In dermatology, we are fortunate to have many insightful practitioners and great teachers and mentors. Some are bright stars in our special universe – others unsung heroes. All of these colleagues have much to share from wisdom to humor to insights into dermatology and life. This column allows us to gain insight from these practitioners and learn more about them.
SPOTLIGHT ON: Lowell Goldsmith, MD
Biography: Dr. Goldsmith grew up in Brooklyn, New York, went to an engineering high school and was a pre-med major at Columbia College, majoring in humanities. During medical school at the State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, he spent summer and elective time researching genetic diseases, including a summer at Rockefeller Institute studying copper metabolism in Wilson’s disease after the administration of radioactive copper to patients.
He trained at UCLA for 2 years in medicine and for 2 years at NIH, doing clinical and biochemical genetics, and then did his clinical and research training at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, including a post-graduate year in biochemistry at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA. After being on faculty at Harvard, he rose to be a professor at Duke Medical School, was a recipient of the Macy Foundation Fellowship Award in Biochemistry, Oxford University, 1978-1979, and then began teaching dermatology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, where he was the James H. Sterner Professor of Dermatology and eventually Dean. He received his MPH in clinical investigation from Rochester in 2002, and has been at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill since 2002, during which time he has been the Editor of the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.
Q. What part of your work gives you the most pleasure?
A. Understanding the normal workings of the skin and how it is altered in disease and how disease impacts the soul and spirit of patients.
Q. Are an understanding and appreciation of the humanities important in dermatology and why?
A. The important questions of when to do and when not to do cannot be decided by a machine or gene chip. Decisions about patients are not black and white and patients often are not interested in the straight facts that are often difficult for the expert to understand, but the subtle implications. The humanities have always shown how to live in a scary, challenging universe in which most answers are not clear-cut and what seems correct in the short term may be wrong in the long term but may again be right in the very long term. Humanities allow one to learn to dance in this complex universe.
Q. Which patient had the most effect on your work and why?
A. A little girl with tyrosinemia II (Richner-Hanhart syndrome). I diagnosed and studied her at Duke and I was able to cure her corneal and skin disease by giving her a special amino acid diet. She showed me that you can treat genetic diseases by altering the environment of the patient and that changing the gene is not necessary to get a cure. It has made me consider the important role of the environment in many diseases with a genetic component.
Q. Which medical figure in history would you want to have a drink with and why?
A. I began dermatology after the death of Stephen Rothman — my book on the Biochemistry and Physiology of the Skin was inspired by his great book. He was a humanist par excellence, a great and innovative scientist and inspired a large clone of important researchers. It would be a great evening to be with him, and I could listen to him play the piano.
Q. What is the greatest political danger in the field of dermatology?
A. In the United States, we are not training enough MD dermatology researchers who can remain at the top of the game. There are never enough researchers. As the editor of the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, I saw that Germany is able to train more and retain more individuals in academia. There are NIH funds, the Dermatology Foundation funds, but there may be a lack of will to take the risks that research requires; the very high financial rewards of practicing dermatology take away from the risks of research.
That being said, even our giants like Rothman did clinical practice a large part of the time, so, like most things, it may be the lack of will and maybe not being exposed to enough role models. Hopefully, I have been and am a role model to some of those trying to make their important life decisions.
Dr. Barankin is a dermatologist based in Toronto, Canada. He is author-editor of six books in dermatology and is widely published in the dermatology and humanities literature. He is also co-editor of Dermanities (dermanities.com), an online journal devoted to the humanities as they relate to dermatology.
ONLINE EXTRA
Q: What is your greatest regret?
A: That I did not get more genetics training after residency and do more research and get a PhD.
Q: Who was your hero/mentor and why?
A: There were many, but Irwin Freedberg is on the top of my list —excellent physician, thoughtful scientist, very attuned to human needs, was always reaching out to the younger people in our profession and was always a very giving person of his time and his connections to other people. He never stopped thinking about alternative ways to approach the important issues.
Q: What is the best piece of advice you have received and from whom?
A: Thomas B. Fitzpatrick, who taught me that even though you may be a chair and researcher, you also had to be an excellent physician — and know at least as much as most dermatologists about general dermatology (even pruritus ani) — but that you had to have a special clinical field in which you were the expert of experts.
