Penny Podiatrist "I provide footcare and health education to a wide range of people of varying ages and backgrounds. And to help maintain foot health so people can remain mobile and pain free."

Penny works in a variety of clinics with elderly people, diabetics and other high-risk groups to ensure good foot health, providing treatment where necessary. She also works with children, treating any problems they may have with walking.

Why is it so important for you to work with people who are diabetic?

People with diabetes have poorer circulation than most of us; because of this they can’t feel their feet. This means they can hurt their feet without knowing they've done it. In turn, this can then lead to serious problems such as gangrene which, if not treated in time, means people have to have feet amputated. I once had a patient who had stepped on a drawing pin and didn’t know; the drawing pin was still in his foot. So you can see why it’s important that people with diabetes really look after their feet well.

Diabetes is on the increase and we need to make sure that as a profession we educate people so they can prevent problems happening. Just by checking their feet everyday, diabetic people can monitor their own foot health.

I've heard people talk about the biomechanic elements of the job. What does that mean?

Biomechanics is when we look at how people move; we look at the engineering of a foot and how a foot operates as a moving part of your body. But I don't just look at feet, I also look at how foot movement affects your whole body below the waist. So this means we also link in with other professionals such as physiotherapists and orthopedic surgeons.

I can look at people who have had sports injuries, sprains and back pains. I run a clinic for lower back pain along with a physiotherapist. I find one of the hardest things about biomechanics is trying to pin-point exactly what is wrong and finding the right treatment for the patient. This could be anything from referring them to another professional or fitting an orthotic device into their shoes to control foot function.

What's an orthotic device?

It's a device used to control a person's foot function. Just to expand on that... we use plaster of Paris to make a cast of a patient's foot to capture the shape; from this we heat mould a plastic like material around the cast which gives us the orthotic device. From this we can manipulate and add to the device (we call it an orthosis) to control how the foot moves when the patient is walking.

What other clinics are you involved in?

I run a podopaediatric clinic; this is a clinic for children who have been referred to me from their GPs or Health Visitors. These children have been referred because there are concerns about the way they walk or that they haven’t started walking. This sometimes happens because their feet turn in when they walk, or they have knock knees or flat feet.

I also see children with sports-related problems such as aching feet or ankles. I work with parents, teaching them about good foot health for their children such as making sure the shoes that children wear are fitted correctly and that children have their feet measured regularly.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

It’s great when you have a patient who comes to you in a great deal of pain and you treat them and the pain relief is instant and they go away completely better.

Podiatry really is a worthwhile job but people don’t appreciate the level of training I had to do to become a qualified podiatrist. I don’t want to sound negative but the job is under-staffed. It's a job that should be valued, especially with the population getting older and the rise in diabetes.