Dr Galadari is an assistant professor of dermatology at the College of Medicine and Health Sciences of United Arab Emirates University. After completing his dermatology residency at the Boston University/Tufts University program, Dr Galadari completed his dermatologic surgery and laser fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco.
He is a fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) and a member of several international societies. He also currently serves as Treasurer General of the International Society of Dermatology and Secretary General of the International League of Dermatological Societies, representing more than 100,000 dermatologists worldwide.
In 2016, Dr Galadari received the Presidential Citation Award from the AAD for the promotion of excellence in the specialty. He received the award again in 2018. His main area of interest within the specialty is cosmetic dermatology. In particular, Dr Galadari is a pioneer in soft tissue augmentation, of which he currently holds a patent. Throughout his career, he has lectured at international conferences, including 5CC World Congress and Cosmetic Surgery Forum, as well as authored numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and contributed chapters to various dermatologic books. In addition, Dr Galadari penned the best-selling book Soft Tissue Augmentation: Principles and Practice, which has been translated into Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese since publication.
Q. What part of your work gives you the most pleasure?
A. Seeing patients and being a part of their lives in some way gives me the most pleasure. The fact that we can treat a predicament and make a change for the patient is so enriching. Getting to know them even further teaches you lessons too, on how people are different, yet those differences make us so similar.
Q. Are an understanding and appreciation of the humanities important in dermatology and why?
A. Absolutely. Though people view dermatology as a science, as they should, unlike any other specialty (apart from psychiatry), there is a great level of patient interaction, and this requires an appreciation of the arts and humanities. These attributes make us warm and approachable and are very important for the success of therapies that we provide for our patients.
Q. What is your greatest regret?
A. I don’t have any at a professional level. The few that I have on a more personal level have developed me as a person, so that is why I do not count them as regrets.
Q. Who was your hero/mentor and why?
A. There are many. In my short time (decade and a half) in the field, I was blessed to have interacted and worked with many of the great luminaries of the derm world. From former presidents of the AAD to renowned educators, all have taught me in some form or another. This is a blessing.
I do believe that my greatest hero and mentor is my dad. Though he is a dermatologist too, it is his role as a father that I look up to most. Interacting with him at work, getting to laugh every day, and just learning from his life experiences are things you just cannot quantify. There will be many mentors, but he will be my only hero (along with Batman, of course).
Q. Which patient had the most effect on your work and why?
A. This is interesting, because the one patient that had an effect on my work is a patient who developed a complication. There was a patient who came to see me who had traveled from another country to undergo a certain procedure. She had undergone the same procedure with three other doctors before but was not happy. She had come specifically to see me now because she had seen my work on social media and had also seen me on television. When a patient comes to see you and has seen three other colleagues and is not happy, then you know this patient will never be happy. Though I had refused to perform the procedure on her, she coerced me with lavish praises and the “wonderful” work I do. I was also 10 years younger. I performed the procedure, which was the injection of filler, and immediately began to realize that due to the repeatedly performed procedure, the anatomical aspect of matters had changed. I could see that she was going to develop an adverse event, which luckily, we were able to reverse immediately.
This patient taught me how to say “no.” I do say no now much more often, and I feel empowered when doing so. I believe that saying no to patients is to their benefit, because it is their health that is at stake, followed by your reputation. So, it is important to know when and how to say “no.”
Q. What is the best piece of advice you have received and from whom?
A. My favorite piece of advice had to come from my talk with Dr Jean Bolognia. She described three facets of life that a person has and depending on what kind of person he or she wants to be, those things are set. The first had to do with the family, the second was work seeing patients, and the third was level of involvement with local and international societies or advocacy of the field. If you choose one thing over the other, there will always be some imbalance, and it is important for us as physicians to realize what and who you want to be as part of your career.
Q. Which medical figure in history would you want to have a drink with and why?
A. Any of the ancient Greek philosophers, Socrates or Plato (I would prefer Plato as I believe he was less morbid). They did medicine too, but they looked at it more from a holistic point of view: how the ailments affected them as people, not just the ailment itself. This is exactly what we should be doing, looking at how the disease affects our patients and not just the disease itself. This is something that we should never forget.
Q. What is the greatest political danger in the field of dermatology?
A. Politics is the biggest danger to the field. If we are told that this is how we should be taking care of our patients and this is the only treatment that we have based on our patient’s insurance status or tier, then we have lost the battle. That is exactly why it is important for us to be involved in our societies or advocacy groups. I remember 10 years ago, when I was asked what role I saw myself playing in a society, I always gave the naive answer of being apolitical. However, with these changing times, it is important that we tell the future generation of doctors that we should fight for our right to practice sound and evidence-based medicine that will help the livelihood of our patients and is not dictated by large corporations.