In dermatology, we are fortunate to have many insightful practitioners and great teachers and mentors. Some are bright stars in our special universe – others unsung heroes. All of these colleagues have much to share from wisdom to humor to insights into dermatology and life. This column allows us to gain insight from these practitioners and learn more about them.
SPOTLIGHT ON: Lowell Goldsmith, MD
Biography: Dr. Goldsmith grew up in Brooklyn, New York, went to an engineering high school and was a pre-med major at Columbia College, majoring in humanities. During medical school at the State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, he spent summer and elective time researching genetic diseases, including a summer at Rockefeller Institute studying copper metabolism in Wilson’s disease after the administration of radioactive copper to patients.
He trained at UCLA for 2 years in medicine and for 2 years at NIH, doing clinical and biochemical genetics, and then did his clinical and research training at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, including a post-graduate year in biochemistry at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA. After being on faculty at Harvard, he rose to be a professor at Duke Medical School, was a recipient of the Macy Foundation Fellowship Award in Biochemistry, Oxford University, 1978-1979, and then began teaching dermatology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, where he was the James H. Sterner Professor of Dermatology and eventually Dean. He received his MPH in clinical investigation from Rochester in 2002, and has been at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill since 2002, during which time he has been the Editor of the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.
Q. What part of your work gives you the most pleasure?
A. Understanding the normal workings of the skin and how it is altered in disease and how disease impacts the soul and spirit of patients.
Q. Are an understanding and appreciation of the humanities important in dermatology and why?
A. The important questions of when to do and when not to do cannot be decided by a machine or gene chip. Decisions about patients are not black and white and patients often are not interested in the straight facts that are often difficult for the expert to understand, but the subtle implications. The humanities have always shown how to live in a scary, challenging universe in which most answers are not clear-cut and what seems correct in the short term may be wrong in the long term but may again be right in the very long term. Humanities allow one to learn to dance in this complex universe.
Q. Which patient had the most effect on your work and why?
A. A little girl with tyrosinemia II (Richner-Hanhart syndrome). I diagnosed and studied her at Duke and I was able to cure her corneal and skin disease by giving her a special amino acid diet. She showed me that you can treat genetic diseases by altering the environment of the patient and that changing the gene is not necessary to get a cure. It has made me consider the important role of the environment in many diseases with a genetic component.
Q. Which medical figure in history would you want to have a drink with and why?
A. I began dermatology after the death of Stephen Rothman — my book on the Biochemistry and Physiology of the Skin was inspired by his great book. He was a humanist par excellence, a great and innovative scientist and inspired a large clone of important researchers. It would be a great evening to be with him, and I could listen to him play the piano.
Q. What is the greatest political danger in the field of dermatology?
A. In the United States, we are not training enough MD dermatology researchers who can remain at the top of the game. There are never enough researchers. As the editor of the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, I saw that Germany is able to train more and retain more individuals in academia. There are NIH funds, the Dermatology Foundation funds, but there may be a lack of will to take the risks that research requires; the very high financial rewards of practicing dermatology take away from the risks of research.
That being said, even our giants like Rothman did clinical practice a large part of the time, so, like most things, it may be the lack of will and maybe not being exposed to enough role models. Hopefully, I have been and am a role model to some of those trying to make their important life decisions.
Dr. Barankin is a dermatologist based in Toronto, Canada. He is author-editor of six books in dermatology and is widely published in the dermatology and humanities literature. He is also co-editor of Dermanities (dermanities.com), an online journal devoted to the humanities as they relate to dermatology.
ONLINE EXTRA
Q: What is your greatest regret?
A: That I did not get more genetics training after residency and do more research and get a PhD.
Q: Who was your hero/mentor and why?
A: There were many, but Irwin Freedberg is on the top of my list —excellent physician, thoughtful scientist, very attuned to human needs, was always reaching out to the younger people in our profession and was always a very giving person of his time and his connections to other people. He never stopped thinking about alternative ways to approach the important issues.
Q: What is the best piece of advice you have received and from whom?
A: Thomas B. Fitzpatrick, who taught me that even though you may be a chair and researcher, you also had to be an excellent physician — and know at least as much as most dermatologists about general dermatology (even pruritus ani) — but that you had to have a special clinical field in which you were the expert of experts.
