Dermatology pearls for medical students

Summary: INTRODUCTION Dermatologic conditions account for 9% of primary diagnoses made at doctor’s visits in the United States and of these visits around 60% are diagnosed by non-dermatologists. A median of only 10 hours of the US medical school curriculum is spent on dermatologic education. A majority of students were unsatisfied with their dermatological education and were only able to diagnose 50% of skin conditions correctly on a quiz covering common skin conditions. STUDY OBJECTIVES 1. Create a monthly newsletter for medical students covering dermatologic conditions. 2. Increase medical students’ exposure to images of common dermatologic conditions to assist with rapid recognition and diagnosis. METHODS Monthly newsletters were created and distributed to students in the NEOMED College of Medicine in multiple ways: printed handouts were placed outside of lecture hall; and, electronic versions were posted on the NEOMED Dermatology Interest Group Instagram, on Campus Groups (NEOMED’s social networking platform), and posted on the classes CANVAS by course coordinators. Each newsletter was centered on a particular theme and focused on a few diseases within that theme. Each disease was discussed in detail, including information on pathophysiology. Pictures were also included to assist students with rapid recognition of common dermatologic conditions. Readers were encouraged to assess their knowledge of these skin conditions with practice quizzes at the end of each newsletter. Pictures were used from Skinsight online database. CONCLUSION This newsletter was created to increase exposure to dermatology in current medical school curriculum. Future directions include measuring usage, satisfaction, and perceived effectiveness of newsletter through a student survey that will be sent out after edition 12 of the newsletter; dictating how the newsletter and the distribution of the newsletter can be improved to better cater the student body; and, collecting data after USMLE board exams (Step One and Two) and the dermatology shelf exam to assess perceived benefit from dermatology newsletter supplementation.