Dr. Hope Jacoby is a Doctor of Podiatric Medicine and the owner of Texas Wound Pros and Foot and Ankle Pros in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. She built her practice from the ground up after completing a three-year surgical residency at West Houston Medical Center, where she served as Chief Resident.
Her work centers on advanced wound care and foot and ankle surgery. She treats patients with chronic wounds, diabetic foot complications, structural deformities, and cases that need a second opinion after prior procedures have not resolved.
Before podiatric medicine, she studied Applied Physiology and Kinesiology at the University of Florida, where she was part of the support infrastructure for the 2006 National Championship football team. She later worked within the Los Angeles Dodgers minor league system. Those experiences shaped how she approaches performance, recovery, and precision.
Jacoby earned her Doctor of Podiatric Medicine degree at Barry University School of Podiatric Medicine, graduating with honors and receiving the American Board of Podiatric Medicine Award for excellence. She now holds board qualification from the American Board of Foot and Ankle Surgery and is certified in Foot and Ankle Arthroscopy. She is a member of the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons and the Texas Podiatric Medical Association, and she has served as a consultant for the Hemiguard Suture Device.
How do you define success in your work?
I define it one patient at a time. If someone walks in with a wound that has not healed, or a deformity that limits how they move, and they leave the process able to function again, that is a successful outcome. The metric is mobility. When people can go back to their routine without pain, we have done the job.
I do not measure success in volume or visibility. I measure it in the quality of what we build in the clinic, and in the consistency of how we treat the people who come to us.
Was there a turning point that clarified what you were working toward?
The clearest moment was during my time working with the Dodgers minor league system. I was around athletes whose careers depended on whether their bodies held up. I saw how much clinical decision-making mattered at that level. And I realized I wanted to be in the room as the physician. Not supporting the decision, but making it.
That shift changed everything about how I thought about my training. Once I was clear on the goal, every decision after that was easier to make.
What has been the hardest part of building a medical practice?
The transition from physician to practice owner is real and it is significant. In residency, your entire focus is clinical. You learn to diagnose, operate, and manage complex cases. What residency does not fully prepare you for is the operational side of running a business.
Staffing, systems, multi-site coordination, the logistics of a functioning practice, those are skills you have to develop separately. I had to learn them quickly and learn them while also seeing patients. That period required a different kind of discipline than surgical training. But it was necessary.
How do you approach a case where a patient has already been treated and is still struggling?
Carefully. Revision cases and second-opinion patients require you to set aside any bias toward a particular approach. You look at the full picture: what was done, what did not work, what the patient is presenting with now.
The multi-therapeutic philosophy I work from is important here. Sometimes a case needs more conservative care before surgery is reconsidered. Sometimes the original surgical plan was sound but the execution needs to be redone. You have to be honest about which situation you are dealing with.
What habits have been most important to you professionally?
Preparation and consistency, both come directly from my background in sports. You learn early that results are not random. They come from structured effort over time. I carry that into how I run the practice, how I approach a surgical case, and how I evaluate outcomes.
I also stay involved outside of direct patient care. Consulting on device development, staying current with regenerative medicine research, staying connected to professional associations. The field keeps moving and you have to move with it.
What do you want patients to understand about foot and ankle health?
That it is not a minor concern. Feet are the structural base of how you move through the world. When lower extremity health is compromised, especially in patients managing diabetes or chronic conditions, the downstream consequences can be serious and sometimes irreversible.
Early care matters enormously. The patients who come to me after waiting too long are often dealing with complications that could have been managed much more simply if they had been addressed earlier.
What does the next phase of your career look like?
I am focused on building the practice sustainably. Multi-site management in a growing market takes ongoing investment in systems and people. I also want to continue contributing to the tools and research that advance what podiatric surgeons can do.
The Hemiguard consultation was a reminder that clinicians who are willing to engage with the development process can have a real effect on what ends up in the OR. I want to keep that kind of engagement active.
What would you tell someone entering podiatric medicine today?
Get the surgical training right. Chief Residency was the most demanding part of my preparation, and it was the most valuable. You need to be in environments where you are making real decisions under pressure, not just watching.
And understand that the physician who owns a practice is running a business. The clinical skills will get you to a position. The operational skills are what let you stay there and build something.