By Mark Payette, CO

The Northern Plains Chapter AAOP had their annual meeting September 10-11, 2009 at Jimmy’s Conference and Catering Center in Vadnais Heights, MN. The day and a half event was well run and covered a variety O&P business and practice topics. We were fortunate to have guest speakers such as Marilyn Weber, MD who presented on Rehabilitation, Matt Hofkens, DO, who gave a PM&R overview, and John Michael CPO FAAOP who talked about using practical outcome measures in clinical practice. The Academy module “Evidence Based Practice – Justifying Patient Care” was presented by Mark Geil, Ph.D. and Phil Stevens, CPO FAAOP and very helpful for those practitioners interested in learning about ways to incorporate Evidence Based Practice in their daily work – hopefully many are!

At Tamarack^™, we were especially excited to have John H. Bowker, MD on the program. Dr. Bowker is one of the world’s leading experts on diabetic foot care. He is editor of the seminal work “The Diabetic Foot.”

Marty Carlson and Dr. Bowker were able to spend some time together prior to the meeting. Dr. Bowker also generously agreed to see a patient at Tamarack with Marty. The patient had a non-healing diabetic foot ulcer.

Dennis Janisse, CPed and Charlie Kuffel CPO, FAAOP each gave presentations focusing on the Pedorthic/orthotic care of people with neuropathic (diabetic) foot ulcer problems. They each gave many case examples of how they incorporate ShearBan^® in their treatment regime along with some practical tips on using it, and how it positively impacted the outcomes. Thanks for sharing that experience with other practitioners!