Your Career as a Podiatrist by Institute For Career Research

Author:Institute For Career Research
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Institute For Career Research
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Personal Qualifications

Like all doctors, podiatrists need to be compassionate people. The patients a podiatrist sees are almost certain to be in pain. Some will be in mild pain and some in extreme pain. Podiatrists need to combine that compassion with the ability to think scientifically and critically about the conditions in which they find their patients. They must be able to apply their education and training in an analytical fashion in order to correctly diagnose a patient and determine the best course of treatment.

Hand-in-hand with this ability to think critically is the ability to be detail oriented. Illnesses and injuries may have some obvious elements to them, but each is unique to a particular individual and must be examined closely to make sure that no aspect is overlooked in developing a diagnosis.

The compassion that the podiatrist may feel and the details of the diagnosis both need to be communicated to the patient. The podiatrist cannot afford to hide or minimize any critical information. Communications skills, spoken as well as written, are extremely important in the work of the podiatrist at every stage of interaction with the patient, from the first meeting, through the assessment and diagnosis, the treatment, and, very importantly, the follow-up.

Communications skills also refer to the ability to listen well. Podiatrists must pay attention to their patients, listening for those remarks that may clarify understanding of the patient’s condition, alerting the podiatrist to some small detail that might otherwise have been overlooked. The podiatrist must be able to make patients feel comfortable and secure so that they will open up and share that kind of detail which, if they do not feel safe, might go unspoken.

Another important quality for the podiatrist is good manual dexterity. This is, of course, especially important for those podiatrists who perform surgery. It is even important for podiatrists who do not perform surgery, because of their need to be hands-on with the feet and ankles of their patients. Having good manual dexterity is also necessary when using the diagnostic and surgical implements that the podiatrist will employ in the performance of their professional duties.

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