Podiatry is an exciting and varied career. It offers you the chance to make a difference, a high degree of flexibility and excellent employment prospects. You will work with patients every day to help improve their care and their lives.
You will work with people’s feet and legs by diagnosing and treating abnormalities and offer professional advice on care of feet and legs to prevent foot problems. You may see patients at risk of amputation, such as those suffering from arthritis or diabetes. Some examples of things you might work on include:
- helping children with lower limb pain or problems walking
- helping diabetes sufferers with circulation problems who may be at risk of amputation
- helping people with sports injuries and dancers whose long hours of rehearsing and performing put stress on their feet causing injury
Variety is one of the most exciting things about being a podiatrist. As well as seeing different patients and conditions you can also work in a multi-disciplinary team. Podiatrists work with other healthcare professionals such as dietitians, GPs, nurses and physiotherapists. Some also supervise the work of podiatry assistants. To become a podiatrist, you will need to train and study at degree level.
There is a lot more to podiatry than many people realise. Most podiatrists start their professional life working in general clinics. As their career progresses and their clinical skills develop, many identify areas of practice that really interest them and so they steer their career in that direction.
Maybe one of these areas of clinical practice would interest you:
- Diabetes
- Wound care
- Paediatric biomechanics
- Sports injuries
- Rheumatology
- Orthotic manufacture
- Nail surgery
- Rehabilitation
- Biomechanics
- Gait and pressure analysis
The huge variety of conditions that a podiatrist treats lends itself to a broad clinical experience in practice. The option to specialise and develop your practice in one area means that you can focus your work should this be something you wish to embark on.
