How Much Experience Should Your Foot Surgeon Have With Foot Bunion & Toe Corn Removal?

Whether your shoe size is dainty or daunting, stepping up to medically necessary yet elective surgery, such as foot bunion or toe corn removal, can be an overwhelming decision. The mere thought of having a medical professional surgically repair your foot, putting it back together better than it was before, is frankly frightening. But when you have reached the point where bunion shields, toe sleeves, corn pads, corn removal kits, razoring off toe corns, orthotics and wearing “fugly shoes” simply does not relieve the pain, your feet will tell you it is time to seek surgical foot intervention. That is why when shopping for your foot surgeon, be sure to arm yourself with the short checklist of crucial questions below that will aid you in selecting the best foot surgeon for your precious feet.

How long has the foot surgeon been practicing foot surgery?

Medical degrees on walls are impressive indeed, but a seasoned foot surgeon who has been in the foot trenches is your best option. Finding a podiatrist who practically knows their way around human anatomy often means they have refined their skill set and possess foot finesse when handling the bony and tissue structures. This type of experience, lends itself to a patient’s easier and speedier recovery from foot bunion repair and toe corn removal.

What specific types of foot surgery does the foot surgeon perform?

Because a foot surgeon has been practicing for a lengthy amount of time doesn’t mean they’re performing substantial foot bunion correction or toe corn removal procedures. For example, check if the foot surgeon is hospital based. Such a surgeon may be dealing mostly with physically ill patients who possess poor circulation or have difficulty healing, which in turn can mean the foot surgeon is in the operating room often alright, but mainly for performing amputations, wound debridements, limb salvage and traumatic injury foot surgery, which is vastly different than finessing foot bunion, toe corn removal, and cosmetic foot surgery.

How many foot bunion and toe corn removal surgeries has the podiatrist performed recently?

When shopping for your foot surgeon, ask them specifically, how many foot bunionectomies have they performed, or how many hammertoes with corns have they repaired? Dig deeper and challenge the foot doctor by also asking, how many of these surgical procedures have they have done in the past week or month? An experienced foot surgical expert should be able to boast without pause that they perform the procedure you are interested in on a weekly basis, if not twice a week.

What types of bunionectomy or corn removal surgery does the foot surgeon perform?

Not all bunionectomies are created equal. What you don’t want to fall for is a practice called Minimal Incision Surgery (MIS) which affords a surgeon to conduct a bunionectomy in as little as three minutes and toe corn removal surgery in even less time. This can make a foot surgeon appear to be highly skilled because they can significantly increase their volume of procedures performed. Thepractice of MIS was extremely popular in the eighties but diminished due to increased recurrence and poor outcome. Recently MIS has resurfaced with fallacious rebranding. Now some claim it is a new procedure mostly performed in Europe and doctors in America simply don’t know how to execute the foot surgery. It is merely MIS in sheep’s clothing and is marketed this way to avoid using the tainted acronym for a quick-fix procedure that is time and cost efficient in a climate where reimbursements for foot bunion and toe corn removal surgery has drastically plummeted. Surgeons who adopt this style of foot surgery are merely operating a “foot factory” which produces a reduced level care and an increased rate of unacceptable results.

Find out the answers to the questions above and you should be able to deduce if the foot physician in question is proficient enough to perform the surgeries required for your precious feet!