What's New with Dr. W?
During this past week, a patient asked how I became interested in dermatology.
I reflected back on a decision I made over 30 years ago before lasers, before fillers, before Botox, and at a time that in many ways, dermatology was an unknown specialty.
Most of my classmates and friends at Baylor College of Medicine were surprised when I told them I was going into dermatology since this school was famous for heart surgery and a number of other specialties with entire buildings devoted to their services.
The dermatology department was located in the basement of the administration building with a clinic on the first floor. If you were not intentionally looking for it, you would never know it was there, which was true for many of my classmates.
As senior medical students we were required to participate in a course called "Ambulatory Medicine" which involved rotating between outpatient clinics for a number of specialties, including dermatology.
For the dermatology rotation on our first day, we visited the county dermatology clinic where a group of at least 40 individuals with a variety of skin disorders were assembled for learning purposes by the medical students. Something happened to me when I saw the variety of skin concerns present in this group, including a man with fire ant bites I can still visualize today. I was compelled to learn more.
While a medical student, I subsequently took 2 additional electives with the dermatology department at Baylor and another month at the VA Hospital in Long Beach, California which led to my pursuit of dermatology training in Southern California.
I subsequently returned to Houston to set up practice and have provided care to over 100,000 patients in close to 30 years. When I think back over the number of people who have come to me for care, I am humbled.
I still enjoy the specialty and enjoy continued learning of the new advances and using them to help patients on a daily basis.
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