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: Dr. Margot Whitfeld
Biography: Dr. Margot Whitfeld is a Sydney-based dermatologist and recent head of a small Department of Dermatology at St Vincent’s Hospital who primarily works in private practice. She also works at the Skin and Cancer Foundation, a not-for-profit dermatology training and treatment center. She completed an HIV dermatology fellowship at San Francisco General Hospital in 1992 and has been running a “mostly HIV” dermatology clinic since 1995. She has also worked in Fiji, looking at the problem of endemic scabies and how to deal with it. She is married and has two teenage girls and two dogs.
Q. Why did you want to practice dermatology?
A. When I was an intern, I wanted to be a tropical infectious diseases physician after making a trip to the Solomon Islands following a cyclone. When I realized that most of the interesting work involved the skin, I decided to try to practice dermatology instead.
Q. What part of your work gives you the most pleasure?
A. Seeing patients with their skin diseases and listening to them as they inadvertently teach me about their diseases, and then trying to fit their experiences into what we, as doctors, know about the disease.
Q. Are an understanding and appreciation of the humanities important in dermatology and why?
A. Yes, because it is only when we look outside of our own relatively insular environment of individual-based clinical medicine that we are able to look at the way sickness and health influence and change the world.
Q. What moment in medicine changed your life?
A. When I was asked by a Fijian doctor to help devise a community-based study to find the best way to solve the problem of endemic scabies. Eight years later, we haven’t solved the problem, but we are still trying.
Q. Who was your hero/mentor and why?
A. Dr. Susi Freeman, a Sydney dermatologist and a leader in the world of patch testing, is my hero. She taught her dermatology trainees that, if we believe that there is an answer to what is causing a problem, we should go looking for it and never give up. She also taught her registrars that what we discovered was important enough to write about, to tell others about. She told us not to feel inferior just because we don’t work in any of the “leading countries” in dermatology.
Q. Which patient had the most effect on your work and why?
A. My grandmother, Dorothy, who had pustular rosacea of the skin and eyelid margins. She had a cataract removed and, as a result, developed endophthalmitis (organism never identified) and lost her eye. I had been thinking about pustular rosacea of the face being due to a bacteria, probably a commensal, and her experience made me think that if bacteria were a part of pustular rosacea of the skin, then bacteria must also be a part of ocular rosacea.
Q. What is the best piece of advice you have received and from whom?
A. From my father: When you can’t solve a problem, go back to basic principles and you will be able to work it out.
Q. What is your greatest regret?
A. Missing the diagnosis of scabies in an HIV-positive patient who had eczema. He had previously been treated with permethrin topically. I should have encouraged him harder to pay for ivermectin or bought it for him. He committed suicide 2 weeks after I saw him and one week before he was due for review. Intractable itch was one of the factors, and I diagnosed it when I saw his partner one month later.
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: Dr. Margot Whitfeld
Biography: Dr. Margot Whitfeld is a Sydney-based dermatologist and recent head of a small Department of Dermatology at St Vincent’s Hospital who primarily works in private practice. She also works at the Skin and Cancer Foundation, a not-for-profit dermatology training and treatment center. She completed an HIV dermatology fellowship at San Francisco General Hospital in 1992 and has been running a “mostly HIV” dermatology clinic since 1995. She has also worked in Fiji, looking at the problem of endemic scabies and how to deal with it. She is married and has two teenage girls and two dogs.
Q. Why did you want to practice dermatology?
A. When I was an intern, I wanted to be a tropical infectious diseases physician after making a trip to the Solomon Islands following a cyclone. When I realized that most of the interesting work involved the skin, I decided to try to practice dermatology instead.
Q. What part of your work gives you the most pleasure?
A. Seeing patients with their skin diseases and listening to them as they inadvertently teach me about their diseases, and then trying to fit their experiences into what we, as doctors, know about the disease.
Q. Are an understanding and appreciation of the humanities important in dermatology and why?
A. Yes, because it is only when we look outside of our own relatively insular environment of individual-based clinical medicine that we are able to look at the way sickness and health influence and change the world.
Q. What moment in medicine changed your life?
A. When I was asked by a Fijian doctor to help devise a community-based study to find the best way to solve the problem of endemic scabies. Eight years later, we haven’t solved the problem, but we are still trying.
