What's the Difference between a Podiatrist and a Chiropodist?
Posted on 19th April 2017 at 09:44
If I had a pound for every time someone asked me this... I'd never need to work again! No, seriously this is the enigma of the podiatrist. So here we go...
The titles of Chiropodist and Podiatrist are protected in the UK and this means that only professionals qualified and registered can legally use these to define their profession. Essentially the two are interchangeable but this can still be very confusing.
So, what is the difference? Well, my degree is in Podiatry but one of the things I do is chiropody. There. Cheerio.
OK I can see you're none the wiser. Before podiatry a Chiropodist would carry out basic foot care.
When I do this treatment I clean the feet, cut the nails and then remove any hard skin and corns if there are any. Then I massage a foot cream into the skin and that's it. Chiropody.
Now we all have degrees and this degree is called Podiatry. We are trained in all lower limb problems from circulation to gait analysis (that's assessing how a patient's walks or runs).
Still confused? Where does the foot stop and the leg begin? Do we do knees? Hips? How far do we go? I beg your pardon!!! 'But what about my weird little toenail?' I hear you cry.
Worry not, I am going to post once a month on a podiatry related issue that is either close to my heart (strange for a foot) or topical.
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