In dermatology, we are fortunate to have many insightful practitioners and great teachers and mentors. Some are bright stars in our special universe – others unsung heroes. All of these colleagues have much to share from wisdom to humor to insights into dermatology and life. This column allows us to gain insight from these practitioners and learn more about them.
SPOTLIGHT ON: Lowell Goldsmith, MD
Biography: Dr. Goldsmith grew up in Brooklyn, New York, went to an engineering high school and was a pre-med major at Columbia College, majoring in humanities. During medical school at the State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, he spent summer and elective time researching genetic diseases, including a summer at Rockefeller Institute studying copper metabolism in Wilson’s disease after the administration of radioactive copper to patients.
He trained at UCLA for 2 years in medicine and for 2 years at NIH, doing clinical and biochemical genetics, and then did his clinical and research training at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, including a post-graduate year in biochemistry at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA. After being on faculty at Harvard, he rose to be a professor at Duke Medical School, was a recipient of the Macy Foundation Fellowship Award in Biochemistry, Oxford University, 1978-1979, and then began teaching dermatology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, where he was the James H. Sterner Professor of Dermatology and eventually Dean. He received his MPH in clinical investigation from Rochester in 2002, and has been at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill since 2002, during which time he has been the Editor of the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.
Q. What part of your work gives you the most pleasure?
A. Understanding the normal workings of the skin and how it is altered in disease and how disease impacts the soul and spirit of patients.
Q. Are an understanding and appreciation of the humanities important in dermatology and why?
A. The important questions of when to do and when not to do cannot be decided by a machine or gene chip. Decisions about patients are not black and white and patients often are not interested in the straight facts that are often difficult for the expert to understand, but the subtle implications. The humanities have always shown how to live in a scary, challenging universe in which most answers are not clear-cut and what seems correct in the short term may be wrong in the long term but may again be right in the very long term. Humanities allow one to learn to dance in this complex universe.
Q. Which patient had the most effect on your work and why?
A. A little girl with tyrosinemia II (Richner-Hanhart syndrome). I diagnosed and studied her at Duke and I was able to cure her corneal and skin disease by giving her a special amino acid diet. She showed me that you can treat genetic diseases by altering the environment of the patient and that changing the gene is not necessary to get a cure. It has made me consider the important role of the environment in many diseases with a genetic component.
Q. Which medical figure in history would you want to have a drink with and why?
A. I began dermatology after the death of Stephen Rothman — my book on the Biochemistry and Physiology of the Skin was inspired by his great book. He was a humanist par excellence, a great and innovative scientist and inspired a large clone of important researchers. It would be a great evening to be with him, and I could listen to him play the piano.
Q. What is the greatest political danger in the field of dermatology?
A. In the United States, we are not training enough MD dermatology researchers who can remain at the top of the game. There are never enough researchers. As the editor of the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, I saw that Germany is able to train more and retain more individuals in academia. There are NIH funds, the Dermatology Foundation funds, but there may be a lack of will to take the risks that research requires; the very high financial rewards of practicing dermatology take away from the risks of research.
That being said, even our giants like Rothman did clinical practice a large part of the time, so, like most things, it may be the lack of will and maybe not being exposed to enough role models. Hopefully, I have been and am a role model to some of those trying to make their important life decisions.
Dr. Barankin is a dermatologist based in Toronto, Canada. He is author-editor of six books in dermatology and is widely published in the dermatology and humanities literature. He is also co-editor of Dermanities (dermanities.com), an online journal devoted to the humanities as they relate to dermatology.
ONLINE EXTRA
Q: What is your greatest regret?
A: That I did not get more genetics training after residency and do more research and get a PhD.
Q: Who was your hero/mentor and why?
A: There were many, but Irwin Freedberg is on the top of my list —excellent physician, thoughtful scientist, very attuned to human needs, was always reaching out to the younger people in our profession and was always a very giving person of his time and his connections to other people. He never stopped thinking about alternative ways to approach the important issues.
Q: What is the best piece of advice you have received and from whom?
A: Thomas B. Fitzpatrick, who taught me that even though you may be a chair and researcher, you also had to be an excellent physician — and know at least as much as most dermatologists about general dermatology (even pruritus ani) — but that you had to have a special clinical field in which you were the expert of experts.
SPOTLIGHT ON: Lowell Goldsmith, MD
