I saw this post on podiatry school rankings and decided to pipe in on the subject.
I have a unique situation in that I am a medical student at Midwestern University at Glendale (AZCOM) and take classes with the Podiatry students (AZPOD). I have looked at the other schools of Podiatry and have noted some very crucial educational benefits AZPOD possesses that those programs do not. I'd like to mention some briefly.
To start, it is important for me to elaborate on where AZCOM stands. Among DO schools, it has risen to prominence quite swiftly and is the only DO school to have 100% board pass rates among first-time test takers for the past 5 years. It places their students in some of the most competitive residencies in the country and in some of the most competitive specialties. AZCOM stands out as one of the top DO schools, if not THE top DO school, in the country. Even when compared to MD schools, AZCOM holds up and its students gain residencies where no DO has gone before (sorry for the cliche).
AZPOD has been established differently than all other schools of podiatry in the country. Although some schools, most notably DMU, have interactions with the medical students, none have total immersion with medical students as do the students of AZPOD. ALL basic science courses are taught together, as one giant body of medical and podiatry students. By the end of the first two years, the podiatry students are just as prepared as the DO students to take the boards. I sometimes wonder if they would beat our scores on the COMLEX (more on this in a moment). The education students receive at AZPOD is not rivaled by any other podiatry school. They are taught by the best (in the DO world and the podiatry world)! In addition to these classes, AZPOD has attracted a commanding set of all-star podiatrical surgeons/physicians to its program. For the first time ever, podiatry students have a truly equal education as medical students from the top DO program in the country.
How are they holding up in our classes, you might be tempted to ask. Well, it's quite surprising at how many students in graduate programs enter in and then don't make it. Last year, about 16 DO students had to take an extra year because they couldn't take the abuse (it IS abuse). One or two podiatry students, out of 33?, faced a similar predicament. Initially, as you can imagine from the lower academic requirements for admission into podiatry school, many of the podiatry students struggled to keep up with the mean test scores on our exams. Instead of giving up and quiting, they have worked consistently harder than any of us. Now they are always at the same level we are academically. One of my collegues remarked, "I've never seen anyone earn their degrees more than these students." They work harder than anyone else AND they go year round. We, at least, have the summers off.
I hope this puts things into perspective and you can realize that, although new, in the long run, no school would be a better choice for podiatry school than AZPOD.
