pods could finish residency and have done very little surgery - now it is obviously different with the changeover.
In the 70's and even 80's, there were not many podiatry residencies out there. Most were 1 year in length and a minority were 2. There were only a few spots available as well. Things like "preceptorships" existed where a DPM fresh out of school would work with a older pod for a year or so, gaining surgical skills. So they did develop surgical skills, but it was not regulated like we have today (mandatory 2 years at a hospital, rotations in ER, IM, GS, etc). So yes, there are some older pods out there who were grandfathered in to include ankle surgery. Some states will specify in their scope of practice the necessary background for a current pod to do ankle work (I can think of Connecticut off the top of my head).
Hope this helps
