From the Popular Press: What Your Patients are Reading:

Dermatology, once the field of medicine that treated skin conditions such as psoriasis and acne, is now becoming a two-tiered business. The lower tier still sees patients with medical conditions. The upper tier treats cosmetic patients—those seeking beauty treatments to erase sun damage and wrinkles and trying to reverse the effects of aging on their skin. An increasing number of doctors are giving up their medical dermatology practices for more lucrative cosmetic dermatology patients. Others have set up separate phone lines, waiting rooms, and treatment rooms for medical and cosmetic patients. Oftentimes nurse practitioners and physicians’ assistants are left to see to medical dermatology patients, while the physicians themselves devote their time to cosmetic procedures. Some patients report that while they were consulting their dermatologist about a medical issue, they were being sold on also having a cosmetic procedure. Medical ethicists are now questioning a system that caters to cosmetic patients at the expense of patients with potentially serious medical issues. While cosmetic dermatology can net a physician a much higher income, it is urgent for the field not to leave the medical branch of dermatology behind.

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