August 2009
David Armstrong captivates audiences on his "Down Under" tour
Dr David Armstrong held 3 one day events on the Future of Diabetic Foot Care in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane during the last week of July.
David delighted delegates with a mix of humour, such as "Sparkie" the toe eating Cocker Spaniel, as well as the hard hitting statistics associated with the Diabetes epidemic both in Australia and around the world.
He spoke of how Diabetes is so poorly represented on the world stage, paralleling the atrocities associated with landmine clearance. David highlighted that a limb is lost to land mines every 30 minutes and there are some 1500 groups lobbying for this cause, including princess's and rock stars. However, Diabetes claims a limb every 30 seconds and there are no such lobbyists for this cause.
He expounded the values of working as a team referencing the tremendous achievements in reducing amputations when utilizing the "Toe and Flow" approach developed at the Southern Arizona Limb Salvage Alliance - SALSA - University of Arizona, Tucson, with his long time friend and world renowned Vascular Surgeon Dr Joe Mills. In the "Toe and Flow" model, Podiatry and Vascular medicine are both involved in initial patient assessments.
Once the cause of the problem is identified be it infection control, debridement (or as David affectionally calls it the "Landscaping"), or Vascular (I.E. the "Plumbing") then that discipline will take initial control of the patient. Once the primary cause has been addressed, the rest of the team (Endocrinology, Wound Care etc) become involved to achieve the best possible prognosis for the patient.
The great advantage of this system is the inter referral capability where Podiatry can send a patient directly to Vascular and vice versa without the need for an external referral path. This speeds up often critical procedures which invariably leads to quicker and more successful treatment outcomes.
David also worked with the Australian Podiatry Council - ApodC whilst in Sydney lobbying at both ministerial and PR levels. His interview with the Health Editor of the Financial Revue was printed in the July 30th edition of the Men's Health section.
After completing his engagements with Vasyli, David flew onto Alice Springs where he addressed the Royal College of Surgeons Rural Health Conference on route to attending the American Podiatric Medical Association - APMA conference in Montreal.
Vasyli Medical Asia - Pacific would like to thank David for his all his hard work associated with making these events so successful.
They would also like to thank co sponsors and partners that helped to make these events possible: APodC, KCI, Portal Education, ShoeTech (NSW) Bilby Shoes (Vic) & Briggate Medical.
