-(a) First thing. A lot of residencies have too much work / not enough training. This is one of the toughest pills to swallow about a lot of podiatry residencies - they exist for the benefit of the attending, not for the training of the resident. The only small pearl I can offer you is that you may feel different about working hard in the future when you are getting paid for it. Consider -a diabetic with a bone infection and an ulceration. The note is long, calling other people is annoying, lots of documentation etc. When you are an attending though that 99204+11042+73630 etc is money in your pocket... if your PP owner lets you keep any of it.
(b) What are you good at? What are you bad at. The simple truth for most DPMs is they are proficient at forefoot surgery and deficient at rearfoot surgery. I don't know which you are but the simple truth is you can still survive doing predominantly forefoot surgery because that's all most DPMs have done through time. I think one of the real problems with this profession is - how do you up your game. How do you improve, keep getting better etc. Where do you find a mentor or a path to expanding your expertise. In short, consider - what do I want to do and if its not my current skill set how can I get there.
(c) The deck was stacked against you - you only had so much time to look for work regardless. Take the best job you can get - hopefully one that doesn't limit future employment - and keep looking.
(d) Sorry, but you presumably shadowed a podiatrist and presumably they did nailcare. Did you believe you wouldn't cut nails
? Everyone going into podiatry school needs to understand that we cut nails and calluses. And they really need to understand that a large portion of the medical community and the general public believes that this is what we exist and the only reason to refer to us. Our podiatry leadership masters believe demand is growing for our profession because there are more fat, old, diabetics who want their nails cut. For most of us - this is literally the worst part of our jobs. The only small hope I can give you is - a lot of attendings qualify EVERYONE. In your future practice, maybe, you can tell non-qualifying patients to hit the road.
(e) I appreciate your sharing your experience and I hope you don't feel I'm being too hard on you above. I own now, but I too graduated and felt the load of bricks. There's a great meme recently about how I "keep getting older, but associate salaries keep staying the same". Its really unbelievable and so true. Pay is NOT going up. The cost of living is. I'm beyond fortunate to own a house because of who I married. Had I tried to buy my current house today - I wouldn't be able to afford it. The quality of the economy when you leave residency really can set a lot of the tone for your financial future.