What Is the Role of Artificial Intelligence in Podiatric Dermatology?

Insights from the American College of Podiatric Medicine Conference

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Any views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and/or participants and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy, or position of Podiatry Today or HMP Global, their employees, and affiliates. 

Clinical Summary

Clinical Applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Podiatry

• Diagnostic Support Tools: AI is increasingly used in podiatric dermatology for lesion assessment and triage. Apps enable both patients and providers to photograph skin changes, prompting further evaluation without replacing physician judgment.

• Image-Based Interpretation: AI tools are being incorporated into diagnostic platforms that analyze clinical images. These tools improve diagnostic sensitivity and specificity and are especially useful in identifying early changes in skin pathology.

• Self-Assessment Empowerment: Patients can use AI-powered tools for lesion monitoring, aiding in early detection of suspicious changes and enhancing patient engagement in care.

Future Directions in AI for Podiatric Medicine

• Advanced Imaging Integration: Over the next 5 years, AI is expected to be widely embedded in imaging tools such as X-rays, CT scans, and MRIs, supporting faster and more accurate fracture detection and soft tissue analysis.

• Pathology and Laboratory Applications: AI is also expected to support histopathologic interpretation and laboratory data synthesis, reducing diagnostic delay and increasing consistency in findings.

• Massive Data Utilization: A rapidly expanding dataset will allow AI to provide predictive modeling and intelligent guidance in clinical decision-making across a spectrum of podiatric conditions.

Implementation Guidance for DPMs

• Educational Engagement: Clinicians should proactively educate themselves through conferences, publications, and peer discussions to stay updated on AI capabilities and ethical concerns.

• Clinical Integration: AI should be viewed as a supportive tool for enhancing workflow, reducing burnout, and augmenting—rather than replacing—manual diagnostic and therapeutic skills.

• Active Participation: DPMs should help shape AI’s role in podiatric care by participating in its evaluation, development, and regulatory discussion.

Cautions and Limitations

• AI Is Not a Replacement: Despite AI’s growing accuracy, it cannot replicate the manual dexterity, patient rapport, and real-time responsiveness of podiatrists, particularly in surgical or pain-assessment settings.

• Regulatory and Ethical Vigilance: Clinicians must set safeguards to ensure AI’s use enhances care without overdependence or unintended clinical consequences.

Key Takeaway

AI is an evolving clinical partner, not a replacement. DPMs who engage early, educate themselves, and lead in implementation will be best positioned to optimize care, protect the integrity of practice, and improve patient outcomes.

Transcript

My name is David Schweibish. I am a practicing podiatrist in the great state of Florida, right along the East Coast. I have offices in Indian Harbor Beach, Vieira and Cocoa Beach, Florida. I'm also currently serving as the president of the Florida Podiatric Medical Association and also doing a a lot of work with the American Podiatric Medical Association as well.

There has been much discussion of AI's role in medicine, and within podiatry. What do you feel are the top opportunities for AI within podiatric dermatology?

So the evolution of artificial intelligence is something that's very hard to ignore. I mean, it's very ubiquitous, we see it all around us. But we're very fortunate here in our healthcare spectrum, specifically within the space of podiatric medicine, artificial intelligence is really starting to gain a lot of inroads in terms of how it's actually going to impact our practice. And in fact how it already has done so at this point. We're starting to see that artificial intelligence is gaining foothold in the space of podiatric dermatology and pathology in very novel ways.

Specifically we're seeing the technology incorporated into different types of smartphone apps or tablet apps that are enabling not only patients but also providers to enhance the ability to obtain information accurately and perform either diagnostic work or perhaps just screening work or as an assessment tool in a capacity that we were never able to do before. Specifically, when we're talking about the technology that enables a patient to do self-assessment, this is not being utilized as a substitute for physician-level interpretation or physician-level examination. It's more of a means of enabling a patient to actually gain some insight into perhaps the changes of a suspicious lesion that they're noticing on their lower extremity. Perhaps they're wondering if there might be some characteristics that warrant additional feedback from an actual human physician. And that's what a lot of these technologies are enabling.

