You're living expenses are low for 1/2 of the pod schools. Most are in expensive areas with 1k rent minimum/month. Some areas will be much more (NY, CA). You are looking at closer to 300k after 4 years if you do not get scholarships.
Just a wake up 300k is about $3-3.5k/month for 10 years at graduation with the current interest rate. That is a minimum 36,000/year.
And to answer your question you can't which is why no one should accept those positions unless you absolutely have to or there is good incentives and/or partnership down the road.
The best case scenario with one of those crap jobs is to learn how to run a practice and then bail. But 70k job with poor incentives is a trap that is destined to fail. Too many jobs out there are designed to take advantage of new grads. Our profession is sad on that front. Even more sad is people are willing to take those jobs so those offers will never go away. Many people offering them think it is fair because that's what they were offered.
I personally did not apply to a single podiatry practice. In addition to poor reimbursement, It's my opinion that slowly but surely the private practice model will die off. Too many of the independent primary care doctors are getting bought up by big hospital systems. Once a PCP is in a large hospital system that provider no longer can refer to the podiatrist down the road. The PCP now has to refer within the hospital system.
The good thing is pods are also getting swallowed up by large hospital systems and these jobs are becoming more available. My area is almost exclusively hospital based podiatrists or with ortho practices. Private practice would be career suicide around here.
The bad thing is hospitals can fire and replace you at the drop of a dime or decide to pay you less for really no reason at all.
Rural small private practice will be viable for a long time. But city/suburbia I would think carefully about as your referral source is dwindling.
This is why I shake my head at all those "I have a 2.8gpa can I get into podiatry school?" threads. Yeah you might get in. You will likely fail out and if you do make it through but don't change your habits/just barely scrape by it is not likely to be a good investment. Always exceptions but bottom students get bottom jobs.
whoever this guy is he hit the nail on the head. I also signed my dream job after residency DESPITE everyone telling me "no you cant make that much", "you're just a pod" etc etc. Let me be the first to state that these older pods, or as I like to call them mustache pods are the ones that are ruining our profession. They accept people who shouldnt be accepted to schools, expand schools and overall just eat their young. There are many exceptions of course but overall the profession is run by a lot of close minded greedy people. Once they weed out as time permits I hope the younger guys will be driven to make the appropriate push. With that said the good guys teach us younger ones well and make our profession look better by creating parity and relationships with the rest of the medical community and by being honest with those that they teach and interact with.
My starting salary (first year) is 200k without bonus in a multi specialty practice in an extremely desirable area near NYC. I anticipate to make 300k+ by year 3.
Let me tell you HOW I landed this job. There is absolutely no substitute for hard work and good social skills. None- I don't care if you got a 4.0 GPA in pod school, if youre an akward klutz, all that training is going to get you nowhere fast- Especially if you display elitism amongst your peers. FIX THIS FIRST AND DO IT EARLY. I worked my ass off in the face of discrimination from my upper years as a resident and even some attendings who saw me as a threat to their territory after I graduated from residency. I always made friends with everyone, orthos, plastics whoever I would spend extra hours in the morning and after work was done scrubbing cases and shadowing doctors. I made great relations with most of my attendings to absorb everything I possibly could.
My particular residency program has been around for 26 years and in those years I am the resident who has logged and scrubbed the most cases by quite a lot (according to my director). I always questioned tasks that I was assigned to by my upper years. If it was a waste of my time or education I politely questioned it and at times decided whether it was worth it. I cant stand elite programs who make you do busy work in the form of soft hazing. You have 3-4 short years, if youre in a program that makes you do unneccesary tasks that have absolutely no impact on your career ans a pod or a person then I would suggest making a change. Do it in the face of difficulty or discrimination. DO IT.. because guess what, when youre alone in practice, all that extra busy work your upper years made you do wont help you out of treating that pt appropriately. Now dont get me wrong most of the extra work that you get as a resident is obviously necc for your overall training, even at times when you dont think so. But if someone is making you unwillingly grab coffee or rearrange chairs in the office, yelling at you because they are insecure about themselves, do extra handwritten work that is meaningless.. you get what i mean. Toss that in the trash.
Rant over. Back to how I got the job. I did an elective rotation in vascular surgery, which at the time was brutal, just so I could get to know the chief of the department. That was it. All I wanted was to get some hands on work in the OR and to show face to the new chief. Long story short a cardiologist who operates in the OR next door kept seeing me during that rotation. He liked my work ethic and invited me to his office where he made me an offer I couldn't refuse. And here I am now typing on my lunch break from my office which I am extremely grateful for.
If you are ever discouraged by your peers or other pods... message me. You desreve to be paid what you are worth. You deserve to be in a job that you love. You deserve to be in a job environment where your colleagues show you immense respect and parity.
My recc:
1. Work extremely hard in residency getting whats best for YOU, work hard to impress others- someone is always watching even when you don't feel so
2. Pursue jobs in multispecialty groups or ortho groups first. I think pod groups are a dying breed and everything will either be absorbed or gone with the wind in the next 10-15 years. and if you are joining a pod group make sure you arent being swindled for easy labor for first few years. Get what you are worth and Future proof yourself
3. When youre ready create a binder that is custom made to the job you are applying to. Have in the binder your logs, presentations, letters of recc, letter of intent and 2-3 special cases you did with photos that you can explain to hte employer. something that shows your prowess in surgery and clinical judgement. Ex: Think profile black three ring binder with front pocket with dr. Smith's name on it. inside first page letter of intent, then CV then research then case studies and finally logs. Logs dont matter with jobs btw. Its all about persona
4. Be yourself. I got my job by showing my employer how ambitious I was and how dedicated I was to building this new practice for him. I truly felt that way, this guy is paying me a great salary and giving me the world of respect so in return I am encouraged to DO MORE because it feels like I am doing it to BETTER MYSELF and in turn better the whole practice. Be in a place that makes you feel like this.
5. HMU if you have any questions. Away with the naysayers.
