From the editor
From the Editor
Dr. Schwarzenberger is the former physician editor of DermWorld.
By Kathryn Schwarzenberger, MD, January 1, 2019
Happy 2019! Another year is upon us. The years seem to fly by these days — a hazard, I understand, of growing older. I suspect that many of you who are near my age (and you know who you are) understand the sentiment! However, I certainly appreciate the privilege of enjoying another year. I welcome the opportunity the New Year offers to look back over the past year, revel a bit in what has been accomplished, and to set goals for the upcoming 12 months. We will be doing this at Dermatology World, and we welcome your input, as we constantly strive to offer timely and useful information that benefits the many different facets of our membership.
Physicians have a lot on their plates these days, dealing with regulatory and administrative issues none of us ever imagined would be part of our careers. One of the questions I often hear in real and virtual gatherings of dermatologists is, “Why isn’t the Academy doing something about X?” Well, in many cases, the Academy is doing something. Hundreds of our colleagues are actively involved in AAD/A workgroups, taskforces, committees, and councils, working innumerable hours to enhance and protect our specialty. Even when I was an Academy Board member, I found it hard to keep track of everything that Academy members were doing. However, in some situations, the Academy cannot act, as jurisdiction of the issue lies beyond our organization’s purview. In our feature article, “Who you gonna call?” DW Assistant Editor Emily Margosian explains which groups regulate the many different aspects of medicine that impact our profession. Medical licensure, board certification, maintenance of certification, scope of practice issues, non-physician practitioner supervision, even payer issues are explored as she explains which body has regulatory authority over each. You may be surprised to realize who actually controls what.
This month, we also take a deep dive into the mysteries of one of my favorite topics: allergic contact dermatitis. Wherever you are in the patch testing scheme of things whether you have just thought about doing patch testing, are a neophyte contact dermatitis detective, or are an accomplished patch testing guru — I promise you will enjoy, and learn something from, this delightful article. If you are just not into rashes, we share Dr. Susan Weinkle’s tips on improving your office efficiency, and address legal aspects for interacting with patients who do not speak English. And don’t miss Acta Eruditorum this month. You will come away with a whole new respect for commensal bacteria after reading this!
In the spirit of looking back and looking forward, our final feature this month examines the progress made since DataDerm, the Academy’s clinical data registry, rolled out in 2016. This extraordinary undertaking by the Academy has lived up to expectations and then some. To date, nearly 3,000 of our colleagues have submitted data on more than 20 million patient encounters. DataDerm has helped participants successfully report for MIPS, as well as benchmark their individual quality measures. Going forward, the Academy hopes to use the data collected to help improve access, to help define standards of care, and to ultimately show the value of the services we provide. We know what we do is valuable. DataDerm will help us show this in a meaningful and robust fashion to everyone else.
