Dermatology clinic

What's in a name?

Piezogenic pedal papules: what sort of a name is that? Once you can see past the thousands of unintelligible names in dermatology you will be all right. In fact all would be fine if we still had a classical education, with a firm grounding in Latin and Greek. Dermatology is a visual specialty and the names often describe what you can see in front of you. For example, erythema nodosum simply means red lumps, and the word eczema comes from the Greek “ek” - out - and “zeein” - to boil.

Why is dermatology important?

Dermatology is a fascinating specialty and unique in that skin disease affects everyone from neonates to elderly people. A large amount of general medical disease presents first to the dermatologist, but dermatology also encompasses surgery. Depending on your surgical interests this can vary between a simple minor operating list to extensive plastic surgery with full thickness flaps and skin grafts.

There are numerous other subspecialties, including paediatric dermatology, phototherapy, contact dermatitis, skin cancer, …