Apparently, very stupid.  A podiatrist asks why there are less than 600 applicants, THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE COUNTRY, that have applied to podiatric colleges. WHY ?  WHY you ask ?  Time to wake up and smell the feces.  Take time.  Inhale.  Smell. The writer to PM News asks where is the APMA, the state societies, in recruiting.  The APMA will at some point inform us of the great efforts being made by them. However, if a football coach goes 1-16 year after year, the owners fire them.  There are only 2 answers.  By definition, either the APMA efforts have FAILED. Look at the results.  The other alternative, the APMA has been too busy stuffing their own pockets, expending their efforts building personal wealth and power and not recognizing or making efforts at student recruitment.  Talar Medical and Upperline Health are examples in which APMA self-serving officers placed maximum effort at building personal profit over profession stability and future. APMA officers are too busy colluding with industry to assure themselves positions as lecturers and consultants with industry, to have any time to actually engage in activities to benefit the profession. The APMA Executive Director has breached his fiduciary responsibility to reign in the profit first for me not the APMA officers, thus maintaining his own job and profits. PM News highlights shoes, questions on how to treat basic first aid problems, and serves to act in a manner similar to the manner by which the American press covers for the incompetence of the democratic party.  It is the Pravda of podiatry, the editor the Minister of podiatry propaganda. All of this in a scenario wherein a student who fails to gain admission to an American Medical School can now attend a foreign medical school, an osteopathic school, or become a PA or NP. PA’s and NP’s can treat the entire body, are increasingly independent in practice, can do much of what the average podiatrist does in their office, requires less years of training, is less expensive, and not infrequently is equal to a podiatrist in income.  And unlike the APMA, NP’s and PA’s have been successfully increasing their political and policy making effectiveness, unlike the APMA. Any objective analysis of an intelligent and insightful potential student would lead them to conclude that podiatry is limited and peripheral to real medicine. Let us not forget the resurgence of podiatry’s best friend. THE AOFAS.  They are alive and well, growing, and make NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT WANT YOU ELIMINATED OR LIMITED. The USMLE disaster should have made that clear to you. Collusion and corruption are the basic elements of the APMA.  The colleges will fill the seats with some very good students, no doubt.  They will also fill seats with some marginal people. Some of the colleges are starting to look like a United Nations meeting. There is good news however.  With ageing, diabetes, sports and an increasing population of illegal aliens, the need for podiatry will be there.  Less podiatrists will translate to more business.See how long it takes to get an appointment with a dermatologist or orthopedist or urologist.  The accomplished podiatrists will still get good paying jobs with orthopedic groups, hospital and health care systems.  They will be doing major podiatric surgeries, trauma cases, and so forth.  You can always cut toenails in a VA hospital.  You make your living as a “consultant” prostituting yourself as needed. The “recruitment crisis” is one more obvious and clear failure of the APMA.  Enjoy TALAR Tuesday.  Sell your failing practice to Upperline Health.  That is what the APMA has done for you. If you can smell the feces, you are near an APMA officer.  If you are standing in feces, you are an APMA officer.