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USC’s David G. Armstrong Completes Five-City China Tour, Delivering Keynotes at Three National Diabetes Congresses and Receiving an Honorary Visiting Professorship at Peking University First Hospital
Limb preservation leader joins mentors and mentees across Beijing, Shijiazhuang, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.
GUANGZHOU, China — May 29, 2026 — David G. Armstrong, DPM, MD, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Surgery and Neurological Surgery at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) and director of the USC Limb Preservation Program and the Southwestern Academic Limb Salvage Alliance (SALSA), has concluded a 13-day academic tour of China spanning five cities and three major diabetes and metabolism congresses. The tour was hosted in partnership with China Resources Double-Crane Pharmaceutical and shepherded by Prof. Zhangrong Xu, one of China’s most prominent diabetes leaders.
Across the tour, Prof. Armstrong delivered invited keynotes on the team-based prevention of amputation, the common language of risk classification, and the emerging science of healing the chronic wound at the level of its biology rather than its surface.
Beijing: Honorary Visiting Professorship at Peking University First Hospital
On May 20, Prof. Armstrong was conferred an Honorary Visiting Professorship of Peking University First Hospital (PKUFH) — established in 1915 and among the first hospitals founded by China’s own physicians — at a ceremony hosted by the hospital’s plastic surgery and wound-care team under Prof. Wen Bing, with President Yinmo Yang officiating. The accompanying academic program featured faculty lectures spanning diabetes management, endovascular therapy for peripheral arterial disease, community-based wound-care development, and diabetic foot case discussions.
Shijiazhuang: SIDC and a Common Language of Risk
On May 22, Prof. Armstrong delivered keynote lectures at the SIDC meeting and the accompanying symposium in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, including a session on the WIfI (Wound, Ischemia, and foot Infection) classification co-led with Prof. Lianrui Guo. The discussions centered on building a shared, reproducible language of limb risk and on the “Toe-and-Flow” model of integrated podiatric and vascular care.
Shanghai: The First Limb Preservation Session in CODHy China’s History
On May 23, at the 14th Congress of the Controversies to Consensus in Diabetes, Obesity and Hypertension (CODHy) China, Prof. Armstrong helped convene the first dedicated Diabetic Foot and Limb Preservation session in the congress’s 14-year history. He co-chaired the session alongside his longtime mentor, Prof. Sir Andrew Boulton of the University of Manchester, and his mentee, Prof. Wuquan Deng of Chongqing — three academic generations sharing one platform. His lecture was titled “Limb Preservation Surgery: Your WiFi Settings.”
Guangzhou: A New Paradigm in Wound Healing
The tour concluded on May 28 at the 6th Yat-sen (逸仙) Endocrine and Metabolism Forum, convened as part of the Guangdong Nutrition Society Endocrine and Metabolic Branch’s 2026 Academic Annual Conference. In the forum’s Diabetic Foot symposium, hosted with Prof. Li Yan and the group at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, Prof. Armstrong delivered the keynote “A New Paradigm in Wound Healing: Global Evidence of Macrophage Modulation in DFU Management.” The talk was delivered in the city where Sun Yat-sen trained as a physician before becoming the founding father of modern China — home to the oldest Western medical school on the Chinese mainland.
“Diabetes is a profoundly global disease, and limb preservation has to be a global team sport,” said Prof. Armstrong. “What struck me in every city was the appetite — surgeons, endocrinologists, and nurses asking the same hard questions about offloading, perfusion, and how to keep people in remission rather than simply closing a wound. The science is portable. The team approach travels. That is the whole point.”
“To help convene the first limb preservation session in CODHy China’s history, standing between one of my mentors and one of my mentees, was the honor of the trip,” he added. “That lineage — and the friendships behind it — is how this field actually moves forward.”
About David G. Armstrong, DPM, MD, PhD
David G. Armstrong is Distinguished Professor of Surgery and Neurological Surgery at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, where he directs the USC Limb Preservation Program and the Southwestern Academic Limb Salvage Alliance (SALSA). He is founding president of the American Limb Preservation Society (ALPS) and co-founder of DFCon, and has authored more than 770 peer-reviewed publications. His work focuses on the prevention of diabetic limb loss through interdisciplinary team care, advanced wound healing, and wearable and remote-monitoring technology, framed around the principle of long-term “remission, not just closure.”
About Diabetic Foot Online
Diabetic Foot Online (diabeticfootonline.com) is a long-running educational resource dedicated to diabetic foot care, limb preservation, and the global effort to act against amputation.
Media Contact: Signe Sten Holst, Communications Manager, American Limb Preservation Society (ALPS) · ssh@cap-partner.eu · +45 70 20 03 05
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