Professor Ketan Dhatariya

Dr Catherine Gooday

Professor Ketan Dhatariya graduated 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 a 2 year research fellowship in endocrinology at 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 NHS clinician, with no dedicated research time or funding. 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.

He has several national roles in the UK. He is currently the Chair of the Association of British Clinical Diabetologists and is also the immediate past chair of the Joint British Diabetes Societies Inpatient Care Group where he led or co-authored several national guidelines on the management of various aspects of inpatient diabetes care. He is the Chair of the Examining Board for the UK Specialist Clinical Exam in Diabetes and Endocrinology. He is also the immediate past President of the Diabetes and Endocrine section of the Royal Society of Medicine. He is the Section Co-editor for diabetes for www.endotext.org. He is an Associate Editor of Diabetic Medicine and, until 2023 was also an Associate Editor of BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care.

Professor Dhatariya has over 190 peer reviewed publications, and has published over 20 book chapters on inpatient diabetes, peri-operative diabetes care or on the diabetic foot. He has been named as one of the world’s leading diabetes experts by www.expertscape.com

Dr Catherine Gooday graduated as a podiatrist from the University of Brighton, England. She has been the Principal Podiatrist within the Elsie Bertram Diabetes Centre, at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, England, since 2001.

In 2022, she completed her PhD funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) on defining the outcome measures of Charcot neuroarthropathy.

She is a member of the Offloading and Charcot neuro-osteoarthropathy working groups of the International Working Group on the Diabetic Foot (2023). She was also a member of the group that developed the NICE guidance; Diabetic foot problems: prevention and management (2015).

In 2023 she was appointed as Nursing, Midwifery, and AHP Research Lead, National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), Clinical Research Network (CRN), East of England.
She now combines a clinical and academic career working to improve the outcomes for people with diabetic foot complications and support other Nurses, Midwifes, and AHPs to develop their research skills and career aspirations.  

Caroline Chen

Associate Professor Peter Lazzarini

Caroline is a senior pharmacist with the National Centre for Antimicrobial Stewardship, based at the Doherty Institute in Melbourne.

She has over 15 years’ experience in clinical infectious diseases and antimicrobial stewardship (AMS), and was one of the first AMS pharmacists in Australia where she established the service at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. She was also the co-founder of the National Antimicrobial Prescribing Survey (NAPS) program which now has over 2000 participating facilities across 14 countries and contributes to Australia’s antimicrobial usage surveillance program.

Her specific interests include AMS program delivery and the development, implementation and evaluation of digital solutions to enable AMS practice in health care facilities.

Associate Professor Pete Lazzarini is a podiatrist and Research Fellow with Queensland University of Technology and Queensland Health in Brisbane, Australia.

Pete has an internationally-recognised track record in diabetes foot disease research, with >110 peer-reviewed publications and >$5.8 million in grant funding in the field. He is the Secretary of the International Working Group on the Diabetic Foot Offloading Guideline Group, was Founding Chair of Diabetes Feet Australia and has held National Health and Medical Research Council Fellowships.

Pete leads a diabetes foot disease research program that has produced significant new global knowledge: quantifying disease burdens, identifying risk factors and developing novel treatments. He is particularly motivated by nurturing the next generation of researchers to develop practice and policy solutions that help end avoidable amputations within a generation. 

Terry Swanson

Dr Joel Lasschuit

Terry Swanson completed her undergraduate work in the USA before immigrating to Australia. She was endorsed by NBV in 2003 and Victorian Government in 2004 as one of the first Nurse Practitioners in her state and specialty of wound management. Terry was admitted as a Fellow of the Australian Wound Management Association in 2010 for her significant contribution to wound management at a state, national and international level. She is the current Vice Chair of the International Wound Infection Institute (IWII) and chaired the development and publication of the 2016 IWII Consensus Document Update on Wound Infection and is Co- chair of the 2022 publication.

Terry served as the Chair of IWII from 2012 until 2015. In 2020 Terry was invited onto the World Union Wound Healing Societies Board and is the current Co-chair of the Supporting Societies subcommittee.

