Hurricane Ike

The UTMB main campus in Galveston has been temporarily closed to UTMB and visiting medical students during cleanup from Hurricane Ike. Any Period 4 dermatology electives/selectives scheduled at UTMB in Galveston should be rescheduled at an off-island location, including Austin. For UTMB 3rd and 4th year students, please contact
Dr. J. Rowen for rescheduling. As soon as more information becomes available about UTMB reopening for medical students at UTMB in Galveston, another announcement will be posted.

UTMB Medical Student, Dermatology Resident and Dermatology Faculty Publish Case Report

Congratulations to first author senior medical student Jennifer Vickers, second year dermatology resident Ryan Matherne, MD and Brent Kelly, MD (UTMB dermatology faculty dermatopathologist) for their extremely interesting case report entitled, "Acute localized exanthematous pustulosis: a cutaneous drug reaction in a dental setting." The article was published in the September 2008 issue of The Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA 2008;139(9):1200-1203). Their coauthor was Dr. Elgene Mainous, Professor and Chief of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at UTMB.

Senior UTMB Medical Student to Present Research at National Meeting

Mara Dacso's abstract entitled, "Evaluation of Multi-Drug Therapy in the USA Using Daily Rifampin" for Hansen's Disease has been accepted as a poster presentation at the upcoming 2009 American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in New Orleans, LA. Her co-authors are Dr. Richard Scollard from the National Hansen's Disease Program (Baton Rouge, LA) and Dr. Erica Kelly (UTMB Department of Dermatology, Galveston, TX). The abstract is based in part on Mara's UTMB Dermatology Honors Research Thesis. The UTMB DIG congratulates Mara for her excellent research in this important cutaneous infectious disease area.

UTMB Presentations at the Upcoming 2008 American Society of Dermatopathology Annual Meeting

From Dr. Wagner:

Second year dermatology resident Ryan Matherne and 4th year medical student Leslie Scroggins have received notification that their abstracts have both been accepted for poster presentation in San Francisco this October. Dr. Matherne will be presenting, "Spindle cells in nephrogenic systemic fibrosis do not differentiate into myofibroblasts," while co-author Dr. Catherine McNeese (former UTMB dermatopathology fellow) will present on findings from Leslie's UTMB Dermatology Research Honors Program thesis entitled, "The role of matrix metalloproteinases and their inhibitors in nephrogenic systemic fibrosis." Dr. Brent Kelly (UTMB Dermatopathology) mentored these two research projects. Congratulations to all of them for their exciting new accomplishments!

DIG Member Has Poster Accepted to 2009 AAD Meeting

Congratulations are in order for Jennifer Vickers, a 4th year medical student at UTMB. Her original research entitled, "Pimple Popper, MD: Why Seinfeld is Consequential to Dermatology" has been accepted as a 2009 poster presentation (P901) at the 67th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) in San Francisco, California under the category of Art History and Humanities of Dermatology. All abstracts sent for consideration to this meeting are subject to blinded peer-review and must receive a cutoff score for inclusion in the program. It is excellent for a medical student to have a poster accepted to this meeting. Ms. Vickers collaborators on this research were Dr. Richard Wagner (dermatology) and Tatsuo Uchida (biostatistics).

DIG Meeting Recap, 9-2-08

Tonight we had a great showing for our first meeting. Thanks to the dermatology residents for all of the great advice they shared with us. We also summarized the many events that DIG annually participates in and discussed a possibility for dues which would include a DIG t-shirt. More info on this to come.