You will see for yourself out on clerkships. There are the whole spectrum.
Some pod programs are long hours and pretty hard since they legitimately have much work, surgery, inpatients, academics, etc... this is maybe 25% of DPM residencies (usually the best training programs we have, provided they have reasonable variety of cases + attendings).
Some pod programs are long hours and fairly hard just for the sake of being hard (they don't have a ton of surgery but find ways to triple scrub it, take in-house call for nonsense like minimally infected wounds or stable fractures, see consults for dumb derm/nail stuff, etc). This is maybe another 15% of residencies.
Half of podiatry residencies are inadequate and essentially fudge logs, few academics or very low quality ones (yet some of them will find ways to work long hours anyways).
Overall, the majority of our podiatry residencies are a cakewalk compared to nearly any MD residency. That's largely because nearly all of theirs are at teaching centers and univ hospitals with high overall standards and good resources while many of ours for podiatry are at little community centers or VA hospitals with little oversight/accountability. You will see this if you do residency or rotate at major teaching hospital(s). Most MD programs are up early for inpatient rounds (juniors earlier than seniors, but all fairly early), then grand rounds or M&M or board prep or etc... then to legit busy surgery or clinic all day, prepping for boards more or doing research in some afternoons, occasional evening academics also, some residents on call overnight. Call is typically inpatient for at least one resident - esp for surgical specialties. Those type of average MD resident hours and academics and exp would only be seen at our
best DPM programs, which are a small minority.
...the best thing to do if you want a country club program is to clerk and see for yourself. The senior/chief residents decide the program culture a bit too, so those might be the pgy1s or the pgy2s depending what time of year you clerk there. If you want a good program, pick accordingly. If you want easy hours, pick a lax place with a largely absent director and senior residents who don't run academics and usually leave early themselves - so they won't even notice if their juniors do. You can plan to be home by 4pm or earlier most days and not have to read much... and also plan to fail ABFAS qual and have limited job options after residency.
In all seriousness, I look at it this way: do the best residency you can get, work pretty hard (but avoid programs that are hard just for the sake of being hard). Later on, it's all downhill afterwards. For me, as an attending...
Going in occasionally for gas gangrene amp or the odd irreducible ankle fx is not bad... I did that 2-5x or more maaany nights as a resident.
Hard cases are not hard. I saw many that were much worse on residency pod or trauma, ortho, etc rotations.
Surgical planning is not bad... I've seen basically any and every type of fixation and implant in residency because I had so many attendings.
Tests are not tough... I simply have to review a bit to get back to a fraction of what I knew in residency when I read almost daily.
Getting up early for surgery a few days per month now is what I used to do almost every single day in residency.
I can do occasional clinic days on a half night's sleep since I did it hundreds of times in residency.
^If I would've chosen a low quality residency, that stuff would seem much harder... or impossible (assuming I could even get privileges).
...and, sadly enough,
the real "burnout" comes probably about one year after residency graduation. That is when you face the rough realities of the podiatry job market, financials, and that being an associate is depressing.
Don't say SDN doesn't warn you. Out in the real world of podiatry, you are forced to come to terms with the fact that you 95% won't have the opulent "doctor lifestyle" and ~50% might struggle to even have an upper middle class lifestyle. In residency, you can gleefully ignore those things, enjoy good health insurance, pretend you will be different and find a good job, and you don't have much time to spend $ you make anyways. For the first year out, you might not be happy with your job, but you don't realize right away how little ~$100k or $150k is after taxes and student loans. The way to weather that is to have a financially competent partner and/or frugal and realistic expectations. It will hit you hard, though. There is no getting around that for 90% or more of young DPMs.
