Professor          William Jeffcoate

Professor       

Fran Game 

Professor William Jeffcoate was appointed as an endocrinologist in Nottingham in 1979, and subsequently established a specialist foot clinic in 1982 for the care of diabetic foot disease. He resigned from his full-time post in 1997 to focus on studying disease of the foot in diabetes in order to build an evidence-based foundation for the management of diabetic foot complications.

This led to the beginning of the Foot Ulcer Trials Unit in 2002, which he established with Professor Frances Game.

Professor Jeffcoate has designed and completed several large, multicenter and multinational trials and has also undertaken repeated systemic reviews on the topic of infection of foot ulcers. Other major interests have focused on the pathogenesis
of the acute Charcot foot, as well as the role played by neuropathy in the development of arterial calcification.

After spending years on multiple editorial and advisory boards, he is currently the Clinical Lead of the National Diabetes Foot Care Audit of England and Wales (NDFA).

Professor Fran Game has been a consultant Diabetologist at 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 and she has published over 80 papers and book chapters on the subject. She has an active research interest, 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. She is an active teacher both locally, nationally and internationally, being regularly asked to lecture at major diabetes conferences. She has worked with Diabetes UK on their Putting Feet First campaign. 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.

Fran leads the IWGDF Classification and Wound Healing chapters for the upcoming 2023 Guidelines and is Chair-Elect of the Editorial Board for 2027's Guidelines.

Professor Stephen Twigg

Associate Professor Peter Lazzarini

Professor Stephen Twigg, MBBS (Hons-I), PhD (Syd), FRACP, is Head of Department of Endocrinology, and Medical lead of the Diabetes High-Risk Foot Service, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPAH). He is Kellion Professor of Endocrinology, Stan Clark Chair in Diabetes, in Sydney Medical School and the Charles Perkins Centre, the University of Sydney. As a physician-scientist his research program has been dedicated to preventing, and managing end-organ complications in diabetes, with focus on foot disease, with over 200 research publications in these fields, as well as National and International grants.

Professor Twigg is Hon. Chair of the Australian Diabetes Foot Network of the National Association of Diabetes Centres, and the NDSS DA Foot Forward initiative, plus Committee Chair of Diabetes Feet Australia (DFA), and Australian representative of D-Foot International, having presented at key forums here and overseas, including the IDF World Global Congress. He co-chaired the 2021 Australian evidence-based guidelines for diabetes-related foot disease, and contributed to the DFA Research Agenda 2021 publication.

Associate Professor Pete Lazzarini is a Research Fellow with Queensland University of Technology and Queensland Health in Brisbane, Australia. Pete has an internationally-recognised track record in diabetes-related foot disease research, and amongst other things, holds an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Early Career Fellowship, is Past Chair of Diabetes Feet Australia and Secretary of the International Working Group on the Diabetic Foot Offloading Guideline.

Dr Sarah Aitken

Michaela Watts

Dr Sarah Aitken is an academic vascular and endovascular surgeon at Concord Repatriation General Hospital, and the University of Sydney. She is passionate about improving surgical outcomes, with a focus upon ensuring that patients' concerns and needs remain central to clinical care. Her primary research focus is on the perioperative care of patients with significant peripheral vascular disease, translating population-wide surgical outcomes research into new and innovative models of care. She is chair of the newly formed SHP Perioperative Care of Surgical Patients Clinical Academic Group, co-chair of the Concord Institute of Academic Surgery, and leads several research collaboratives including the Australian and New Zealand Vascular Trials Network. She is strongly involved in surgical education and is a member of the Board of Vascular Training.

Michaela has been a clinical Podiatrist for over 18 years, specialising in the High Risk Foot within a variety of Victoria's major metropolitan hospitals.  She holds a Bachelor of Podiatry Degree from La Trobe University and a Masters Degree of Podiatry from Curtin University.  She is currently the Grade 4 Clinical Lead for Podiatry/High Risk Foot Service at Eastern Health, in conjunction with her role as the Project Officer for the NADC Foot Network National HRFS Standards and Accreditation program.    

Vanessa Nube

Melissa Noonan, AM

Vanessa Nube is the Director of Podiatry for the Sydney Local Health District. She maintains a role as clinical podiatrist working within the Podiatry and High Risk Foot Services (HRFS) within the District.

