Message from Program Director
The goals of this program are ambitious. Our primary goal is to train experts in diabetic limb salvage who will assume leadership roles for the next generation. Our work is driven by passion from the faculty. We offer a combination of educational opportunities that are uncommon. We have a large volume of patients that provides exceptional exposure and training opportunities. Taking care of patients is at the core of the program. It drives teaching, journal club, and research.
Training involves all aspects of diabetic foot management. Our curriculum focuses on surgical limb salvage (average approximately 600 surgical cases per fellow). While surgery is an essential part of the training, we designed the program to teach clinical judgment and decision-making, critical appraisal skills, hospital-based medical management of high-risk patients, clinical wound care, and develop a working understanding of clinical research. We are the hub in a multidisciplinary team focused on diabetic limb salvage. We have close interactions with vascular surgery, infectious diseases, orthopedic surgery, radiology, emergency medicine, and orthotics and prosthetics.
To Be an Expert…
To be an expert, physicians need vast clinical experience combined with an in-depth didactic background. Our ambition is to provide the foundation for both. Fellows will see more complex patients during their year of fellowship than they will in years of clinical practice. We teach critical appraisal skills, so we can evaluate the medical literature and apply it to the people we take care of every day. A solid foundation is essentially to take advantage of the clinical learning experiences.
An Exceptional Educational Experience
Parkland Health and William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital are teaching hospitals for the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. They are state-of-the-art facilities. This is a dynamic academic medical center with four Nobel laureates and residency and fellowship programs in every discipline. Fellows have considerable responsibility. Often, we serve a challenging population that are disproportionately poor, uneducated, and uninsured or underinsured.
In addition to exceptional clinical and surgical exposure, we are one of the leading groups in the world in diabetic foot research. Our group has published more than 350 peer-reviewed papers and text chapters. We have received extramural funding from the National Institute of Health, Veteran Administration, Department of Defense, Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, American Diabetes Association, American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons, and American Podiatric Medical Association and industry.
Research is not the focus of the clinical fellowship; however, fellows are responsible for completing a research project under the supervision of faculty. Fellows have presented papers at regional, national, and international scientific meetings.
Former clinical and research fellows are national and international leaders in diabetes and the diabetic foot. They have assumed leadership positions in the International Working Group on the Diabetic Foot, American Diabetes Association, and ACFAS. They are department heads, residency directors, and faculty at major universities such as the University of Southern California and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.