Success!


This morning my hematologist Dr. Z called the Quick Dermatologist and got him to agree to increase my light therapy to three times a week. She said that I needed to see him quickly next time I was in Phancy for phototherapy. Then Dr. B himself called me and said he would increase the frequency and duration of the light therapy. He said that his office gets 200 calls a day, that he's short dermatologists, that in 10 years 35 dermatologists have left the practice, that there's a nationwide medical dermatology shortage because everyone wants to do Botox, that no one wants to live in Chicago because it's too expensive. So, hear ye hear ye, skin doctors of the world: Come to Chicago. It's cheaper than New York. He was going to prescribe doxepin, then I asked what it interacted with, and, alas, it interacts with parts of the Cancer Bitch cocktail.

So wherever you are, raise a glass to Dr. Z, hematologist extraordinaire, human being, researcher and newlywed.

****

Here's a recent article on the shortage, which doesn't mention cosmetic dermatology.

A 2005 article in non-scholarly magazine for dermatologists shows that the number of dermatology residents is increasing, but that the specialists are not evenly distributed around the country; there aren't enough dermatologists in, say, rural Mississippi. It doesn't mention the fancy part of Chicago.