She has undertaken lead roles in a range of projects relating to  the care of people with diabetes-related foot complications, and contributed as a clinician researcher to the field with original research published as part of her Masters degree and current PhD candidature. She mostly recently completed the Diabetes Debridement Study, a multi-site randomised study funded by the NSW Ministry of Health.

 Vanessa has advocated strongly for improvement in standards and models of care, working with the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation and on the NSW Diabetes Taskforce, documenting and implementing the NSW Health Standards for HRFS. She contributed to the development of the NADC Collaborative Interdisciplinary Diabetes HFRS Accreditation program and participates as an Assessor, and co-authored the adapted Australian guidelines for pressure offloading in management of diabetes-related foot ulcers.

Melissa is the founder and CEO of Limbs 4 Life, a non-profit national charity working to support people facing amputation and living with limb loss in Australia. As an amputee herself, Melissa is committed to educating members of the community about the importance of foot healthcare and the importance of preventing further amputations. Through consumer-based peer-led education programs and resources, Melissa is passionate about creating positive outcomes for the amputee community and disability sector.

She has a Diploma of Community Education and was recently appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for her service to community.

Georgina Frank

Dr Joel Lasschuit

Georgina is a podiatrist specialising in diabetes-related foot disease (DFD). She is deputy director of podiatry for the Sydney Local Health District where she works with a wonderful team of podiatrists providing preventative foot care and acute management for DFD. More recently she also had the great fortune to have been project officer for the national Foot Forward Project which aims to develop an Integrated Diabetes Footcare Pathway to support early referral for people with diabetes-related foot diseases.

Georgina currently practices in outreach with the Outback Vascular Health Service, Endocrinology team from Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Diabetes Centre, working with the fantastic Maari Ma Aboriginal Health Service in Broken Hill and Wilcannia. Georgina has completed her Master of Public Health which was a labour of love while working full-time and has made her more determined to improve health equity within the Australian health system.

Georgina has been on the APP-HRF committee since 2019 and Vice President since 2020.

Dr Joel Lasschuit (BMedSc, MBBS Hons, FRACP) is an Endocrinologist and clinical researcher who is determined to improve outcomes for people with diabetes-related foot complications. He is a Staff Specialist at St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney where he co-leads the High-Risk Foot Service (HRFS), accredited by the National Association of Diabetes Centres (NADC) as a Centre of Excellence.

Joel submitted his PhD via the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and University of New South Wales. He coordinates a novel randomised clinical trial for people with acute Charcot foot across nine hospitals. On invitation from Diabetes Feet Australia he co-authored the new Australian guideline on prevention of foot ulceration. He co-founded and convenes the Sydney Diabetic Foot Interest Group (SyD FIG), which brings together interdisciplinary clinicians from around the country.

Jo Scheepers

Dr Michael Dillon

Jo Scheepers is the Manager of Podiatry and Coordinator of the Multidisciplinary complex foot service at SJOG Midland hospitals WA. This team provides expert care for patients with complex acute and chronic foot ulcerations, infections, peripheral vascular disease and amputations, most often as a result of diabetes.

The team’s focus is to prevent amputations and avoidable admissions to hospital and help people to live their lives to the full.  Jo was involved in the classification chapter of the Australian national diabetic foot disease guidelines 2021, national interdisciplinary high risk foot accreditation standards, and is a member of the WA high risk foot research group.

Dr Michael Dillon is Professor in Prosthetics and Orthotics, and currently serves as the Head, Department Community and Clinical Health at La Trobe University. During the early part of his career, Dr Dillon worked as a prosthetist/orthotist in public hospitals and private practice. Dr Dillon obtained a PhD in biomechanics and biomedical engineering from Queensland University of Technology prior to commencing his academic career at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Since this time, Dr Dillon has taught across a diverse range of curriculum areas with expertise in transfemoral prosthetics, and critical appraisal subjects that aim to help students become informed consumers of research evidence.

Dr Dillon’s research has involved studies in areas of biomechanics, epidemiology, health-related quality-of-life, health economics, and outcomes after lower limb amputation. In recent years, Dr Dillon has led a small international collaboration to develop shared decision-making resources to help clinicians, and those facing the prospect of partial foot amputation, engage in more meaningful conversations about amputation surgery. These shared decision-making resources are freely available at: www.amputationdecisionaid.com

PROGRAM PREVIEW