How often do #dermatologists see urgent and severe conditions, or have patients in the hospital?

Quite often, actually!

I just finished a very busy call week and here’s a few of the things we saw:

(these are stock photos, not any of my patients):
/1 https://twitter.com/SBowersMD/status/1248125190980227073

1st- pic of me and my rockstar resident, Dr. Cassandra Johnson . She was an awesome partner and made this week so much better.

Delusions of parasitosis: a psychiatric condition consisting of a delusion that you have mites, bugs, worms or parasites infesting your skin. The lesions are all caused by patient’s own scratching. Patients require anti-psychotics, tx of erosions, & lots of support.

Herpes zoster, commonly known as shingles. Often occurs only once, rarely occurs more than once, must treat quickly so as to decrease the chance of lcomplications:

Morbilliform drug rash, which was a reaction to an antibiotic. Most important treatment? Find the culprit drug and ensure it is STOPPED!
We had a few kid these this week.

Bullous pemphigoid, an autoimmune blistering condition that usually occurs in those > 60 yo. This needs treatment with immunosuppressive medications:

New onset cutaneous metastatic lesions of squamous cell carcinoma: ( source: https://www.cureus.com/articles/6708-cutaneous-metastasis-from-tonsillar-squamous-cell-carcinoma-report-and-review-of-the-literature)

Toxic epidermal necrolysis: a potentially fatal and extremely severe drug reaction that leads to the shearing off of skin and mucous membranes:

Despite how scary many of these look, they are very treatable and as long as you have a proper diagnosis, most of these conditions do great.

I know many people don’t often know what we do, or marvel at the fact that we take care of severe and urgent conditions. But this is the heart of dermatology for me, and it’s also one reasons why I love academic medicine.

Skin disease is debilitating, can be disfiguring, significantly affect quality of life, and can often be tied closely with systemic or internal illness.

This is where a medical dermatologist can really serve an important role in a patient’s life.

So hopefully I’ve shown you I wasn’t just blowing smoke up your you-know-what with the original thread! We really do see these things, and we see them often.

My week was so busy that I didn’t get a chance to post about skin care and outpatient concerns in the time of #COVID, but it’s coming, I promise!

As always, feel free to ask me questions!

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