From the editor
From the Editor
Dr. Schwarzenberger is the former physician editor of DermWorld.
By Kathryn Schwarzenberger, MD, October 1, 2018
October is a wonderful month. The leaves are changing, days are getting shorter, and some of you may even get your first snowfall. There’s college football on and a pumpkin spice latte on every corner. It’s the perfect time to enjoy a brisk hike in the woods or just curl up with a good book in front of the fireplace. Or maybe you could just read this month’s Dermatology World instead! The staff and writers have put together some wonderfully thought-provoking reading for you this month, and I suspect you will want to keep this edition for future reference!
We’ve talked in recent months about diversity issues in the dermatology physician workforce and discussed the potential role that implicit bias may play in who becomes a dermatologist. Have you ever, though, considered how implicit bias may impact the hiring practices in your office? Learn more about bias (both good and potentially bad aspects) and understand what ideas and attitudes may constitute bias. You may be surprised to realize that some of your deeply held beliefs, while not overtly discriminatory, do reflect bias, and these biases may impact your hiring practices. Racism, sexism, ageism all still, unfortunately, abound. We offer specific strategies for eliminating bias from your hiring practices. Awareness and action are both key, and we can help in this vital pursuit.
What do you do when it becomes clear that an employee is just not working out? Sometimes the decision to terminate an employee is an easy one. In other situations, it is a much more difficult choice. No circumstances, however, make this an easy to thing to do, and many of us find terminating an employee to be one of the hardest parts of our job. In all cases, however, it is important to protect yourself, the practice, and your remaining employees. Allow Faiza Wasif, MPH, the AAD’s practice management manager, to walk you through the important steps you should take when terminating an employee. Her best practices will, hopefully, make this part of the job a little easier, and help ensure that you do it right from start to finish.
We treat them every day; in fact, we treat millions of them every year. “They” are actinic keratoses. Contributing writer Jan Bowers offers an insightful look at the status of treatments for actinic keratosis, sharing perspectives from our colleagues who treat them, as well as from those working to design alternative ways to pay for their treatment. You may never look at an actinic keratosis the same way again after reading this article!
We leave you this month with some provocative thoughts on one of my very favorite subjects: Politics. The midterm elections are just around the corner, and as I write this column, I wonder how much the political landscape may change between now and the time these words are in press. DW Assistant Managing Editor Allison Evans looks at the potential impact the upcoming elections may have on health care policy. Even if you aren’t a political junkie, I think you will enjoy her well-thought-out analysis. Who knows, maybe this will ignite political aspirations in some of you! I can only hope!
