Question
Does a podiatrist have the same M.D. degree as an internist or family doctor for example?

Answer
Hello Mary

No, medicine has become so knowledgable today, it is impossible for someone who becomes a doctor to learn everything that we now know.

All Doctors start out learning about the entire human body, then their last few years of education, they specialize in the field of which they plan to become employed. A podiatrist has a general medical degree, as all doctors, but then an additional specialized degree in their profession. An internist has an equally important degree, they just do not take as many classes before they graduate like a podiatrist or a family doctor.

Many times when people are going to school to become a doctor, they change choices of profession when they find out that the speciality they choosed is really too complicated.

For a podiatrist, one good reason for taking the over-all classes in the beginning is so when the podiatrist gives prescriptions for various medicines, they will know how the medicines prescribed will react in people, especially people with afflictions such as diabetes. And foot injuries directly affect the entire human body. If you cannot walk properly, everything else is put under strain and pressure.

A family doctor has a general over-all knowledge of the human body, but is gifted in knowing when something should be referred to a specialist, such as a podiatrist. As I said before, we now know too much for any one person to learn all of it.

It is interesting to note that doctors have been around for almost 2,000 years. What we have learned in the past 100 years, is more than we knew in the last 1,900 years. It is estimated that, in less than 200 years, we will know everything! about the human body. There will be no more discoveries to make, no new things to learn.

Thanks for the question. Have a great day.