What’s your story?
My trajectory was different from that of most medical students who pursue training in dermatology. Dermatology wasn’t even on my radar. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go into clinical medicine because I was interested in public policy and global health issues. I went into internal medicine with the goal of focusing on global health and HIV, and I did some work in sub-Saharan Africa in that area. I developed an interest in Kaposi sarcoma, which occurs in HIV patients.
While I was a resident at Columbia University, I worked with Dr. Marc Grossman, a brilliant internist and dermatologist. He’s an expert in skin infections in compromised hosts and encouraged me to pursue global health as a dermatologist rather than an internist. I made the switch to dermatology and then pursued a fellowship in micrographic surgery and dermatological oncology. Making the shift from internal medicine to dermatology was such an ah-ha moment for me. It opened the door to a fascinating, focused, and very fulfilling field of medicine.