Christopher Bunick, MD, Gets Excited About the South Beach Symposium

Transcript (edited for clarity):
Dr. Bunick. Good morning, and thank you so much for being with us today to discuss your sessions at the South Beach symposium in February, in Florida. But before we get going, if you can just give a little brief summary of your background.


CB: I'm Christopher vNIC. I'm a dermatology researcher and clinician at Yale University where I'm an associate professor. And I have an interest in biochemistry and applying molecular thinking to dermatology patient care.


Great. So tell us about the sessions that you will be both leading and presenting at, at the South Beach symposium.


CB: I'm very excited about this South Beach symposium in Miami in February. It's a wonderful meeting, and I had the privilege of attending it last year as well. What I really like about this meeting is the way it blends the molecular advances in both cosmetics and clinical dermatology. I feel like it's a really unique blend of the cosmetics and the clinical medical dermatology at a high intellectual level, surrounding mechanisms, therapies for conditions. And I really enjoyed that. And I'm really privileged in the upcoming February meeting at South Beach symposium to actually lead 2 different sessions.

So the first session I'm going to lead is focused around how to apply genomic technology to improve patient care. And we have a great lineup of speakers. We're really going to delve into concepts like what is precision medicine and what does it mean for better patient care? What are new innovations around genomics and patient care, and even precision medicine and patient care? We're also going to talk about how genomics affect cosmetic therapy. So for those who think that genomics is only for medical diseases in dermatology, that's not true. We're going to talk about cutting edge data regarding genomic and cosmetic outcomes. And also we're going to talk about how to educate patients about genomic therapies, precision medicines.

The second session that I'm going to lead is focused on box warnings. And in dermatology, with the advent of JAK inhibitors over the past year, box warnings have become a hot topic. And this session is going to focus on understanding what box warnings are. How do we deal with them? How do we communicate them to patients? How do we use them to decide our practice, our prescription pyramid, in terms of the therapies we choose for our patients? And I think at the end of this session, dermatologists, health care providers in general, are going to have a really good understanding of the entire world around box warnings and what it means for both the provider and the patient.

Both the session sound wonderful. Are you going to have time to attend any other sessions by your colleagues?

Absolutely. There's the cutaneous oncology symposium, there's hot topics in aesthetics. And there's a session on skincare products and cosmeceuticals. And that evening, there's even going to be salsa dancing.

And then on Friday, we're going to kick off the day with a focus session on alopecia areata, which has been in the news a lot this year: we're going to talk about energy-based devices. And there's going to even be live patient injection tutorials, there's going to be a cadaver workshop. So for those people who want to go back to their medical school and get back in to the cadaver workshop, it's this is the meeting for you.

There's also going to be a Valentine's Day party, and then on Saturday, there's a therapeutic hotline where we talk about all the hottest issues in different therapies. And one of the sessions I'm really excited about, and I don't think gets covered enough in different meetings is a dedicated hour to women and dermatologic disease. And we have a really special speaker who's going to talk about vulvar dermatology, and also another talk on skin diseases in pregnancy.

There'll be an ice cream social too. And I believe there's going to be a contest for residents, so we're going to find out which residency program is up to par.

Additionally, there will be talks about hidraetinitis suppartiva and there's going to be really exciting giveaway, like a Peloton bike. So, If you don't have a Peloton, you should come because you could win one!

All in all, it will be a wonderful mix of fun, but also serious learning. And it's a wonderful opportunity to network with leaders in the specialty cosmeceutical industry and clinical industry. Thank you.