A MORECAMBE Bay podiatrist has spoken of the satisfaction she gets combining her interest in the human foot with patient care.

With a team of seven other podiatrists in the Furness area, Sarah Wilson sees around 3,500 patients per year.

She works closely with people who suffer from diabetic or vascular foot ulcers, using a holistic approach (supporting the whole person including physical, emotional, social and spiritual wellbeing) to develop a treatment plan with them with the ultimate goal of healing their wounds.

“Originally I wanted to be a physiotherapist but when I was picking my university course physiotherapy was in quite high demand,” Ms Wilson said.

“I started to look into podiatry and I fell in love with it.

“A lot of my patients are diabetic so I would look at what their diabetic control is like, whether they need some foot screening, what their lifestyle is like and how it is impacting on the wound.

“As well as working closely with the patient to find out their expectations, we work closely with the diabetic and vascular teams at FGH to come up with a treatment plan that is right for the patient – the ultimate goal is always to heal the wound.”

On the challenges of serving Furness patients during the coronavirus period, she said; “The service has continued to operate as normal throughout the pandemic apart from us working from different locations. We moved all of our high-risk services to the Alfred Barrow Centre because the majority of our patients were in high-risk categories for catching coronavirus.

"We have got really good links with the diabetic team and the vascular team at FGH who have been fantastic.

"If they came across a patient on the wards who needed our input they would liaise with us and we would go up and visit that patient on the ward.”

Ms Wilson added: “I do love my job. I find it fascinating and I love working with people. There is a lot of job satisfaction in podiatry – you see patients in quite a lot of pain with substantial wounds but being able to follow the patient’s treatment all the way through until the end where the wound is healing and see them more comfortable and happy – that’s why I’m a Podiatrist.”