Maria Latemore, Director and Podiatrist at Podiatry Services SA based in South Australia, wishes that there was greater community awareness about the broad range of issues that podiatry can help with.

“Many people just assume that a podiatrist just cuts toenails or only works with elderly people”, she told HealthTimes.

“We want people to think PODIATRIST as their first point of call when they have any foot related troubles. We can help with any foot problems; whether it’s an ingrown toenail, swollen feet, issues with the fitting of their shoes, hard skin or pain, and the list goes on”.

“Just having your feet assessed or regular podiatry treatment appointments can work wonders. We do more than just treat the problem but we look into why the problem has occured to prevent future complications. We can pick up on other health issues during these sessions and when required refer you to other health professionals or GPs”.

Ms Latemore recalls one patient who had been attending the clinic for basic foot care. “Over time she started developing little wounds that would not heal, and it didn’t matter what treatment we provided the wounds continued to become larger and more painful. After about 4 months of ongoing weekly treatment I had to convince her to stop smoking because of the damage it was doing to the circulation in her feet and the reason for the wounds not healing.”

“Due to my ongoing and very strong advice she stopped smoking and although it was extremely difficult to begin with, her entire life has now changed for the better. Her wounds healed and she reports no pain in her feet or cramping in her legs, she’s sleeping better and she is more active. She has even been able to save a substantial amount of money which she didn’t realise was possible.

Being able to drive meaningful change in people's lives has been a key motivator in Ms Latemore’s work. “Just the fact that you know you're helping people everyday is pretty amazing. Everyday there is something that we are highlighting to our patients, or the doctor, or the carer, indicating that there's something else going on that's causing this problem in their feet.”

“Many patients we see have chronic conditions such as diabetes or are undergoing chemotherapy etc, therefore, our role when treating their feet on a regular basis is so important. The two reasons for our role is to firstly prevent injuries and infections to their feet which could make their chronic condition worse and decrease their health and wellbeing and secondly, is to monitor for change in their feet and legs such as swelling, as this is often a result of other more systemic complications that they need to seek further investigation from their GP.”  

Ms Latemore continued on with other success stories of how podiatry can assist people to become more mobile and active and improve their health and wellbeing. She discussed podiatry services provided to people with disabilities that can assist with increasing their independence, and the assessment and recommended changes in people’s footwear can lead to a decrease in falls.

In recent times Ms Latemore has expanded her business to ensure that all of the community in Adelaide is able to access podiatry care. As well as having her main clinic at Plympton where her podiatrists manage sports related injuries and foot pain she also focuses on providing services to people in their homes all over Adelaide who are unable to attend a clinic. The majority of the services are to patients with Home Care Packages and NDIS funding however, anyone is able to access these services.

"As well as regular footcare and assessment we also provide medical grade footwear and custom made orthotics to our patients in the clinic and in their homes. It's just wonderful to be able to help patients and deliver something to them that they cannot get to a clinic for”.

“We have so many patients who have struggled for years to find comfortable footwear that are deep and wide enough to accommodate their clawed toes or their bunions. We recently had a patient who had a stroke and was so happy that we could provide him with several pairs of shoes that were deep enough to accommodate his foot and legs brace and that had velcro straps so they were easy to get on and off as he only had the use of one arm/hand”.

Ms Latemore said that COVID-19 and the associated requirements have presented the biggest challenge to her work of late.

“We’ve had to implement many changes to the way we run our services, to ensure we comply with SA Health directives as well as keep our patients and staff safe. Thankfully, because podiatry had existing high level infection control requirements we did not need to change many of our PPE, cleaning and sterility responsibilities as these are everyday standards for all podiatrists.”.

“We have also been extremely lucky during these challenging Covid times to have the assistance of the Australian Podiatry Association who have guided it’s members and provided podiatry and state specific information on how to manage our podiatry services to the community”. 

Ms Latemore said that her advice for anyone considering a career in podiatry is to keep their options open within the profession and to gain as much experience as possible in each area of podiatry.

“Don’t restrict yourselves so early in your career by preferring to treat one type of patient or problem e.g. sports injuries. Podiatry has so much to offer and if your viewing narrows, you're going to miss out on so much more. Our community also needs podiatrists working in their full scope of practice at least at some point in their career to fulfill the needs of our position within the health care sector. As a profession we need to continue to keep people out of hospital and out of GP surgeries which are already overcrowded and overworked and we need to help reduce chronic illness by keeping people mobile and active”.