5 great reasons podiatry is fulfilling!

1) Volunteering: As a podiatrist, or even a podiatry student, there is nothing more satisfying than being able to offer your skillset to a community of people that otherwise would not have access to podiatry services through no fault of their own. This is an important part of the profession to get involved in as a student, as you can see the ripple effect volunteering has and how your skills are valuable, even as a year 1 student! Organizations such as forgotten feet: http://www.forgottenfeet.org/ or Crisis for Christmas: https://www.crisis.org.uk/get-involved/volunteer/volunteering-positions/ are fantastic to get yourselves involved in early on!

2) Finding mentors to guide you: or more accurately, being found by mentors. In the podiatry community, mentors are actively seeking to help and guide students early on in their academic journey and as new grads. Mentorship opportunities offered by the Royal College of Podiatry https://rcpod.org.uk/blog/the-magic-of-mentoring are such programs where you can enrol as a mentee and work with amazing people!

3) Being a mentor yourself: As mentioned above, you can also enrol to become a mentor and help guide students that are either beginning their student journey or are new grads! There is nothing more satisfying than seeing a student you've mentored spread their wings and fly!

4) Making an immediate difference: we see the impact our skillset and knowledge base has on patients quite early on in clinics, for example, a patient has come in with a corn that's causing them a lot of pain and grief. You’re able to get rid of the corn for them, on the spot. The patient walks away feeling comfortable than when they walked in! You can read more about debridement skills here: https://www.ektaavadgama.com/post/debridement

silicone toe props here: https://www.ektaavadgama.com/post/silicone-toe-props-what-and-why

5) You get to work alongside some amazing pods: Being able to find a friend circle full of like-minded individuals not only propels you further but inspires you to become a better pod yourself! Friendship in a community of podiatrists is not a hard thing to do by any means as the community itself is so welcoming of students and incredibly supportive of one another! Especially when you’re trying to make a difference! I assure you, you will find a lot of love and support!

Also, as a bonus point, we make some really horrible foot jokes so if that doesn’t inspire you to become a pod yourself, then you’re toe-tally missing out! Have a great international pod day!