Rob Lowe – charting a new path of service in podiatry

I was drawn to podiatry predominantly through my previous career being musculoskeletal based, I really enjoy working in that kind of environment. I wanted to work for myself straight away as soon as I finished university and podiatry offered that option. I was also drawn to the variety of options within the field, such a rheumatology, paediatrics, musculoskeletal, diabetes and minor surgical procedures, general foot care – all of those things. It ticked all my boxes, not being sat in an office doing the same thing day in, day out.

I found placements to be a very positive experience and I enjoyed every single one of them. We were in a slightly unique situation as we were a husband and wife, both on the same course and with school age children, the University staff were incredibly helpful in this regard as they made sure we weren’t sent up to, say, Gloucester, at the same time. This really helped us manage our childcare as best as we could. This was by no means guaranteed, but we were fortunate enough that our situation was managed well enough.

The placements themselves were fantastic. I was placed in Plymouth, Gloucester and Bristol, and my wife also went to Bournemouth. All of them offered lots of variety, the opportunity to try different things, and most importantly lots of support from the staff at each placement. I learned so much, and it was a really great opportunity to transfer all that learned knowledge I acquired through my lectures and seminars into real world scenarios, dealing with real patients in real clinical environments.

As part of the course, we were placed at a local hospital. There were four clinic spaces with a walkway in between with clinical staff able to walk up and down supervising what you’re doing, but you were working with real patients. You had ownership of the patients assigned to you. There were always a couple of you in the clinic, maybe one of you treating a patient and the other one writing notes. It was a fairly early course experience for me, but it was the first that made me go “this is what podiatry is all about”.

I found the balance of theory and practical sessions to be really good. I like variety. I like dealing with people and face-to-face situations. I certainly didn’t feel with the practical skills that we hadn’t been given a good enough foundation before being asked to practice them on real life patients. There will always be an element of trepidation to start with, but you’re given lots of opportunities to gain confidence before being sent out onto placement.

I felt fully prepared to go in to work full time. As with any job though you need to build your experience and look to continually develop yourself. I would definitely advise looking for a mentor. Sometimes you just need someone to talk through your thoughts and ideas and seek guidance from their experience. If I were to speak to anyone who was considering the programme, the first thing I would say would be to look at what it says on the website as to what the academic requirements are. If there any that you think you might not meet, certainly as a mature applicant, then I would get in touch with the Admissions Tutor. Have a chat with them, tell them what your life experiences are and certainly draw from any skill sets you may have developed over your life that you feel would be transferrable, and how they can be brought into effect. Although important, it’s not always about that academic level, and I think there is an opportunity to look at prior learning. Sometimes you could have gained a lot of people experience, which really comes to the forefront when you see patients face-to-face.

A lot of people say to me “I don’t know how you can touch feet”, but I’ve spoken to a lot of people who, in the same breath, say “oh, I couldn’t deal with eyes”. There are lots of other professions out there that deal with a lot more gruesome stuff than us. Yes, you may get into a situation where you are dealing with probing ulcers and things like that, but the opportunities in podiatry to see a broad range of patients is quite substantial. When I left university, I certainly felt ready to deal with the majority of situations quite clearly. Don’t let that put you off at the first hurdle, just keep going and you will probably find thing that you excel at and you may even surprise yourself.

Being a self-employed podiatrist is exactly what I wanted. I wanted that flexibility of being able to run my own day and take charge of my own destiny. As I mentioned, one of the big reasons I chose podiatry was that it offered me this very opportunity. When I first started private practice I actually bought an old ambulance, and that was my clinic for a while. I also joined lots of business networks. From my experience, not many clinical people tend to go and network in this way, but it proved a very valuable resource for myself.