Professional Development

Podiatry schools are looking for well-rounded applicants who have confirmed their interest in the field of podiatry. Pre-podiatry students should plan to spend their time outside of the classroom to explore and commit to podiatry by engaging in a variety of activities including but not limited to shadowing, working, and volunteering. Research is another extracurricular activity that some pre-podiatry students participate in.

AACPMAS Experiences

The AACPMAS application gives students the opportunity to record and describe the developmental experiences they engaged in outside of the classroom. Each experience must be categorized using one of the options provided below:

Extracurricular Activities
Non-Healthcare Employment
Non-Healthcare Volunteer or Community Enrichment
Healthcare Experience

Podiatry schools are particularly interested in an applicant's exposure to and experiences in the field of podiatry. The advisors in the PMHSC strongly recommend shadowing a podiatrist to gain an initial understanding of the profession. Step Into Podiatry is one great way to find a mentor in the field of podiatric medicine. The Step Into Podiatry website is a wonderful resource for students, providing resources for both undergraduate and high school students, a mentoring program, and webinars.

Apart from learning about the profession of podiatry through shadowing experiences, there is no 'minimum' number of hours that need to be completed in each area listed above. There is also no number of hours that makes one candidate more competitive than another. The goal of engaging in these types of experiences is to not only learn about the profession but also to develop the competencies that good podiatrists demonstrate in their practice.

It is a pre-podiatry student's responsibility to track each of the experiences they engage in throughout the course of their preparation. This means knowing the range of dates, a total number of hours, and supervisor contact information for each of the place's time is spent. The PMHSC suggests using an Activity Tracker to log this information.