Speakers
Professor David Armstrong
DPM MD PhD, USA
Dr. Armstrong is Professor of Surgery at the University of Southern California. Dr. Armstrong holds a Master of Science in Tissue Repair and Wound Healing from the University of Wales College of Medicine and a PhD from the University of Manchester College of Medicine, where he was appointed Visiting Professor of Medicine. He is founder and co-Director of the Southwestern Academic Limb Salvage Alliance (SALSA).
Dr. Armstrong has produced more than 570 peer-reviewed research papers in dozens of scholarly medical journals as well as over 100 books or book chapters. He is co-Editor of the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) Clinical Care of the Diabetic Foot, now in its third edition.
Armstrong was appointed Deputy Director of Arizona’s Center for Accelerated Biomedical Innovation (ACABI) and co-founder of its “augmented human” initiative, which places him at the nexus of the merger of consumer electronics, wearables and medical devices.
Dr. Armstrong was selected as one of the first six International Wound Care Ambassadors and is the recipient of numerous awards and degrees by universities and international medical organizations including the inaugural Georgetown Distinguished Award for Diabetic Limb Salvage. In 2008, he was the 25th and youngest-ever member elected into the Podiatric Medicine Hall of Fame. He was the first surgeon to be appointed University Distinguished Outreach Professor at the University of Arizona. He was the first podiatric surgeon to become a member of the Society of Vascular Surgery and the first US podiatric surgeon named fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Glasgow. He is the 2010 and youngest ever recipient of the ADA’s Roger Pecoraro Award, the highest award given in the field.
Dr. Armstrong is past Chair of Scientific Sessions for the ADA’s Foot Care Council, and a past member of the National Board of Directors of the American Diabetes Association. He sits on the Infectious Disease Society of America’s (IDSA) Diabetic Foot Infection Advisory Committee and is the US appointed delegate to the International Working Group on the Diabetic Foot (IWGDF). Dr. Armstrong is the founder and co-chair of the International Diabetic Foot Conference (DF-Con), the largest annual international symposium on the diabetic foot in the world. He is also the Founding President of the American Limb Preservation Society (ALPS), an interdisciplinary medical and surgical society dedicated to eliminating preventable amputation in the USA and worldwide.
Ms Ruth Benson
BSc MBChB PhD FRCS
Ruth is a Vascular Academic Clinical Lecturer at the University of Birmingham, and senior registrar at the University Hospital of Coventry and Warwickshire. She is a member and recent past president of the Vascular and Endovascular Research Network. She trained at Edinburgh University and completed her post-graduate degree at St George’s investing cognitive decline following endovascular aortic aneurysm repair in collaboration with colleagues at the Johns Hopkins University. Since then, her research has focused on establishing the impact of sex on lower limb revascularisation treatment. She is the vascular theme lead for the Birmingham NIHR MedTech Foundation and an associate sub-specialty lead for vascular surgery for the RCSEng, a member of the VSGBI research group, and part of the steering committee for the recent vascular research priority setting JLA Delphi consensus. She has been leading the NIHR portfolio adopted COVER study with the VERN team, examining the impact of COVID-19 on global vascular surgery, and developing it as the largest trainee led global vascular research collaborative to date. Her work has been funded by the RCSEng, University of Birmingham research development fund, NIHR, JABBS and Circulation Foundation.
Ms Rachel Berrington
BSc, UK
Rachel Berrington is a Senior Diabetes Specialist Nurse working within the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, where she has led the multidisciplinary foot clinic for the past ten years and is a key member of the inpatient foot team. She is currently in her second year of her MSc Advanced Nurse Practitioner training.
Rachel is a dedicated and passionate member of the team, striving to improve better care and outcomes for inpatients and outpatients with active diabetic foot disease. In 2010 she became an independent nurse prescriber which has enhanced her role within the multidisciplinary foot team. Rachel is lead on the implementation of casting for diabetic foot guidelines and was the nurse representative on the NICE Guidance Croup Diabetic foot problems: prevention and management. She blends her acute role with education of HCP’s, across the patient pathway, incorporating MDT, NHS and commercial partnerships to benefit people living with diabetes and their carer. She was presented this year at the QIC awards as Diabetes Professional of the year.
