Key Takeaways
1. Wound care is a specialty—treat it like one from day one
Building a successful career requires more than basic skills. Invest in structured education, seek out mentorship, and commit to continuous learning as the field evolves.
2. Your network is your clinical strength
Early-career clinicians grow faster when they build strong connections with interdisciplinary partners and actively engage in professional communities—not just observe them.
3. Confidence comes from experience, not shortcuts
You won’t master wound care overnight. Embrace the learning curve, stay curious, and use every case as an opportunity to build clinical judgment and long-term expertise.
Transcript
Please note: This content is a direct transcript, capturing the authentic conversation without edits. Some language may reflect the flow of live discussion rather than polished text.
Dr. Jayesh Shah:
Welcome to the Wound Conversations, the podcast where wound care professionals come together to learn, share, and advance the practice of healing. I am Dr. Jay Shah, your host, internal medicine and wound care doctor. And today we have our guest, Dr. Lee Ruotsi. WoundConversations is brought to you by WoundSource, the trusted resource for wound care professionals and WoundCon, your connection to global virtual education in wound management.
Catherine Milne:
And I'm Cathy Milne. I'm a board certified advanced practice wound ostomy and continence nurse. And each episode of WoundConversations, we bring you actionable insights from today's leading experts in wound healing, including clinical practice management, emerging care models, and clinician wellness. We build these conversations in the spirit of Learn Today, Apply Tomorrow, which is our mantra at WoundCon, and we really try to focus on real world solutions and experiences. So let's get started. And this time with our podcast, it's listen today and apply tomorrow.
Dr. Jayesh Shah:
Thank you, Cathy. And today we are continuing the two episode series about starting your wound care journey. And this time, we welcome Dr. Lee Ruotsi as our guest. Dr. Ruotsi is a board certified wound care and hyperbaric specialist and is the medical director of wound healing and hyperbaric medicine at Holland Hospital in Holland, Michigan. He has held multiple leadership roles across related organizations. He lectures nationally and internationally on wound care and hyperbaric medicine. He's also faculty member for key HMP conferences like the Amputation Prevention Symposium and the Wound Care Certification Prep course. And he helps us in Wound Con. Also, Dr. Ruotsi, welcome to our program.
Dr. Lee Ruotsi:
Thank you, Jay. That's very kind. I'm happy to be here.
Catherine Milne:
So last episode we asked our first guest Dot Weir about their wound care why. What sparks you? What is that passion that leads you to come to work every single day?
Dr. Lee Ruotsi:
Well, that's an interesting question with maybe a slightly atypical answer. So my wound care journey started in about 2000, and this was after 12 or 15 years of family medicine, emergency medicine practice. And my ex-wife had gone to Florida to visit some old college friends and came back and said to me, "What do you know about wound care and hyperbaric medicine?" I said, "Well, I don't know much about wound care, and I know that hyperbaric medicine is for scuba divers." Anyway, that led to really this totally serendipitous visit for me to a well-developed wound care and hyperbaric medicine program in Miami, Florida, run by a few folks who have become dear friends of mine over the years. I spent a day there, went back to my home hospital, called the CEO and said, "Can I come up and talk to you? I think we need to do something different here." So long story short, I talked to him.
He invited me to talk to the hospital board of trustees a couple of weeks later, and we started the wheels turning. This was up in Niagara Falls, New York to develop a wound healing and hyperbaric medicine center. And it was the first of such combined centers in Western New York. And since then, I have really had the pleasure and the privilege of being involved in the development and evolution of four or five additional wound care and hyperbaric medicine programs in various parts of the country. And what's so surprising to me is that this delightful career that I ended up in starting at the age of 50 really was so serendipitous at the start. And had I not had that original opportunity to visit this wound center, I'm pretty sure none of this would've ever happened. So that's the first part of my wound care why.
The second part is that along the way here, I stumbled into this lady named Dot Weir and we got together and we got married. And she has been such an inspiration to me as well as a stimulus for me to continue to get better at what I do. We joke with people about, "Well, what do you two talk about at dinner?" Well, we talk about toe flossing and we talk about many inelegant things, but it really has helped me to become a much better wound care physician.
Dr. Jayesh Shah:
Lee, when I hear your story, it reminds me exactly about my story. And I thought I am the only accidental wound doctor because I had a similar experience where I had an internal medicine practice and then the hospital decided to open a wound care center and I decided to leap into that with faith. And then I continued to like, Lee, you said it and Dot said it. I was like a sponge absorbing, learning every day and exactly what you told me. So I was thinking I was the only accidental wound doctor, but it looks like there's someone else too. But in the last episode, Lee, we talked about lessons that we learned and the initial steps once you'll take when establishing their wound care careers, what do you think are some crucial career building milestones that newer clinicians should look out for?
Dr. Lee Ruotsi:
I think the most important thing is to recognize wound care and wound healing as, if not a true specialty, certainly as a subspecialty of whether it be internal medicine, family medicine, general surgery, it really is a specialty unto itself. I'll never forget the retiring general surgeon who called me one day, he wanted to slow down and wondered if he could come over and do some of that wound care stuff with me. His next question was, did he still have to have a state medical license in order to practice wound care? So I think that there's an idea or at least a perception out there that wound care is maybe an easy slide into retirement or there really isn't much to it. All we do is slap band-aids and gauze on things. And I think that's the most critical initial misconception. And so when we start in our wound care journey, and I was very fortunate to have good advice early on and attended a number of seven to 10-day wound care programs, then I took the wound certification prep course.
