A podiatrist is doctor that practices podiatric medicine…Okay, that's a dictionary definition. Podiatry is the practice of medicine that's purpose is to prevent, to diagnose and treat conditions of the foot and ankle. Often our patient’s have many questions regarding our profession including "What can you treat?", "Do you do surgery?", "Do you treat kids?", which are just a few of the inquiries made. The answer to all the questions is quite simple, podiatrists treat any ailment from the leg (below the knee) to the tips of the toes of all age groups, genders or class (sorry, no paws included though). Doctors of Podiatric (pode-ee-a-trick, a tricky one to pronounce) Medicine or podiatrists (let's just say this, it's easier) complete extensive training before hanging up their shingle. The training of a podiatrist is completion of an undergraduate degree (usually taking four years), four years of podiatric medical school (private schools with the "sole" purpose of training the podiatric physician) and one to three years of hospital based residency. You may think that is a lot of school just to learn about the foot but since the foot is hooked up to important structures like the brain and heart, we learn it all. As podiatrists, we are proud of our career choice and it gives us great pleasure to keep our patient population moving pain free!