Ms Panagiota Birmpili
MRCS PgCert(MedEd)
Ms Panagiota Birmpili is a Vascular Surgery Specialist Registrar in the North West and Royal College of Surgeons of England/Circulation Foundation Clinical Research Fellow.
She graduated from medical school in Greece, with clinical rotations in Germany and the United States. She then moved to the UK and completed Foundation training in Scotland and Core Surgical training in the North West of England, before obtaining a national training number in Vascular Surgery in 2017. She is currently undertaking an MD degree at the University of Hull, with a focus on chronic limb-threatening ischaemia (CLTI). As part of her fellowship, she is leading the Peripheral Arterial Disease Quality Improvement Programme, a collaborative of 11 vascular centres in England, aiming to reduce time-to-revascularisation for patients with CLTI.
She has an interest in collaborative research and is a member of the Vascular and Endovascular Research Network (VERN) executive committee, the National Vascular Registry (NVR) team and the Vascular Society PAD specialist interest group. She actively supports medical students and trainees interested in surgery, as she is a founding member of the North West surgical Mentorship Advice and Connection Hub.
Mr Rick Brown
MA (Cantab) MB BS FRCS (Tr&Orth), UK
Rick Brown graduated from the University of Cambridge and King’s College Hospital, London, before completing orthopaedic training on the Middlesex & Stanmore Rotation, London and then Orthopaedic Fellowships in Sydney and at Harvard, in the USA.
He is a Consultant in the Foot & Ankle Team at The Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Oxford and Senior Clinical Lecturer in Orthopaedics at the University of Oxford. Prior to this he established the new Foot and Ankle Service in Cheltenham including the service for diabetic foot problems. He is the Chairman of the BOFAS Education committee, which is increasingly involved with teaching about the diabetic foot.
Ms Jodie Buckingham
BSc(hons) PGDip
Jodie Buckingham graduated as a Podiatrist from Durham School of Podiatric Medicine in 2009. She has worked within the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism and Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and has been the Lead Podiatrist there since 2018.
In her early work in Oxford she was part of the team that worked to improve care in the inpatient setting for people with diabetes and set up a robust inpatient podiatry service across the acute hospitals in Oxford. Over more recent years the theme of service and quality improvement have continued both locally, in the establishment of the Multidisciplinary Foot Service across both the acute inpatient and outpatient setting and nationally as part of the eNaDIA Steering Committee.
In 2016 Jodie was awarded a Fellowship in Evidence Based Health Care and as part of this completed an MSc in the subject at the University of Oxford.
Mr Rob Davies
MBChB MMed Sci MD FRCS, UK
Mr. Davies is a Consultant Vascular and Endovascular Surgeon at University Hospitals of Leicester (UHL) NHS Trust. His sub-specialist area of practice is limb salvage surgery and he is the Clinical Director for UHL Vascular Limb Salvage (VaLS) Service. He maintains an active research profile in both clinical and educational fields of practice and is a member of the UK Specialist Advisory Committee (SAC) for Vascular Surgery and Board of Examiners for the FRCS Vascular Surgery.
Professor Ketan Dhatariya
MBBS MSc MD MS FRCP PhD, UK
Professor Ketan Dhatariya qualified from the University of London in 1991 and did his diabetes and endocrinology training in and around London. For 2 years during his training he was also a part time General Practitioner in the evenings. He took some time out of his training to spend a year doing intensive care medicine and anaesthetics. After he finished his diabetes training in 2001 he went to do research in endocrinology at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, USA. He was appointed as a consultant in diabetes, endocrinology and general medicine at the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital in 2004, and Honorary Professor of Medicine at the University of East Anglia in 2019. He is a full time clinician and his predominant areas of interest are inpatient diabetes – in particular peri-operative diabetes care, the management of diabetes related emergencies, and the ‘diabetic foot’. He leads one of the largest foot clinics in the East of England.
Professor Dhatariya has several national roles in the UK. He is currently the Chair of the Joint British Diabetes Societies Inpatient Care Group where he has led or co-authored several national guidelines on the management of various aspects of inpatient diabetes care including the guideline on peri-operative diabetes care. He is the Chair of the Examining Board for the UK Specialist Clinical Exam in Diabetes and Endocrinology, as well as Chair of the newly developed European Board Examination in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism. He is the President of the Diabetes and Endocrine section of the Royal Society of Medicine, and an Associate Editor of Diabetic Medicine and BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care.
