Three physicians from Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Drexel Hill have been recognized with a prestigious national award for their groundbreaking research on osteomyelitis, according to a staff report from Hellenic News of America.

The research done by podiatrist Rhonda Cornell, infectious disease specialist Jackeline Iacovella, and third-year podiatry resident Sneha Patel can drastically change how doctors treat a bone infection that can result from diabetic foot wounds.

“We typically see patients who have wounds that don’t heal or keep reopening,” said Cornell. “And we are always trying to figure out why certain wounds won’t heal.”

So this gave them the idea to start reviewing bone and tissue cultures of these wounds, which led to the discovery that a certain species of diphtheroids were consistently present in the tissue.

The physicians then used a combination of intravenous antibiotics, along with a surgical procedure on a patient, to heal the damage more effectively.

Patel presented these findings at Crozer-Keystone’s annual Resident Research Day last year and won first place. The research was then submitted to the American Podiatric Medical Association’s national oral and abstract poster competition, where it tied for second place in the Outstanding Poster Abstract (Resident) category.

Read more about this research at Hellenic News of America by clicking here.