C02: Surgical Management of the Diabetic Foot

Surgery in the diabetic foot runs from sharp debridement in clinic to taking a septic foot to theatre at midnight. The skill the whole team needs is to recognise which kind of surgery a foot requires, how soon, and whether it is perfused enough to heal what the surgeon does. Delayed source control, or surgery into an ischaemic foot, accelerates limb loss.

The module classes surgery as elective, prophylactic, curative or emergent, and shows how the same procedure changes class with context. It teaches source control first in a limb-threatening infection, with antibiotics as the adjunct. It also covers when a selected neuropathic forefoot osteomyelitis can be managed with antibiotics rather than resection, and the surgical offloading options when non-surgical offloading fails, stated honestly as low-certainty evidence. It covers perfusion as the gate to every operation, sequencing infection control, revascularisation and reconstruction, and perioperative optimisation. C06 teaches the operative detail of non-vascular reconstruction, including Charcot reconstruction and nail surgery; this module covers the decisions across all four classes, including emergency surgery and osteomyelitis.

Content is tiered at Foundation, Core and Advanced level, with two algorithms and three case vignettes. You receive the Teaching Document, the Evidence Base, the slide deck, a narrated video and an audio overview.