Professor Dhatariya has over 110 peer reviewed publications, over 100 abstracts, and has published several book chapters on inpatient diabetes, peri-operative diabetes care or on the diabetic foot. He was awarded a PhD on inpatient diabetes in 2017 by the University of East Anglia.
Professor Seán Dinneen
MD MSc FRCPI, Ireland
Seán Dinneen graduated from University College Cork Medical School. He completed postgraduate training in Ireland and completed a Residency in Internal Medicine and a Fellowship in Endocrinology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. He was awarded an MD by the National University of Ireland for studies of carbohydrate metabolism completed in the laboratory of Dr Robert Rizza. He completed a Masters in Clinical Epidemiology at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He worked for 5 years as a Community Diabetologist in Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, UK before returning to Ireland in 2005.
Professor Dinneen is Consultant Endocrinologist at Galway University Hospitals and holds a Personal Professorship in Diabetic Medicine at NUI Galway. He served as Head of the School of Medicine in NUI Galway from 2013 to 2016. In June 2016 he was appointed National Lead for the Diabetes Clinical Programme of the Irish Health Service Executive.
His professional interests include developing and evaluating programmes of self-management education and support for people living with diabetes, developing optimal models of community-based diabetes care and understanding the diabetic foot. He has secured research funding from the Health Research Board, Enterprise Ireland, Galway University Foundation, Diabetes Ireland and the European Foundation for the Study of Diabetes. He was part of successful bids that brought a School of Podiatry and a Clinical Research Facility to NUI Galway.
Professor Dinneen is actively involved in undergraduate and postgraduate education through the College of Medicine Nursing and Health Sciences at NUI Galway. He is Co-Chair of the Postgraduate Education Committee of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes and is Clinical Lead for Schwartz Rounds in Galway University Hospitals.
Professor Michael Edmonds
MD FRCP, UK
Professor Michael Edwin Edmonds is a Consultant Diabetologist at King’s College Hospital and Honorary Professor of Diabetic Foot Medicine at King’s College, London. He developed a multi-disciplinary diabetic foot clinic in 1981, one of the first in the world. This clinic brought about a 50% reduction in major amputations in people with diabetes at King’s College Hospital. He continues care of people with diabetic foot problems and has researched into the pathogenesis of diabetic foot complications. Professor Edwin is past Chairman of the Diabetic Foot Study Group (DFSG) of the European Association of the Study of Diabetes. He has co-authored the book Managing the Diabetic Foot (Blackwell Science) and A Practical Manual of Diabetic Foot Care (Blackwell Science), which was voted BMA Book of the Year in 2004. He won the Karel Bakker award at the 6th International Symposium on the Diabetic Foot in 2011, the DFSG Achievement Award in 2013 and the Edward Olmos Award for Advocacy in Amputation 2014. In 2015, he gave the Arnold Bloom lecture of the Annual Diabetes UK meeting.
Professor Bob Frykberg
DPM MPH, USA
Robert G. Frykberg, DPM, MPH, FFPM(Glasg) is the Medical Director of DM Prevent Diabetic Foot and Wound Center, Dubai, and former Chief of the Podiatry section at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona. He holds a Faculty rank as Adjunct Professor, Midwestern University Program in Podiatric Medicine.
A former Chair of the Foot Care Council of the American Diabetes Association and Past President of the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons, Dr. Frykberg was the 2011 recipient of the prestigious Roger Pecoraro Award from the Foot Care Council of the American Diabetes Association.
He received his Master of Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health with a concentration in quantitative methods.
His research and writing interests have included all facets of lower extremity disorders, but specifically focused on diabetic foot ulcers, infections, Charcot foot, and Wound care. The author of nearly 100 peer reviewed publications, he has also been the Editor of two textbooks: The High Risk Foot in Diabetes Mellitus (1991) and the Diabetic Charcot Foot (2010).
Professor Frykberg is currently a Director of the Association of Diabetic Foot Surgeons and is a Fellow of the Faculty of Podiatric Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow.
Professor Fran Game
FRCP, UK
Professor Fran Game has been a consultant Diabetologist at the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust since 2011. She is also the Clinical Director of R&D and the Derby Clinical Trials Support Unit.
Her main clinical and research interest is the Diabetic Foot, running several multicentre/multinational trials in this field. She is especially interested in service development, particularly the need to manage diabetic foot disease in a more cost-effective way, closer to home for patients. Professor Game currently chairs the Classification Subgroup of the International Working Group of the Diabetic Foot and was the immediate past chair of the Wound Healing subgroup, leading on their published systematic reviews and international guidelines every 4 years. She Co-Chairs the East Midlands Diabetic Foot Network and was appointed the NHS England Co-Clinical Director for Diabetes and Vascular Diseases for the East Midlands in May 2018.
Professor William Jeffcoate
MRCP, UK
Professor William Jeffcoate was appointed as a Consultant Endocrinologist in Nottingham in 1979. He formed a specialist diabetic foot clinic in 1982. He presented (on the treatment of infection) at the first Malvern Foot Conference in 1986. He resigned from his full time post in 1997 in order to devote more time to research. Professor Jeffcoate was Contributing Editor at The Lancet from 1997 to 2007. Together with Professor Frances Game he established a specialist foot ulcer trials unit in 2002. His current main interest is in the quality of evidence to justify clinical practice and he is Clinical Lead of the National Diabetes Foot Care Audit of England and Wales. He has published over 200 academic papers since his first (in the Journal of Endocrinology in 1972, on dihydrotestosterone).
Dr Rowena Johnson
MB ChB FRCR, UK
Dr Rowena Johnson is a Consultant Musculoskeletal Radiologist at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, part of the Oxford University Hospitals. She undertook her radiology training at Charing Cross, Hammersmith and St Mary’s Hospitals, followed by two musculoskeletal radiology fellowships at Chelsea & Westminster Hospital and in Toronto, Canada.
Dr Johnson works with a large Bone Infection Unit in Oxford, receiving complex referrals from other hospitals. Her regular work also includes sarcomas, major trauma, complex spine abnormalities, sports injuries and image guided treatments.
She has previously worked as a full time Clinical Editor of the British Medical Journal, and is a current Advisory Editor for the Clinical Radiology Journal, and Editor of the Royal College of Radiologists Newsletter.
She is the lead of iRefer, the Royal College of Radiologists’ flagship publication, which is the internationally recognised guide to ensure that patients have the most accurate investigation or intervention.
Dr Johnson is a Tutor in Medicine at The Queen’s College, University of Oxford, and a regular invited lecturer at several national and international courses. She has a life appointment as a Medical Member of the Ministry of Justice.
Professor Venu Kavarthapu
FRCS (Tr&Orth), UK
Professor Venu Kavarthapu completed F&A fellowship in Frimley Park and Guildford before joining King’s College Hospital in 2006. In addition to providing adult foot and ankle service, he established the functional limb salvage Charcot foot reconstruction service at King’s Multi-disciplinary Diabetic Foot Unit lead by Professor Michael Edmonds, which has been recognised nationally. He developed the surgical protocols and techniques on various diabetic foot conditions and established the ‘Multidisciplinary and Surgical Reconstruction of Charcot Foot’ symposium and ‘King’s Charcot Foot Reconstruction Cadaver Workshop’ course in London. Professor Kavarthapu established Diabetic Foot Reconstruction Fellowship that is popular among senior F&A trainees. He lectures widely, nationally and internationally, and is a dynamic member of several specialist societies including BOFAS and A-DFS. He is actively involved in research and published several scientific articles in diabetic foot. His other responsibilities include Honorary Senior Lecturer at King’s College London, Regional orthopaedic training programme director and associate professor at University of Southern Denmark. Professor Kavarthapu is currently part of BOFAS education committee and the president-elect of Association of Diabetic Foot Surgeons.
Dr Nicola Leech
MBCHB MD FRCP, UK
Dr Nicola Leech graduated from Manchester Medical School in 1988 and had an introduction to clinical diabetes in Manchester and Salford before being enticed overseas by the offer of an MD fellowship in Seattle Washington to study Immunology of Type 1 diabetes. On return she continued her clinical and immunology research interest in diabetes as Clinical Lecturer at the University of Bristol.
In 2000 Dr Leech ventured North to join the Newcastle team as a consultant. Her first tasks were to establish the Newcastle diabetes young adult service and diabetes foot service.
