Following audience polling, Nathalie Yonan (Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom) and Balraj Maan (Willington, United Kingdom) were announced as the winners of the Worrying Foot Competition at this year’s Charing Cross (CX) International Symposium (23–25 April, London, UK). The competition aimed to create informative materials for educating members of the public about diabetic foot infection.
Yonan, who session moderator Claire Dawkins (Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom) said “narrowly missed out last year with another incredible submission,” won £1,000 for the best infomercial, while Maan won £500 for the best infographic.
Dawkins paid special thanks to BIBA Medical, the Rouleaux Club—the United Kingdom’s national vascular trainee society—and the World Federation of Vascular Societies for their joint support of the Worrying Foot Competition. She also thanked the Camilia Botnar Arterial Research Foundation, which funded the prizes.
The Worrying Foot Competition was initiated after the success of last year’s Hurting Leg Competition and required trainees and medical students interested in issues related to chronic limb-threatening ischaemia (CLTI), diabetic foot infection, and the hurting leg to create and submit either an infographic or infomercial on the topic of diabetic foot infection.
Shortlisted entries were invited to have their work shown at CX 2024 and, during yesterday’s CLTI Controversies session, audience members had the opportunity to view and vote for their favourites.
As part of the session, Dawkins gave the audience the opportunity to comment, ask questions, and make suggestions for how the competition can be developed in the future.
One delegate commented that the impact of vascular disease on patients’ mental health could be a good subject for a similar competition in the future.
Dawkins agreed, citing the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on vascular patients as something she has noticed in the UK. “A lot of vascular patients are from low socioeconomic areas, and I think you’re right, it’s really hitting quite a lot of our vascular patients,” she said.
Michael Edmonds (London, United Kingdom), CX Executive Board member for the CLTI and Hurting Leg programme, commented that the competition “has been a fantastic idea,” going on to suggest that a future competition could be aimed at the “first attender”. He explained: “It’s the healthcare assistant in the care home that may be the first to see these lesions and infections, and that might be another avenue, because the delay is often with the patient, who doesn’t realise what’s going on, but the second delay is with the first attender.”
