(a) "Four-day workweeks, double the salary of some colleagues and no emails at night. If those perks sound like they belong to a few vaunted tech jobs, think again. Dermatologists boast some of medicine’s most enviable work lives, and more aspiring doctors are vying for residency spots in the specialty.
(b) "Dermatologists earn a median $541,000 a year, according to a recent survey of more than 150,000 U.S. physicians conducted by Medical Group Management Association, a trade group. Pediatricians, by contrast, earn a median $258,000 annually.
(c) "The boom in skin care, and its popularity on social media, has added to the profession’s allure. Some dermatologists have built commanding presences on Instagram and TikTok, earning as much as $30,000 for each sponsored post to promote various brands’ skin products.
(d) "Dr Shereene Idriss, 40, a dermatologist who owns a cosmetic practice in New York City that doesn't take insurance. * * * At Idriss's clinic, patients pay out of pocket for $500 microneedling sessions and $4,000 laser and filler treatments to smooth skin tone and texture and reduce lines and wrinkles. The procedures can last from 20 minutes to an hour. Idriss declined to say how much she makes but says that for dermatologists offering cosmetic treatments, 'the sky's the limit, depending on how efficient you are.'
"It wasn't always this way. The work of early dermatologists was far from glamorous. They tended to treat venereal diseases, including syphilis, that manifested on the skin, says Dr. Donna Stockton, a 65-year-old dermatologist in Chicago. During her residency in New York City in the late 1980s, Stockton treated patients who experienced skin eruptions stemming from HIV.
"The field started attracting more would-be practitioners in 2002, when the Food and Drug Administration approved Botox for frown lines, Stockton says. * * *
(e) "Many dermatologists perform both medical and cosmetic treatments, says Dr. Mary Alice Mina, 44, an Atlanta-based dermatologist who specializes in skin cancer and offers cosmetic surgeries such as neck lifts.
(f) "Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the US." (Skin cancer rarely kills in part because it is detected at the earliest stage; people watch their skin carefully.)
(g) "Diversity in the field is a continuing issue * * * A 2020 study found dermatology was the second-least-racially-diverse specialty in medicine, behind orthopedic surgery. * * * Dr.Oyetewa Asempa, 33, says she rarely encountered photos of Black skin in her textbooks when she was a medical student. * * * When Asempa finished a dermatology residency program affiliated with Harvard in 2022, she was one of just two Black dermatology residents to graduate from the program in 15 years. Last year, she founded a Skin of Color Clinic at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.