Meet our speakers for The Foot & Ankle Show Digital 2026!

Rebecca Rushton

Podiatrist

About me

Rebecca Rushton is an Australian podiatrist with 32 years of experience.

She has a special interest in the cause, prevention and treatment of foot friction blisters in athletes, a seemingly basic injury, but one that is vastly misunderstood. This special interest stemmed from her own blister struggles and culminated in the popular Blister Prevention website and BlisterPod brand.

Rebecca is considered a leader in this space, providing foot care at 6-day ultramarathons; co-authoring 2 recent journal articles, and educating podiatrists and sports medicine professionals on blister management for many years.

Modernising Blister Prevention: A Practical Evidence-Informed Framework for Podiatrists

Foot friction blisters are common, painful and often underestimated. Yet prevention advice in clinical practice still tends to rely heavily on taping, padding, footwear and general “anti-rubbing” advice. This presentation reframes blisters as a predictable mechanical injury of the skin, rather than an unpredictable nuisance to be endured.

Using an evidence-informed framework, we’ll translate blister research and relevant material science into practical clinical decisions podiatrists can use when preparing patients for athletic events and other blister-provoking activities. The session will cover how to predict likely blister locations, how to match prevention strategies to specific anatomical sites, and how common approaches such as taping, lubricants, socks, padding and other well-known strategies fit within a modern prevention plan.

Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of why blisters occur and recur, why some commonly recommended strategies fail, and how to provide more targeted, practical and evidence-informed blister prevention advice in podiatry practice.

Daniel Monteleone

Podiatrist, Strength & Conditioning Coach, Clinic Owner of Proactive Health & Movement

About me

A series of sporting related injuries meant that at one part of his life, Daniel had his own experience with Chronic Pain. Although the experience was challenging, it helped Daniel understand and develop an empathy and compassion that has influenced the way that he shows up every day for his clients and also as a leader of Podiatrists, Physiotherapists and Psychologists.

Daniel is a Podiatrist, a Strength and Conditioning Coach and a Director of Proactive Health & Movement, in Victoria, Australia.

Daniel has been an ambassador for National Pain Week and has been featured on numerous podcasts, radio interviews and with various news sources for his interest and work in helping people with pain.

Develop Your Skills for Complex Pain Consultations: Practical Strategies for Better Client Outcomes and Confident Consultations

Complex pain presentations are often where clients can feel the most lost and where practitioners can feel the most challenged.

In this session, Daniel Monteleone draws on both his lived experience of chronic pain and over two decades of clinical experience to reframe how podiatrists understand and manage complex pain presentations.

Through the lens of a patient and practitioner, Daniel explores why so many clients with complex pain presentations become stuck and how you can set up your consultations to guide clients through their pain.

At the heart of this session is a practical framework practitioners can learn and use to lean into the biopsychosocial understanding of pain, where tissue, nervous system sensitivity, beliefs, behaviour, and context all play a role in outcomes.

Jaap van Netten

Senior Researcher

About me

Jaap van Netten, PhD, is a human movement scientist from the Netherlands, specialized in clinical research on foot disease. His research focus is on the interplay between biomechanics and behaviour in the prevention of foot ulcers and amputation. This includes real-life and laboratory gait and activity analyses, communication strategies, footwear optimization and e-health solutions for disease detection and behaviour changes.

Van Netten has research and clinical experience from academic and non-academic research settings in the Netherlands and Australia. He works as senior researcher at Amsterdam UMC, the Netherlands. He coordinates, supervises and performs numerous research projects on diabetic foot disease.

Additionally, he is vice-chair of the International Working Group on the Diabetic Foot (IWGDF), responsible for writing the international guidelines on diabetes-related foot disease. Nationally he chairs Academic Workplace HOMELAND, a consortium aiming to stimulate knowledge uptake and exchange between academia and (clinical) practice.

A personalised intervention integrating footwear, self-management and education to prevent foot ulcer recurrence in people with diabetes: the DIASSIST multicentre randomised controlled trial

Foot ulcer prevention helps reduce the patient and healthcare burden of diabetic foot disease. To prevent foot ulcers, guidelines recommend patient education, self-management and appropriate foot care and footwear. We designed an integrated multimodal and personalised intervention, integrating pressure-optimised custom-made footwear and indoor-specific footwear, at-home foot temperature monitoring, and, structured education, including motivational interviewing.

We tested the (cost-)effectiveness of this intervention in a multicenter randomized controlled trial, comparing the intervention with usual care. We recruited 126 participants, and followed them for 12 months for clinical, personal and economical outcomes.

In this presentation, I will present the outcomes of this intervention on the reduction of foot ulcer recurrence, the improvements in adherence to wearing footwear, and cost-effectiveness including quality of life.

Cameron Bennet

Podiatrist

About me

Cameron Bennet is a podiatrist, business owner and entrepreneur based in Brisbane, Australia. He is the founder and director of My Family Podiatry, a multidisciplinary podiatry practice focused on evidence-based lower limb care. Cameron is also the founder of The Lower Limb Conference, one of Australia’s leading educational events for podiatrists and allied health professionals.

Throughout his career, Cameron has pursued opportunities both within and beyond traditional clinical practice. His experience includes working across multiple clinics throughout Australia, developing healthcare products, creating educational content, speaking at industry events, and working as a podiatrist at the Marathon des Sables, one of the world’s most challenging ultramarathon events.

Passionate about professional development and career growth, Cameron enjoys helping clinicians recognise the breadth of opportunities available within the profession and encouraging them to take an active role in shaping their own careers.

You’re a Podiatrist, Now Break a Leg

In theatre, performers don’t wish each other good luck. Instead, they say “break a leg”.

Podiatry is a profession full of opportunity, yet careers can take vastly different paths. Some clinicians intentionally build careers that evolve and excite them, while others find themselves drifting into roles they never consciously chose.

Through stories from his own unconventional journey, Cameron shares lessons on embracing opportunity, making deliberate career choices, and creating a podiatry career that is both rewarding and uniquely your own.