And I think back to 2003 when we opened our first program and all of a sudden I was the wound care expert in our community. And I look back on that now and think, oh my gosh, I certainly didn't know as much back then as I should have known to be called a specialist in the field, but it brings us to another topic, how important it is to continue to learn on an ongoing basis. I think for people just coming into the specialty, respect the fact that it's a specialty and you're not going to learn how to do this in a three-day course.
Catherine Milne:
I think that's so well put, Lee. It's just amazing what people's perceptions are about wound care. And I think as a specialty, we probably need to think about a strategy to overcome that because people still have that perception. So that really kind of leads to connections. And when somebody's entering the field, what kind of connections would you suggest that they pursue?
Dr. Lee Ruotsi:
I think initially, assuming that we've done some coursework, there are a few very high quality wound care education programs around the country. So I think that one or more of those is essential. And then start to think about forming your team. Limb salvage centers has become a buzzword around the country. And I've always felt that a limb salvage center is not something that all exists within one building. A limb salvage center, a wound healing program is like when we think about the original days of HMOs or health maintenance organizations, they talked about clinics without walls. And that's the way that I've always thought about this and tried to develop my programs. My vascular surgeon, my podiatrist, my infectious disease specialist, my endocrinologist, they're not going to be in the same building as I'm in, but we all need to be on speed dial with one another.
It's one thing to be a multidisciplinary program. It's another thing to be an interdisciplinary program where you actually have immediate contact and ability to get people to the right point of care when they need it.
Catherine Milne:
Very well put. What are your thoughts about professional organizations? Do you think people early in their career or even late in their career should have some kind of connection with a professional organization?
Dr. Lee Ruotsi:
I'm not sure that simply belonging to an organization is going to make you a better provider, but if you are willing to belong to an organization and be a part of that organization and be part of the moving parts of that organization, then I think that that's really valuable. And where that comes home to me is my experience on the board of directors of the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel, which I never intended to be a part of. And it ended up being the most remarkable, totally unintentional educational experience of my life. So being involved in that has led me to develop a special interest in pressure injuries and hopefully educating providers about pressure injuries. So being involved in an organization is a lot different than just being a member. So yeah, I think that is important.
Dr. Jayesh Shah:
Oh, Lee, that's very well put. And thank you for your work with NPIAP. That's a really remarkable work you are doing there. Last episode, we also discussed some common lessons that's learned by wound care providers while on their professional paths. Can you share an important lesson that you learned along the way?
Dr. Lee Ruotsi:
So I think part of it has to do with my aging process because I laugh because every year I add more cases to my atypicals presentation. And it occurs to me that in order to have a good atypicals presentation, you have to be doing this for a long, long time. So continuing to learn ... I remember the quote that education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. So there's not a week or a month that goes by that I don't see something new. Years ago, I developed a presentation on medical comorbidities that adversely impact wound healing. And that's also something that I add to every year because I learn more. John Wooden, that famous old UCLA basketball coach said, "What's most important is what you learn after you think you know everything."
Dr. Jayesh Shah:
You rightly said, Lee, I remember when I started my wound care practice and we were seeing this spider web-like substance, which keeps on coming on the wound. We didn't know what it was, but we know that this is something which causes trouble with healing. And now we know that's like a biofilm and we have so much research on it. So I think we have gone and evolved in that journey as a wound care docs and wound care providers. I'm sure all of us learn. And that's where the importance of continuous education is, I think, and sharing lessons from each other.
Dr. Lee Ruotsi:
You've got to get yourself out there. I've learned so much from you, Kathy, from you, Jay, from Rob Kersner, from Dot, from Greg Schultz, from Bob Diegelman, but you don't get to learn that stuff unless you get out there and avail yourself of that. So one thing that just occurred to me that I have to share, my children also are part of my why, all three of my kids of whom I'm extraordinarily proud. But I remember when my daughter, she was probably 12 when I started wound care, she walked behind me one day when I was putting together one of my first presentations and she said, "Daddy, why would you give up a perfectly good medical career to do that stuff?" But then about a year later, she said, "You really like your job, don't you? " And I said, "I do. " I said, "Why do you say that?" She said, "You're much happier since you've started doing what you're doing now." So it's a wonderful career and I'd love to see more people really take a hold of the reins and get involved in this.
Catherine Milne:
Yeah. So we would all, I think ... We always like to finish our episodes with a wound to the wise, which is really a practical tip that somebody can listen today and apply tomorrow. So do you have something that you might want to share?
Dr. Lee Ruotsi:
I do. And I've shared this with every resident or fellow or student that has ever been with me. If it looks weird, it's probably weird. And I don't think there's any recorded history of anybody ever causing harm with a five millimeter punch biopsy. We've all seen the tragedies of people who have been treated for what somebody thought they had, and it ends up being something completely different or perhaps something tragic. So you're doing all the right things. You've cultured, you've used all the right topical treatments. The wound isn't budging biopsy. If it looks weird, it's probably weird.
Dr. Jayesh Shah:
Very rightly said, Lee, I call it where in doubt, do a biopsy. That's
Dr. Lee Ruotsi:
Right. That's right. How can you hurt somebody with a five millimeter punch, right?
Dr. Jayesh Shah:
That's correct. Thank you, Dr. Ruotsi, for joining us today. Thank you to the audience for tuning in. Our next episode will take a look at where we are with mobile wound care and what clinicians most need to know. Until then, make sure you browse the content available, share on your social media to your friends, and look on woundsource.com and look at other aggregated education opportunities available from WoundCon.
Catherine Milne:
Thank you, Jay. It's always great hosting with you. And to our audience, you'll be able to find this in future episodes on woundsource.com, SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, and again, share us on your favorite platform. We look forward to providing even more opportunities so you can listen today and apply tomorrow.