An international podiatric curriculum: 3- tier model

Foot specialists of any type exist in fewer than two dozen of the more than 200 nations on earth. Our colleagues in many different specialties remind us that there needs to be a universal, standardized medical and surgical sub-specialty called podiatry outside of the United States and, at the same time, one that is integrated and compatible with the U.S. standard of training and credentialing for specialists in podiatric medicine and surgery. The worldwide epidemic of diabetes alone presents a formidable challenge to provide preventive and therapeutic podiatric specialty care for the millions of diabetics in the developed and developing world at risk for limb and life-threatening diabetic wounds and infections. Obviously, besides diabetes, there are many other serious foot and ankle diseases, in the developed and developing world, that require the specialty knowledge and surgical skills of comprehensively trained foot and ankle specialists. In non-diabetics, these disorders include trauma, arthritis, infection, neoplasia, vascular disease, congenital and neuromuscular disease, and primary ulcerative disease. The model proposed in this paper may provide the leverage and flexibility necessary to build the required global population of trained podiatric medical and surgical specialists. We have developed outlines for three different tiers of foot specialists and their corresponding training requirements, both academic and clinical, that we think might facilitate advancement towards this common goal of properly trained podiatric specialists strategically available around the world.