Q. Who was your hero/mentor and why?
A. Dr. Susi Freeman, a Sydney dermatologist and a leader in the world of patch testing, is my hero. She taught her dermatology trainees that, if we believe that there is an answer to what is causing a problem, we should go looking for it and never give up. She also taught her registrars that what we discovered was important enough to write about, to tell others about. She told us not to feel inferior just because we don’t work in any of the “leading countries” in dermatology.
Q. Which patient had the most effect on your work and why?
A. My grandmother, Dorothy, who had pustular rosacea of the skin and eyelid margins. She had a cataract removed and, as a result, developed endophthalmitis (organism never identified) and lost her eye. I had been thinking about pustular rosacea of the face being due to a bacteria, probably a commensal, and her experience made me think that if bacteria were a part of pustular rosacea of the skin, then bacteria must also be a part of ocular rosacea.
Q. What is the best piece of advice you have received and from whom?
A. From my father: When you can’t solve a problem, go back to basic principles and you will be able to work it out.
Q. What is your greatest regret?
A. Missing the diagnosis of scabies in an HIV-positive patient who had eczema. He had previously been treated with permethrin topically. I should have encouraged him harder to pay for ivermectin or bought it for him. He committed suicide 2 weeks after I saw him and one week before he was due for review. Intractable itch was one of the factors, and I diagnosed it when I saw his partner one month later.
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: Dr. Margot Whitfeld
Biography: Dr. Margot Whitfeld is a Sydney-based dermatologist and recent head of a small Department of Dermatology at St Vincent’s Hospital who primarily works in private practice. She also works at the Skin and Cancer Foundation, a not-for-profit dermatology training and treatment center. She completed an HIV dermatology fellowship at San Francisco General Hospital in 1992 and has been running a “mostly HIV” dermatology clinic since 1995. She has also worked in Fiji, looking at the problem of endemic scabies and how to deal with it. She is married and has two teenage girls and two dogs.
Q. Why did you want to practice dermatology?
A. When I was an intern, I wanted to be a tropical infectious diseases physician after making a trip to the Solomon Islands following a cyclone. When I realized that most of the interesting work involved the skin, I decided to try to practice dermatology instead.
Q. What part of your work gives you the most pleasure?
A. Seeing patients with their skin diseases and listening to them as they inadvertently teach me about their diseases, and then trying to fit their experiences into what we, as doctors, know about the disease.
Q. Are an understanding and appreciation of the humanities important in dermatology and why?
A. Yes, because it is only when we look outside of our own relatively insular environment of individual-based clinical medicine that we are able to look at the way sickness and health influence and change the world.
Q. What moment in medicine changed your life?
A. When I was asked by a Fijian doctor to help devise a community-based study to find the best way to solve the problem of endemic scabies. Eight years later, we haven’t solved the problem, but we are still trying.
Q. Who was your hero/mentor and why?
A. Dr. Susi Freeman, a Sydney dermatologist and a leader in the world of patch testing, is my hero. She taught her dermatology trainees that, if we believe that there is an answer to what is causing a problem, we should go looking for it and never give up. She also taught her registrars that what we discovered was important enough to write about, to tell others about. She told us not to feel inferior just because we don’t work in any of the “leading countries” in dermatology.
Q. Which patient had the most effect on your work and why?
A. My grandmother, Dorothy, who had pustular rosacea of the skin and eyelid margins. She had a cataract removed and, as a result, developed endophthalmitis (organism never identified) and lost her eye. I had been thinking about pustular rosacea of the face being due to a bacteria, probably a commensal, and her experience made me think that if bacteria were a part of pustular rosacea of the skin, then bacteria must also be a part of ocular rosacea.
Q. What is the best piece of advice you have received and from whom?
A. From my father: When you can’t solve a problem, go back to basic principles and you will be able to work it out.
Q. What is your greatest regret?
A. Missing the diagnosis of scabies in an HIV-positive patient who had eczema. He had previously been treated with permethrin topically. I should have encouraged him harder to pay for ivermectin or bought it for him. He committed suicide 2 weeks after I saw him and one week before he was due for review. Intractable itch was one of the factors, and I diagnosed it when I saw his partner one month later.
