Foot & Lower Limb Care Education & Training in Sault St Marie, Ontario

Katherine is a graduate of the Feet for Life School of Podortho Foot Specialists Program. She is a Registered Nurse who graduated from Laurentian University in 2012 with her Bachelor of Science in Nursing. She has worked the majority of her Nursing career in emergency medicine, which took her to the west coast and eventually back to her hometown of Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. She values the closeness of community and always intended to come back home to raise her two young daughters thus creating a balanced healthy home and work life for herself and her family.

Kat came across the Podortho Foot Specialist program offered to Nurses & various other health care professionals while, on her second maternity leave. She recognized the need for foot and lower limb care in her northern and underserviced community. Kat, saw an opportunity to become an entrepreneur and provide her with a healthy work and home life balance allowing the freedom and flexibility to work around her busy family life. Kat opened her own clinic, in Sault St. Marie, Ontario in early 2023 and hasn’t looked back. She runs a successful very busy clinic that allows her to put her family first to raise her young children and prioritize her family’s needs while continuing to utilize her nursing knowledge, skills and education applying her entry to practice competencies to the field of foot and lower limb care. Kat enjoys working one on one with her clients  providing quality care with a caring approach.   

Kat has been able to utilize available funding through a northern community resource program. She participated in Sault Millworks Starter Company Plus Program and was chosen as successful candidate to receive a grant to assist with funding to open her own foot and lower limb care clinic. She is currently working with a mentor through the Starter Company Plus Program to help guide her to establishing a thriving and successful health care business.

Kat, has been welcomed in her community with open arms by her clients, friends, family, and fellow colleagues. Since opening her practice, she has been very busy meeting the significant need and shortage in her northern community and has developed an individual scope practice delivering foot and lower limb care while promoting overall health, wellness, mobility, and comfort.

Like Kat, many Nurses now work in the field of medical foot and lower limb care. She believes that seeing a Nurse/Podortho Foot Specialist for foot and lower limb health needs is beneficial given a nurses vast knowledge in health care nurses possess through their entry to practice competencies. Nurses/Podortho Foot Specialist offer a whole of client care experience with a focus on rehabilitation, direct client care, health teaching and preventative care measures. The goal of a Nurse/Podortho Foot Specialist is to improve their client’s health outcomes while maintaining individual independence. This allows client’s to remain at home, be self-sufficient and continue to participate in their community and social events. These goals align with the new Ontario government initiative to ensure care is more accessible in communities across Ontario.

Kat is a Director of the Ontario Foot Care Association Inc. and is a proponent of supporting her nurse colleagues in their quest to establish there own individual scopes of practice in there chosen specialty area of foot and lower limb care and looks forward to educating and empowering her nurse colleagues to think outside the traditional institutional health care setting box to meet the needs of their communities. Kats, rapidly advancing clinic is an idea clinical placement to learn the competencies and standards of foot and lower limb care practices communicated through the OFCA aiding in the establishment a successful career as a Podortho Foot Specialist.