What's new at this year's FoPS conference?
Ahead of June's Faculty of Podiatric Surgery (FoPS) conference, chairs Jade Tang and James Cowden explain why you should attend the event
The 2024 FoPS conference is all about reaching out to the wider podiatry profession. Our aim throughout the planning has been to bring together podiatrists, podiatric surgeons and other health professionals, and work on building strong relationships. We're a profession with a lot of overlap between sub-speciality areas – from MSK to the high-risk foot – and this event will bring everything together.
Conferences are great opportunities to educate yourself and stay up-to-date. The programme we're putting on this year will be of benefit to people of all grades. Our priority throughout is delivering something that attendees will find interesting and beneficial for their practice, with speakers who instil enthusiasm and drive that further learning.
Just as important is the opportunity to network with colleagues and peers. It’s key for trainees – and also for people who refer into podiatric surgery – to develop an understanding of the surgical pathway for managing conditions.
That knowledge helps us all do a deep dive and look at things in a multi-layered way – perhaps for pathologies or patient presentations, or for complications. Rather than just touching on a subject, our conference programme will go into detail – with perspectives and opinions from juniors, trainees, registrars, senior consultants, and also podiatrists, orthotists and physiotherapists.
Conferences should always leave you wanting to learn more: there's often a particular lecture that sticks with you, or a certain new product to look into further, or an interesting discussion in the coffee breaks. That’s what makes conferences so rewarding.
Our tagline this year is 'developing links', because of how important relationships are for healthcare professionals. So, if you’ve ever thought surgery is a route you’d like to take but you don't know how to approach it: book your ticket. If you work alongside surgeons and want to understand their field more: book your ticket. If you work privately and want a bit more help with assessing the foot and ankle or a skill like imaging interpretation: book your ticket. There will be something to benefit everyone.
Conference overview
FoPS is a two-day event in 2024, across 13-14 June. There will be presentations on areas as diverse as:
- Metabolic bone disorders
- Foot and ankle tumours
- Minimally invasive surgery
- Factors that impact wound healing, including obesity, nutrition, smoking and drug use
- Surgery on the at-risk foot
- Microbiological sampling
- Managing flat foot deformity.
Pre-conference workshops will also take place on Wednesday 12 June. Topics will include:
- Ultrasound
- Regional nerve blocks
- Therapeutic injections
- Interpretation of specialist vascular imaging
- Pharmacology update
- MSK assessment.
Meet the chairs
James Cowden
After graduating in 2004, Mr James Cowden worked across the breadth of podiatry practice at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He gained a surgical fellowship in 2016, holding specialist registrar posts in Sheffield and Birmingham before recently taking on a consultant podiatric surgeon role at the Department of Vascular Surgery at Manchester Foundation Trust. James is an elected member of FoPS, and lectures on the post-graduate programme for surgical training at the University of Huddersfield.
Jade Tang
Jade Tang is a registered specialist registrar in podiatric surgery, currently working towards a certificate of completion of podiatric surgery training. Jade works both in the NHS and private sector, managing her own private practice in London. After training as a podiatrist at the University of East London in 2010, and having always wanted to be a podiatric surgeon, she applied for the Master’s degree in podiatric surgery at the University of Huddersfield. She gained her surgical fellowship in 2019. Jade is also an independent prescriber, and enjoys presenting on lower limb pathology and surgical intervention.
Book now
This year’s FOPS conference takes place at Leonardo Royal Hotel in Birmingham on June 13-14, with an extra day of workshops on June 12. Find out more and buy tickets here.