Half the podiatrists = twice the amputation rate?

This is interesting. At our recent certification exams my partner served as examiner in prosthetics. He while there had a discussion with another of the examiners an orthopedic surgeon. The surgeon indicated that while the work we all do in limb preservation (ie: wound care for diabetics etc) was useful it sometimes only puts of the inevitable...amputation. A lot of this he said was attributed to among other things apathy on the part of the patient regarding self care.

So sometimes the yearly review of amputation rates seems to go up in the short run with less practitioners doing foot care, but the question is really would they have had amputation anyway and the statistic would have only been delayed?