Sneak Peek at Best Sessions on Sunday at the Society for Pediatric Dermatology Meeting

At this live meeting of the Society for Pediatric Dermatology, Sunday, July 10 offered a diverse roster of offerings for attendees. The morning started off with “Creating Solutions for the Workforce Shortage: An SPD Town Hall Meeting,” where both leaders and attendees were encouraged to share their ideas and opinions about the pediatric dermatology workforce shortage. With long wait times, and patient access issues getting worse, results from a recent member survey on this topic will be shared and discussed.

Elena Pope, MD, gave part 2 of the Hurwitz Lecture series: “Working With Orphan Diseases: Challenges and Opportunities.” Here, Dr. Pope looked at rare diseases that affect 10% of the population, with 2/3 of them being children; sadly, 30% of those children die before the age of 5 years. Her focus was on severe EB (epidermolysis bullosa), the umbrella term for rare inherited skin disorders caused by mutations in at least 20 different genes. Therapy for these conditions include protein replacement and gene and cell-based therapies.

Additionally, Aaron Carroll, MD, had a light and lively discussion on digesting health news in the media. Carroll went through a "101" on how peer reviews work (researchers send in the paper to a journal; editor determines worthiness; 2 to 3 external reviewers do the peer review; editors read and judge review; and a decision is mafe to accept, reject, or revise).

He also offered such tips as considering absolute risks, not giving too much weight to observational data, and acknowledging the harms, as well as the benefits, of recommendations in articles.

Publication bias, a fascinating perspective was also offered. Examples here: "Let's say a study is done through the World Health Organization (WHO) on the dangers of eating red meat," noted Carroll. "The WHO thinks everything causes cancer. They are also talking about processed red meat; the links might not be as clear as they say they are, and they are also discussing those eating meat per serving, per day, for the rest of your life."

Toby Maurer, MD, shared global health opportunities for pediatric dermatologists. Maurer teaches and conducts research in telemedicine with programs in Kenya, Uganda, India, and Bangladesh, and is also working with the National Library of Medicine to examine the intersection of teledermatology and artificial intelligence. In bridging gaps between health care communication around the world, Maurer spoke of the power of Zoom to discuss and collaborate on various case studies between American and African health care providers. He also shared basics on curriculums for dermatology training programs for those interested in global programs, such as the MMed of Dermatology Program at Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya and Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda.

Finally, a presentation of the year in review of the The Pediatric Dermatology Research Alliance (PeDRA), which was created by leaders in 2012 in response to unmet research needs in pediatric dermatology. Also, SPD's Hall of Fame Award and Distinguished Service Awards will be given on this last day of the SPD meeting, as well as travel and mentorship awards.