The Amrita Endocrinology and Diabetic Foot Conference (AEDFC) 2014 was organized at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi from June 20 – 21, 2014. The conference focused on topics including Update for Surgeons and Diabetic Foot Specialists like Evaluation and Management of Diabetic Foot Infections, Charcot Foot, Therapeutic Footwear and Dressing Materials, Lower Limb Prosthesis, Management of Diabetes, Obesity and Osteoporosis.
Dr. Harish Kumar, Professor and Head of the Department of Endocrinology and Diabetes at Amrita delivered the welcome address. The chief guest of honour, Shri. M. G. Rajamanickam, District Collector, Ernakulam, Kerala inaugurated the ‘One-Stop Thyroid Clinic.’ In his address, he stressed that the awareness of the seriousness of thyroid diseases and diabetes must be imparted into the community.
About 200 delegates attended the two-day conference. Dr. Stephanie Wu, Eminent Podiatric Surgeon from Dr. William M. Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, North Chicago, Illinois delivered the keynote address on the topic – Amputation Prevention in Diabetic Foot Infections. In her address, she highlighted the vital importance of saving the diabetic foot and preventing amputations. She also highlighted the latest technological advances towards this and how such methods can be used worldwide for amputation prevention. The session on Diabetic Foot Infections and their Prevention, was handled by Drs. Arun Bal, renowned Podiatric Surgeon; Gopi Chellan, Research Scientist, Amrita Center for Nanosciences, Kochi; Anup R. Warrier, Infectious Disease Specialist and Usha Menon, Associate Professor at the Department of Endocrinology and Diabetes at Amrita. Dr. A. G. Unnikrishnan, Chief Endocrinologist at Chellaram Diabetes Institute, Pune spoke on Peri-operative Management of Diabetic Foot. Dr. Sreekanth Moorthy, Professor and Head of the Department of Radiology at Amrita spoke on Radiological Investigations. Dr. Stephanie Wu discussed on Soft Tissue Approach to Foot Ulcers and Dr. Sudhindran, Professor, Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery at Amrita spoke on the importance of Lower Limb Bypass Grafting to improve lower limb vascularity. A two-hour interactive workshop on Wound Care followed the sessions.
On the second day, sessions on Diabetic Foot Management and Endocrinology was held. The session on Diabetic Foot Management highlighted a few excellent surgical video presentations on Foot and Ankle Reconstructive Surgeries. The other session focused on topics related to Endocrinology, such as Management of Osteoprosis, Rheumatological Manifestations of Diabetes and Thyroid Diseases.
There were paper presentations, both oral and posters. Niranjan Nair, 3rd year MBBS student, Amrita School of Medicine, Kochi won the first prize for best paper presentation in the medical oral presentation section for his paper titled Subclinical Hypothyroidism – A Cardiovascular risk? Jishnu Nair, 2nd year MBBS student, Amrita School of Medicine, Kochi won the second prize for oral presentation in the same category for his presentation titled Value of CRP as a screening tool in Diabetic Foot Infections.
June 22, 2014
Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi
