A Career in Podiatry: Reflection
Steve Urry is a Visiting Professor at Health Sciences University on the MSc Podiatry (pre-registration) course. Steve also owns a medical device company and was a member of the Research and Innovation Committee of the Royal College of Podiatry.
Steve specialises in clinical approaches to biomechanics of the foot and ankle. In this article, he tells us more about his career as a podiatrist – both in education and in the commercial sector – and how his research interests have developed over time.
He also shares more about developing a foot (bio)mechanics device for clinical use that he believes is extremely exciting for the profession.
The Importance of the Podiatry profession
“By the time they’re adults, four out of five people will have had some sort of foot problem. The human foot is very complex from an engineering and mechanical point of view. Feet are also crucial from the point of view of comfort, mobility and overall health and liveability.
“All the activities you do for walking and running depend on the foot. We can demonstrate that what happens in the foot is crucial for you to be able to walk and run in the way that you do as a human being.
“All that complexity deserves specialists. For me, for years in practise, having patients who arrive in pain and walk out without that pain, or have that pain reduced and eliminated over a period of time, was hugely satisfying.
“It’s an immensely good thing you can do. If you want a good job that pays well, and does a really good service for other people, it is hugely rewarding.”
Specialising in Human Movement
“I started life as a podiatrist. Or in those days, as a chiropodist, as we were called. I got into biomechanics in my second year. Biomechanical principles apply to how you walk, jump, swim – all those sorts of things. It’s about trying to understand movement.
“I went on to do a PhD in foot pressure analysis at Southampton University in the engineering department. I began lecturing in biomechanics, which was a new subject back in the 1970s. I taught in British universities for about 15 years and was involved in establishing one or two brand new places, including the Wessex School of Chiropody in Southampton.
“I was headhunted by an Australian university and taught there on a three-year contract. I ended up staying for 20 years. The university kept renewing my contract, and eventually made it a full-time ongoing job.
“My research interest was always human movement: biomechanics of the foot and ankle in particular. I stayed in Australia and carried out my research through the university, ending up with around 30 scientific publications.
“Eventually I decided to come out of the university sector. I got a job as a research manager for a footwear company in Australia for two years. They were looking to do some serious research and I led their programme for two years. We brought in a whole lot of new equipment and did a lot of measurements on foot sizes and shoe design.
“When I returned to the UK, I started a small, commercial medical device company.”
Developing a Foot Mechanics Device
“Since my second year at university, I had aimed to develop some sort of machinery that we could use in a clinical situation. I wanted the technology to give us data that was useful clinically as well as scientifically credible.
“I’ve been looking all the way through my career for something that might do that job. Later in my career, thanks to technology advances, I came across something relevant and I set up my own medical device company a few years ago.
“We’ve been researching this device and doing our own development with work from engineers in Australia and the UK. We now have a prototype, although we still have to go through the checking and validation stages, as well as scientific and engineering trials.
“I’m hoping we will launch it next year, when we can tell the profession all about it and how it will bring a whole new way of working in podiatry.”
Find out more about the MSc Podiatry (pre-registration) course at Health Sciences University.
