Cath Lab Digest

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  Aletha Tippett, MD, is a wound consultant in solo practice and President of The Hope of Healing Foundation®, an organization dedicated to limb salvage and wound healing (visit: www.hopeofhealing.org/). Among Dr. Tippett’s more recent accomplishments was serving as Co-Director of the 2nd Annual Palliative Wound Care Conference, held June 10–11, 2011, in Cincinnati, OH. Like many other distinguished wound care peers, Dr. Tippett did not begin her career in this specialty—rather, she followed where she was led.

  Dr. Tippett earned an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Missouri. She worked for 6 years in engineering for Phillips Petroleum and Procter & Gamble, then retired to raise her three daughters. During her 12 years as a stay-at-home mom, she served as a lay minister in her church and a foster parent for 12 children. The year her youngest started kindergarten, she responded to a call into medicine. She moved from Pennsylvania to Ohio to start medical school, from which she graduated first in her class. She graduated from an accelerated residency with honors in family medicine 12 years ago and has been a solo practitioner ever since, handling both the clinical and business aspects of providing care. She maintains her private practice in Blue Ash, OH, a northern suburb of Cincinnati; however, she traverses the city for nursing home, hospital, and home visits. She has worked in more than 60 nursing homes and six hospitals in the city and travels across the country and the world to teach and train about wound care.

  About 10 years ago, Dr. Tippett became involved in hospice work and wound care. A large local hospice invited her to do wound care for them and sent her for a week-long training at a SouthEast Missouri State wound care seminar. The wound care just grew from there. The hospice work was so successful the private work started coming as well. Currently, wound care represents 60% or 70% of her private practice. Although she still works independently, Dr. Tippett has built a team of nurses to help with wound care and hired a nurse practitioner to help with the primary care part of practice.

   “I love what I do and I love wound care,” Dr. Tippett says. “The most gratifying aspect is seeing people get better, helping people heal. The most challenging aspect is dealing with third party payors. Barriers to providing optimal care include lack of coverage for patient care and lack of access for patients in need. Overcoming these barriers requires advocacy and tenacity, but this is just another problem to solve in caring for the patient.”

  Over the past 5 years, Dr. Tippett has significantly increased the amount of training she provides. “My goal is to develop a support staff that can do the job in my absence,” she says. “I hope that my role will evolve to include even more training. I also own the patent for a wound dressing I developed that hopefully will be coming to market in the next year. It will require major effort to help market and launch the dressing.”

  The Hope of Healing Foundation was formed by three physicians, a vascular surgeon, a foot and ankle surgeon, and Dr. Tippett, a wound specialist, to help educate and advocate for limb salvage and wound healing.