Terry has published and presented on chronic wounds and wound infection nationally and internationally. She was the co-author and co- editor for the book Wound Management for the Advanced Practitioner. Terry was the Scientific Chair of the 2018 Wounds Australia National Conference and Co-chair for the 2022 conference.

In 2023 Terry and her colleagues formed the Australian Wound and Skin Alliance and will host their first Summer School in February 2024.  She is the inaugural Chair. She has held positions of responsibility of various nursing and wound related boards locally, nationally, and internationally. Frequently, Terry is an invited speaker nationally and internationally and loves to share her knowledge and passion of helping to heal and provide best practice.

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

Joel undertook his PhD at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and University of New South Wales, where he now holds appointments as a Visiting Scientist and Conjoint Senior Lecturer, respectively. He coordinated Australia’s first randomised controlled trial for people with active Charcot foot, investigating use of a novel therapeutic across nine public teaching hospitals. He has presented his research at national and international meetings.

As the ADS/NADC HRFS Database Manager he is overseeing implementation of a standardised national registry, attracting interest from some sixty services. He is also involved in NADC HRFS Accreditation. On invitation from Diabetes Feet Australia (DFA) he co-authored the Australian guidelines on prevention of foot ulceration and is a member of the diabetes-related foot disease National Strategy Working Group. He now serves as a member of the DFA Steering Committee.

He co-founded and convenes the Sydney Diabetic Foot Interest Group (SyD FIG), which brings together clinicians from a breadth of institutions and disciplines nationally to discuss complex cases.

Associate Professor Thomas Schulz

Jack Yeung

Dr Thomas Schulz is an Infectious Diseases Physician at the Victorian Infectious Diseases Service. He has clinical appointments with the Royal Melbourne and Royal Women’s Hospitals and is a Lecturer at the University of Melbourne. He has a particular interest in refugee and immigrant health, and has a major interest in novel modes of health care delivery. 

He has worked in the Diabetic Foot Unit at Royal Melbourne for the last 5 years and enjoys the multidisciplinary collaboration of the unit. He also has interest in telehealth and delivery of care to regional areas and the provision of infectious diseases support to refugee and immigrant populations.

Jack Yeung graduated with a Bachelor of Prosthetics and Orthotics from La Trobe University in 2005. Jack holds post graduate qualifications in management and leadership, as well as digital heath. Jack has worked in both public and private practice across Tasmania, Brisbane, Townsville, and Melbourne, in clinical and leadership roles.

Jack is also involved with La Trobe University as a casual academic, teaching and assisting practical classes since 2016, as well as a competency standards assessor with the Australian Orthotic Prosthetic Association. Jack is currently the clinical lead of Orthotics at Northern Health and leads an amazing team of 7 clinicians.

Professor Parm Naidoo

Susan O'Hanlon

Professor Parm Naidoo is the Clinical Director of Radiology at the Royal Hobart Hospital, and Clinical Professor of Radiology at the University of Tasmania. After completing his medical degree at the University of Melbourne, he undertook his Radiology training and MRI fellowship at Monash Health, before being appointed Director of Radiology at the network's second largest campus at Dandenong from 2003-2018.

Clinically, he has a number of sub-specialty interests including Chest imaging, Body imaging and Neuroradiology, MSK radiology, Intervention and Education.

Previously holding joint appointments as Clinical Associate Professor at both the University of Melbourne and Monash University, and head of Imaging Education at Monash, he  founded and convenes the premier fellowship Radiology course in the hemisphere – Radio-diagnosis Review.

Susan O’Hanlon MBBS FRANZCR (Radiologist) has wide experience in diagnostics, recently collaborating with Virtual Fracture Clinic implementation within the South Metropolitan Health service in Perth. She has a background in musculoskeletal medicine, working as a Medical Imaging Specialist within South Metropolitan Health Service in Western Australia, and regularly contributes to leading the imaging at the multidisciplinary diabetic foot meetings at Fiona Stanley Hospital, oncology, myositis and myeloma/amyloid meetings. 

Regular reviewer for The Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Oncology. Teacher, and mentor to Western Australian Radiology Trainees and all hospital staff including allied health and students of all programs. Graduating physiotherapy 2002 and medicine 2008, Susan has worked in emergency and orthopaedic registrar roles prior to radiology. 

Vikram Iyer

Donna Oomens

Vikram Iyer is a Vascular and Endovascular Surgeon at Northern, Western and Alfred Health in Melbourne. A graduate of the University of Queensland, Vikram underwent his Vascular Surgery training at sites in Queensland, New Zealand, and Victoria, seeing a broad spectrum of diabetic foot pathologies throughout this journey. He undertook an MPhil with the Queensland Research Centre for Peripheral Artery Disease in Townsville and also worked at Townsville Hospital assisting the team there in their efforts to combat the indigenous diabetic epidemic in North Queensland.

Vikram was convenor of the ANZSVS Vascular Trainees Skills Course in Melbourne in 2023. Presently, he regularly consults at both the High Risk Foot Service clinic at the Alfred and the Foot Procedure Unit at the Northern. He has a special interest in complex aortic surgery, as well as evolving open and endovascular techniques for treating chronic limb-threatening ischaemia.

Donna Oomens has been working as a vascular sonographer for 30 years and during this time has been involved at many levels with training and teaching and was awarded a Fellowship in 2024, as well as previously receiving the Sonographer of the Year (NSW) in 2019 and Tutor of the Year in 2022.

Currently, Donna combines academia and clinical practice through her roles at Western Sydney University and Western Sydney Vascular Services. Donna remains passionate about quality performance in ultrasound and promotion of collaboration between professions to improve patient outcomes.

Alana Ferrif

Brian Martin

Alana Ferrif is a Credentialled Diabetes Educator, currently working respectfully on Darug country in Western Sydney for NSWHealth. Alana’s primary objective is to provide a safe and supportive environment that enables people to find courage, motivation, understanding and self-empowerment to live long, healthy, happy lives. Alana’s aim is to share her knowledge and never stop learning from the knowledge of others.

Dr Brian Martin is an Australian trained orthopaedic surgeon. He attained the Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (FRACS) in 2010 and he is a current Fellow of the Australian Orthopaedic Association (FAOrthA) as well as a member of the Australian Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS).

Dr Martin has been working for over a decade in the university teaching hospital at Nepean Public Hospital in Sydney as well as privately at Norwest Hospital and the Sydney Adventist Hospital.

He has a particular interest in the management of diabetic foot complications especially infection management and Charcot foot reconstruction.

Kate Hillier

Georgina Waite

Kate Hillier is a Podiatrist working in the High Risk Foot Clinic at Northeast Health Wangaratta and Community Health services at Albury Wodonga Health. Prior to this, she has worked in the Podiatry Department at the Royal Hobart Hospital and in private practice. Kate has 10 years of high-risk foot experience with post-graduate qualifications in Diabetes Education and Management.  

Kate values the multi-disciplinary approach to complex patient care. As part of her current role at Northeast Health, she has developed the Outpatient podiatry service with a focus on building collaborative models and pathways for regional patients to access expert Podiatry care in a timely manner. Kate takes a proactive approach to teaching colleagues through open and accessible knowledge sharing, case discussion and shadowing opportunities.

Georgie Waite graduated with a Bachelor of Podiatric Medicine from Charles Sturt University in 2018. Georgie has worked with dedication and genuine care in both public and private sectors in Victoria and the Northern Territory.

Georgie currently works across the Acute and Outpatient High Risk Foot Clinic setting at Northeast Health Wangaratta. She has been a key link in the smooth transition of patient care between these settings and has built strong, mutually beneficial relationships with acute wound care team. Georgie is nearing the completion of her Endorsement for Scheduled Medicines and looks forward to bringing this skillset to the regional area. 

Friday 25th October - Day 1