I have been amused with the conversation in the PM News about Podiatry school applications being down. The reasons ranging from decreased reimbursement to lack of equality are interesting. Though the real reason is most like the rise of PA and NP school. Twenty years ago only a thousand or two thousand graduates were NP this past year the number will total twenty thousand. PA school, twenty years ago there were 49k PAs now there are 141K. I would imagine a decent amount of these PAs and NPs would have been Podiatrists twenty years ago. But now these students are choosing PA and NP school. Now the question Podiatry might ask themselves is why? DPMs if you look at every salary survey make more than PAs and NPs. The training to be a DPM is more rigorous requiring seven years post college, while PAs and NPs can be completed with your undergrad degree. But any discussion about applications for PA and NP being down should begin and end with PAs and NPs.