Furthermore, on the physician side of the coin, we're seeing technology that's helping to augment the way that we actually can perform diagnostic interpretation. So again, not being used as a means of replacing a physician's skill set or diagnostic capabilities, but rather something that we're seeing as being a clinical tool that helps to create greater levels of specificity and sensitivity. What we're noticing is that a lot of the newer research is showing that artificial intelligence in some ways is proving to be as diagnostically capable as a board-certified physician. But it's not without limitations, and it's definitely not perfect technology.

So by and large, what we have today is technology that's a great instrument to incorporate into clinical practice or even into the toolkit of different types of screening modalities that our patients can use. And that's where AI holds its greatest value here in the podiatric space currently.

What do you feel DPMs should expect to see emerge in the next few years in this subject area? 

Well, I think the sky is the limit with regard to what what we're gonna see with artificial intelligence in the next five years. I think looking at how far AI has come in the past five years, thinking about it in that sort of timeframe is kind of mind-boggling because of how rapidly things have evolved. I mean, it is truly exponential growth. So it's a little bit difficult to see where AI is gonna take us in a five-year timeframe, but based on what we're seeing, it's gonna be the fact that industry is going to start to incorporate artificial intelligence research and artificial intelligence development into a lot of the technologies that we as podiatric physicians use already on a day-to-day basis. For example, for fracture interpretation or for diagnostics of X-ray, CT scans, MRIs, and of course obviously its laboratory and pathology implications as well.

I think in the next several years what's going to happen is we're going to be amassing a massive database of information that's going to be helped to actually guide us into the future in terms of how we're going to harness this technology to make it work intelligently and efficiently for ourselves. We know that right now there's billions upon trillions of dollars being invested into the space of artificial intelligence worldwide. So the scope and the bandwidth of what we're going to be able to achieve with this technology is moving very rapidly and it's exciting but at the same time I think we also have to take a proactive approach as physicians in getting ahead of it. We need to be mindful of how it's going to allow us to evolve our practices and we have to be smart about how we choose to incorporate it and the types of restrictions that we place on it so that we obviously don't take it for granted and find ourselves down a rabbit hole that could be problematic.

What can DPMs do today to implement these features in their practice, or prepare to do so? 

At this point, I believe that podiatric physicians are very well positioned to learn as much as possible about artificial intelligence, not just by keeping your eyes and ears open. I mean, it's omnipresent, it's on the news, it's on social media, news articles popping up left and right about how artificial intelligence is starting to present itself into our day-to-day lives. But from a practice standpoint, I think it's very important that doctors integrate themselves into the educational offerings that are out there, not just through conferences like the ACPM meeting, but also through other channels of communication, whether they're written publications, social media, or going to live conferences where it's being discussed. I think right now we're at a very opportune time in history to be at the forefront of how this technology is going to guide us into the future. And I think that the doctors who choose to actually take part in the discussion and help to guide it are going to be best positioned to optimize the way that they practice, optimize patient outcomes, and hopefully avoid some of the pitfalls that can occur if we're not smart about how we incorporate artificial intelligence into our practices.

What else do you feel DPMs should take away from your session and this topic?

My biggest, I think the biggest point that I'd like to make to providers is that artificial intelligence is not something to be feared. I think a lot of doctors that I talked to feel that artificial intelligence might be the first step in ultimately being replaced by a robot or some kind of a machine that's going to do the work of podiatry. And the reality is that we are incredibly far from harnessing that level of technology.

We're in a field as podiatrists where the manual dexterity and the very fine nuanced manual work that we do not only surgically, but even in the clinical setting, is far beyond the capabilities of artificial intelligence today. Yes, we do have robots that are performing some level of surgery in other spaces like general surgery, even orthopedic surgery to some extent, but we're very fortunate in that having immediate feedback with our patients and being able to interpret a response to pain, for example, is something that the human mind is only able to comprehend at this point. So I think we're very, very far from seeing a world where we are replaced as podiatrists by artificial intelligence.

So I want to leave any listeners with the pearl that we need to incorporate artificial intelligence as an augment to our practice. It needs to be something that helps to optimize our outcomes and helps to optimize our clinic workflow, hopefully preventing burnout, for example. This is how we should be harnessing artificial intelligence into our practices today instead of running in the other direction, being afraid of it.