She was lucky to join with a team of innovative podiatrists to deal with the impossible burden of diabetic foot disease knocking at the door, they developed a “hub and spoke” diabetes foot service for Newcastle. Direct referrals can be made by podiatrists to the specialist MDT and patients are encouraged to self-refer. The MDT foot clinics developed followed by multi-specialist clinics with vascular surgery and orthopaedics. Root cause analysis and audit has informed them on the development of the inpatient diabetic foot team. The Newcastle foot team believes in participation in research activity and has been involved randomised controlled trials in approaches to pressure relief and wound care.
Dr Leech’s interest has become optimising diabetes service delivery across a spectrum of domains including inpatient diabetes care, transitional care and footcare, as well as the ongoing involvement in making immunotherapy in Type 1 diabetes part of routine clinical care.
Dr Ho Kwong Li
MBBS BSc MRCP DTMH, UK
Dr Ho Kwong Li is a Specialist Registrar in infectious diseases at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and a Clinical Research Training Fellow at the MRC – Centre for Molecular Bacteriology & Infection.
His current research focuses on Streptococcus pyogenes, a leading pathogen in skin and soft tissue infections, scarlet fever and invasive adult disease as part of the Gram-positive Bacterial Pathogenesis Group. He has previously completed his Academic Clinical Fellowship funded by the National Institute for Health Research working on a Bioresource for Adult Infectious Diseases (BioAID) in collaboration with UCL which provides a prospectively collected biobank of host and pathogen samples with clinical data from adult patients presenting with sepsis. Prior to this, he was a Clinical Research Fellow at the Nuffield Department of Medicine, Oxford University and trial physician / lead author in the Oral Versus IntraVenous Antibiotics (OVIVA) clinical trial in bone and joint infection in the UK published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
He has a continued interest in orthopaedic infections and currently collaborated with Oxford University on the Short or Long Antibiotic Regimens in Orthopaedics (SOLARIO) clinical trial.
Professor Bijan Najafi
PhD MSc, USA
Professor Najafi is currently serving with the Baylor College of Medicine, Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery as a tenured Professor and Director of Clinical Research in the Division of Vascular Surgery and Endovascular Therapy and Director of Interdisciplinary Consortium on Advanced Motion Performance (iCAMP). He is also serving as an adjunct Professor at the School of Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX and Adjunct Professor at the Colleges of Engineering and Medicine, University of Arizona, Tucson, Az.
Professor Najafi completed his Ph.D. in Bioengineering followed by a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Applied Biomechanics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Tech (Lausanne, Switzerland), and in Neuroscience at Harvard University, Neuromotor Control Lab. His career has focused on developing technologies that improve stability, healing, and mobility worldwide through research and the mentorship of young scientists and engineers and collaboration with clinical and industrial partners.
He has over two decades of experience in designing bio-inspired sensors for objective evaluation of healthy state of patients with locomotor dysfunctions, over 200 scientific publications in peer reviewed journals or conference proceedings with more than 7700 citations, 20+ issued/pending/provisional patents, and has been PI or a key investigator on over 60 industrial, national and international grants ($70M+). He worked with a wide network of clinical and bioengineering collaborators across the globe primarily in the clinical areas of falls, frailty, gait, digital health, ergonomic/posture, dementia, and diabetes and diabetic foot ulcers. He also serves as Editor, Associate Editor, and guest editors for several scientific journals including Section Editor for Gerontology, ‘Technological Section’. Thanks to his contribution in successful translation of technologies for various clinical applications, Professor Najafi was recognised as one of the most Influential Health and Medical Leaders by Tucson Local Media in 2014.
Dr Edgar Peters
Netherlands
Associate Professor Edgar J.G. Peters (Heerenveen, Friesland, The Netherlands) started medical school at VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands in 1993. He has worked in 1997 and 1998 as a researcher at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas, USA. He graduated medical school of VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam in 2000 cum laude.
In 2002, he finished a PhD thesis on diabetic foot complications and started a traineeship internal medicine at Leiden University Medical Center in Leiden, The Netherlands. He registered as an internist in 2007. He is also dually registered in both Infectious Diseases and Acute Medicine. Dr Peters currently works as Internist, Infectious Diseases and Acute Medicine Specialist at Amsterdam University Medical Centers, location VUmc, where he is the Director of the Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program.
