Imagine that you find out that the person you thought was a doctor - a surgeon who operated on you - didn’t have a medical degree.

This is the case for all podiatric surgeons in Australia, practitioners who can legally pick up a knife with only a podiatry or science degree.

Maybe that’s fine if the issue you had with your foot, or ankle, was fixed. But, a joint investigation by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes, has uncovered dozens of allegations of surgeries gone wrong by a small, but controversial group of practitioners.

Today, investigative reporter Charlotte Grieve on the former patients of podiatric surgeons and the suffering they have endured, and the alleged health industry failures that have led to it.