Hidradenitis Suppurativa Awareness
This past week, we teamed up with Suzanne of HidraWear to deliver a hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) presentation to students of podiatric medicine at the University of Galway, Ireland.

People with HS experience an average 7–10-year delay between symptom onset and diagnosis, with devastating consequences for these people and their networks (family, friends, etc.), healthcare, and society. One contributing factor to this diagnostic delay is the poor awareness of HS in the medical community. Since 2019 we have travelled to universities around Ireland and delivered many HS presentations to hundreds of healthcare students including:
- Medicine
- Nursing
- Pharmacy
- Podiatric medicine
Many of these students are now working in healthcare and are knowledgeable about HS.

Our sincere thanks to the Discipline of Podiatric Medicine at the School of Health Sciences at the University of Galway for hosting us this week and annually since 2020. We also wish to thank the enthusiastic students in attendance who offered many brilliant suggestions for improving HS awareness.

Although an atypical location for HS, there are reports of HS on the dorsal foot. For anyone interested, refer to the following links for some case reports on HS relevant to podiatric medicine: openaccess
• Nisar S, Roberson JL, Travis TE, Johnson LS, Shupp JW. Extensive hidradenitis suppurativa with dorsal foot involvement: a case report. J Surg Case Rep. 2019 Nov 29;2019(11):rjz349. doi: 10.1093/jscr/rjz349. PMID: 31803468.
• Rondags A, Diercks GF, Werker PMN, Jonkman MF, Horváth B. Ectopic hidradenitis suppurativa on the dorsal foot of a road maker. JAAD Case Rep. 2017 Sep 1;3(5):429-431. doi: 10.1016/j.jdcr.2017.06.002. PMID: 28932787.
Without awareness, diagnosis is impossible.