Dermatology, week 1

… was last week. Alright, I admit it…a week in and I’m behind already. I still haven’t caught up in the sleep I need let alone the massive amount of notes from the previous week. Last week covered dermatology in all it’s erythematous papular glory (or rather gory). I’m struck by how Dermatology is very much a “pattern recognition” specialty and also by the fact that Dermatologists in general seem to enjoy showing the most horrendous examples of each of rash and only the worst examples of each disease are used in the lectures. My skin itched when we covered arthropod associated rashes and I almost gagged when we had the lecture on vesicular / bullous skin lesions. In the end I was left with the 4 cardinal rules of Dermatology:

1 . If it is wet, dry it

2. If it is dry, wet it

3. If it is not supposed to be there, cut it off

4. If you don’t know what it is, use steroids

I only wish it were so simple. I expect (hope) that clinical practice will be more benign but I guess that remains to be seen.