Career Guide: Want to be a Podiatrist?

Welcome to the WOW Show Careers Guides. This is where we lift the lid on some of the exciting careers you may not even have thought about. Want to do something where you can help people every day, work as part of a team and learn skills that will give you career opportunities all over the world? You could be part of a team of healthcare specialists called Allied Health Professionals. This guide is about becoming a podiatrist with the help of Jamie, Usama, Krishna and Jill. Let's find out what the job really involves. Podiatry is a great career. It's challenging, it's varied and it's rewarding. What you put in you will absolutely get out. Everything affects the foot from the brain to the heart to your entire body so it's not just about feet it's about working out everything else that's going on and why that's affecting the foot in the way that it is. As a podiatrist I'm actively saving limbs, I'm actively saving lives and I do that as an advanced podiatrist within the NHS. There's an absolute myriad of things that you can perhaps go into sports, it could be surgery, it could be high-risk wound care, you can even go into forensic podiatry. I didn't realise the pathway so I spoke to more podiatrists and I found that it was a degree programme and at the time I was studying sport and exercise science at university and what I found was I was already doing a lot of the practical application of that. I was working in a gym and what I realised was when I saw what podiatrists did that I could do more than just the fitness side of things, I could help them with their quality of life and their goals. I then signed up for the podiatry degree programme. I was thinking about options that would still allow me to do a lot of sport to a decent level but get kind of a really rounded approach to my studying, so I actually studied sport and exercise science as a BTEC. I could still go to university with those grades and it allowed me some more flexibility to still be able to do a lot of sport that I wanted to do as well at the same time. Having just been a new grad I tend to sort of do a bit of everything really just to get that experience level up to a standard. I'm currently doing my master's right now in podiatric surgery. You effectively do your BSc, you qualify as a podiatrist, ideally get some experience under your belt and then you need to complete your master's. Once you've finished that you'll have to then complete what you call a surgical passport and then you have to do your pupillage which is your three years training. I went straight from college at 18 straight to university and there's lots of universities throughout the UK where you can study podiatry and I did my degree and the day I got my results is the day I got my first job. I did a degree level entry and what was really important that you had a science background including biology because it's health. Social psychology is also really important and if you have got any practical qualifications so if you can show that you've been able to be involved with the public that's also good. I started dancing from about the age of I think six or seven and then when I did my sports degree I chose a choreography module as well. Teaching dance to little five six-year-olds gave me communication skills and confidence, don't be afraid to put those on your CV. One thing I would highly recommend is just get in touch with with many podiatrists you know in the local area, get in touch with your local NHS team, get in touch with any private practices that are around you so you get a feel of what it's like. It's a really good way of building up experience and showing an interest when you apply to university that you've kind of taken some of those steps and kind of been forward thinking in that approach. Podiatry gives you so much flexibility. I work within the NHS as well as private practice so within the NHS I work with high-risk rooms, keeping patients out of hospital and with private practice I'm able to use all the other podiatry skills that I'm qualified to do and what podiatry does it gives you the flexibility and gives you the option to I train for triathlon and I'm hoping to go as far as possible with that so I applied for a job that was three days a week in the NHS, this allowed me the flexibility to keep up with my training schedule. I have a particular interest in the musculoskeletal side of podiatry, this means working with physios a little bit more closely. I've also done some work in nail surgery, I've also done some work actually in the hospitals in the diabetes team and then finally I also do work at people's houses. There are lots of jobs in the NHS and other options so there are private practice jobs as well. I had a great opportunity to work as the in-house podiatrist for an international brand this developed my business skills which I then use to develop my own private practice. In around 2005 I was able to join the festival medical services mid-last summer festival so there's first aid, there's physiotherapy, podiatry, radiography, dentistry, midwifery so you're part of a huge team and what's fantastic is podiatry is really well valued in that team as to anyone who's ever been to a festival you'll know it's really hard on your feet. As a podiatrist in your day-to-day practice you will see a whole variety of things, no day is the same which is quite exciting because it allows you to problem solve all these different things and put management plans in place to keep patients active. Ongoing health issues you may deal with as a podiatrist are patients with diabetes, patients who may have rheumatoid arthritis, patients with musculoskeletal problems are quite key and working with the skills you will learn will help you manage these effectively. Communication as a podiatrist is really key and I think also just having a relaxed friendly personality that provides a comfortable environment for the patients when they come in to see you. I always think about the three P's I would say people skills, problem solving and practical. You've got to be a bit caring and you've got to have the mentality that I'm here to help somebody and I'm here to make them better. Podiatrists really are key players when it comes to knowing a lot of the pathologies and issues that affect the lower limb. A lot of the problems people may have can actually manifest and show firstly within the foot so an example of this could be when you're listening to the circulation and if that circulation is a little bit irregular in my own experience I've then sent these patients back to their GP for further tests. These patients have gone on had these further tests and then ongoing medications which have made them feel so much better but this initial diagnosis came from the foot. I love the team that I work in and then patients you know getting to meet people daily. If you care about people you'll be fine you can learn everything that you need to learn if you have a heart for really wanting to help people and caring for people then that's the main quality I think is best with podiatry. You don't realise how important foot health is until you have a problem or something goes wrong and then you get painful feet and the impact that has on overall health and as a podiatrist I feel so proud to be able to make a difference to people's mobility and keeping the population active. Pretty impressive Want to find out more about becoming a podiatrist? Go to healthcareers.nhs.uk and explore the AHP podiatrist pages. There's a great overview of entry requirements as well as information about degree apprenticeships. There are other options too like becoming a podiatry assistant. As a newly qualified podiatrist you'll be on a starting salary of just under £25,000 a year. We hope you've enjoyed this vast show of careers guys look forward to seeing you again soon bye