D05: The IWGDF Guidelines: Reading, Applying & Critiquing the Evidence

Every clinician in the diabetic foot team cites the IWGDF guidelines; far fewer can say what GRADE certainty means or why a recommendation is conditional. A conditional recommendation enforced rigidly becomes a tick-box that overrides judgement, and a strong one casually ignored becomes a missed standard. The IWGDF is not one document but a suite of seven chapter guidelines with practical, definitions and methodology documents.

The module traces a recommendation from PICO question through systematic review and evidence-to-decision to a graded statement. It works through offloading, wound healing, classification, infection, PAD, definitions and Charcot examples, including reading the precise population before acting on a headline. It covers best-practice statements, stepping down a recommendation hierarchy when the first choice is unavailable, AGREE II appraisal, and BEST-CLI versus BASIL-2 as the worked example of apparent conflict. D01 appraises single studies; D05 appraises and applies the guidelines that synthesise them.

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.