Dr Peters has authored over 100 journal articles and books chapters. In his research, education, teaching and clinical care, he has a special interest in diabetic foot complications, especially in diabetic foot infections. In 2018 he was the recipient of the Roger E. Pecoraro MD Award from the America Diabetes Association. He is a member of various global expert groups responsible for diabetic foot and wound infection guidelines and the Scientific Secretary of the International Symposium on the Diabetic Foot.
Professor Anand Pillai
MS MRCS FRCS PGDip Med Ed, UK
Professor Pillai is Consultant Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgeon with University Hospitals Manchester, Wythenshawe with a specialist interest in Foot & Ankle Surgery. He trained in Orthopaedic and Foot surgery in the West of Scotland, and has undertaken further sub-specialist fellowships in Adelaide, South Australia and Oxford.
Professor Pillai has completed a fellowship in Ilizarov techniques and limb deformity correction at the Russian Ilizarov Centre in Kurgan, Siberia. He was initially appointed as Consultant to Ninewells University Hospital and Dundee Medical School in Scotland, before moving to Manchester, where he is currently the Speciality Lead for Foot & Ankle Surgery at Manchester University Hospitals Foundation Trust.
Professor Pillai is widely published on both foot surgery and foot trauma, is a regular faculty member of AOUK, BOA and BOFAS courses. He currently serves on the EFAS research committee, Orthopaedic Surgical Speciality Board of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh and the Orthopaedic Selection Design Group at Health Education England. Professor Pillai holds honorary academic positions with the Universities of Adelaide, Manchester, Salford and Malaya. He is Hon Adjunct Professor of Orthopaedics at RAKCOMS UAE.
Professor Neil Reeves
PhD, UK
Neil Reeves is Professor of Musculoskeletal Biomechanics and Head of Research in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at the Manchester Metropolitan University.
Professor Reeves conducts research into clinical movement disorders and his interests particularly focus on gait dysfunction, movement impairment and foot pathology in diabetes. His research addresses the underlying mechanisms causing gait impairment and unsteadiness in people with diabetes and involves testing the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions, including exercise training and medical devices. His research has investigated strategies for the prevention of diabetic foot ulcers and he has been involved in the development and testing of novel technologies for people with diabetic peripheral neuropathy.
Professor Reeves has published over 100 papers in the areas of medicine, rehabilitation and biomechanics, particularly with reference to diabetes. He has led research projects supported by European and UK funding bodies. He is an Editorial Board member for the journal Gerontology and Biomechanics/Motor Control Section Editor for the European Journal of Sport Science.
Miss Sophie Renton
MS, FRCS
Sophie Renton is a consultant vascular surgeon with over 30 years' experience. After training in North and South West London, Miss Renton completed her MS higher degree, and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1988. She is currently a council member and the elected secretary of the Vascular Society. She has publications on aspects of arterial and venous disease and holds the position of Honorary Senior Lecturer at Imperial College, London.
Mr Andrew (Fred) Robinson
B.Sc,F.R.C.S.(Orth), UK
Having trained with a number of eminent foot and ankle specialists in the UK, United States and France, Andrew 'Fred' Robinson took up a post at Cambridge University Hospital as a Consultant in Orthopaedics and Trauma.
Fred has run the foot and ankle service in Cambridge since 1999. He served as President of the British Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Surgical Society in 2010-11. Over the years, he has undertaken a broad range of foot and ankle surgery and has built a national and international reputation for his foot and ankle surgical care. He has published three chapters in various Oxford textbooks in Medicine and has now published over 50 articles referenced on PubMed.
Fred’s clinical practice covers the full range of foot and ankle surgery. He treats both trauma and orthopaedic conditions of the foot and in the National Health Service runs the very foot and ankle surgery service at Addenbrooke’s.
Fred undertakes a full range of orthopaedic foot and ankle surgery and he is developing a minimally invasive forefoot service. He undertakes surgery for sporting injuries, both arthroscopic and open, to the foot and ankle and also undertakes ankle replacements for ankle arthritis. He was instrumental in setting up and adding the ankle replacement to the National Joint Registry a couple of years ago.
Professor Nicolaas Schaper
Netherlands
Nicolaas Schaper is a Professor in Endocrinology and is involved in the care and research of lower extremity complications of diabetes since several decades. He was until 2019 the Coordinator of the multidisciplinary diabetic foot team and its clinic in the Maastricht University Hospital.
His research is focused on diabetes and its complications, amputation prevention, diabetic foot lesions, peripheral arterial disease, neuropathy, the negative effects of sedentary behaviour and health care organization/delivery. He was founder and coordinator of the successful European diabetic foot research consortium Eurodiale. He was one of the founders, and its Chair since 2015 - of the International Working Group on the Diabetic Foot (IWGDF), with the aim to create evidence- based guidelines. Moreover, he was also involved in several other (inter)national guidelines on treatment of diabetes and its complications.
Professor Schaper is the Chair of the quadrennial International Symposium on the Diabetic Foot and is one of the founders of the Maastricht Study, a unique large-scale epidemiological study on the pathogenesis of diabetes mellitus and related diseases and their complications. He is the author of more than 250 publications and is the recipient of several prestigious national and international awards.
Mr Chris Twine
MD FRCS, UK
Chris Twine is a vascular surgeon in Bristol in the UK. His has a clinical interest in complex lower limb reconstruction. He is a member of the diabetic foot team in Bristol, where the service is run by vascular surgery.
He has a research interest in amputation, chronic limb threatening ischaemia and antithrombotic therapy for peripheral arterial disease. He is an associate editor of CVIR endovascular and is on the editorial board of the European Journal of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery. He currently sits on the council of the British Society for Endovascular Therapy where he is research lead, the Vascular Society special interest research group for peripheral arterial disease where he is intervention lead, and the European Society of Vascular Surgery guidelines committee where he is chair of the antithrombotic guideline.
Dr Richard Whitehouse
Bsc MB ChB MD FRCR, UK
Dr Richard Whitehouse has been a consultant musculoskeletal radiologist at Manchester Royal Infirmary since 1991 (retiring from full time practice in 2015) and prior to which he worked as a research fellow in computed tomography at Manchester Medical School, where he also investigated various techniques of bone mineral density measurement. His MD thesis was on dual energy quantitative computed tomography.
Dr Whitehouse is a member of the International Skeletal Society, member and Past President of the British Society of Skeletal Radiology and member of the European Society of Skeletal Radiologists.
Mr Tim Williams
MBBS FRCS(Tr&Orth), UK
Mr. Tim Williams is an Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Surgeon based in East Anglia, UK. Trained in London, and the Eastern Deanery he undertook a fellowship in Stanmore 2010. Leaving this, he took up his consultant post in Colchester and has spent 9 years building the Multidisciplinary Team now comprising of four consultant Foot & Ankle Surgeons across two sites with complimenting AHP support. Colchester, being a vascular hub hospital, he works in conjunction with a strong Diabetic MDT managing both inpatient and outpatient cases building links with combined clinics supported now on a weekly basis with colleagues.
As an educationalist he has helped drive a national and now international programme of training for surgeons and AHPs alike through BOFAS and its Education Committee. Links with CURE International saw an inaugural 'Principles of Foot & Ankle' course in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where he spoke on diabetic foot care to an audience just realising the build-up of cases and impact it was going to have in their developing country.
Professor Dane Wukich
MD, USA
Dr. Dane Wukich MD has served as the Dr. Charles F. Gregory Distinguished Chair and Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas since June of 2016.
Dr. Wukich received his medical degree from the Georgetown University School of Medicine, where he was inducted into the ‘Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society’. He completed a surgical internship and orthopaedic surgery residency at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and a fellowship in foot and ankle surgery at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
Certified by the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery, Dr Wukich is a member the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society, the American Orthopaedic Association and a board member of the Association of Diabetic Foot Surgeons.
As an Army Medical Corps Officer Dr. Wukich served as a Chief of Orthopaedic Surgery for the 5th MASH in Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, and he is recognized internationally for his work in limb salvage, management of diabetes-related complications, and education. Dr. Wukich achieved the rank of Major with the U.S. Army, receiving several Army Commendation Medals and an Army Achievement Medal. He also received the Southwest Asia Service Medal and the National Defence Service Ribbon.
Following his active duty and reserve service, Dr. Wukich has been actively treating military veterans through the VA Healthcare System. He was the 2017 recipient of the Roger E. Pecoraro MD Award from the America Diabetes Association, given annually to a researcher committed to treatment and prevention of diabetic foot complications.
This meeting is supported by grants and sponsorship from the pharmaceutical and device industries. See here for details.
