Karan Lal, DO, FAAD, Discusses Highlights from SBS and MOPDS

In an interview with Dermatology Times®, Karan Lal, DO, FAAD, double-board certified pediatric and cosmetic dermatologist at Affiliated Dermatology in Scottsdale, Arizona, discusses various highlights from the Masters of Pediatric Dermatology Symposium that occurred within the 2023 South Beach Symposium meeting. Lal emphasized the importance of recognizing inflammatory diseases in patients of color, as well as the need for more conversations surrounding LGBTQ+ care.

Transcript:

Karan Lal, DO, FAAD: So my name is Dr. Karan Lal. I'm a board-certified pediatric dermatologist and a fellowship-trained cosmetic dermatologist. I practice at Affiliated Dermatology in Scottsdale, Arizona. And I was invited here to give a couple of talks. But I also love and enjoy hearing a lot of the talks. And so part of the Masters of Pediatric Dermatology Symposium this year revolved around recognizing key signs of skin disease in skin of color, particularly focusing on psoriasis. And so I think it's really interesting to recognize that psoriasis can present very differently in Black and dark skin types. And sometimes you may not see those cardinal features that help you, you know, tack us down in fair skinned people. So I think that was a really good talk that was done yesterday, and focusing on how to adjust topical therapies, taking into account the risks of hypopigmentation and atrophy that can occur. So I thought that was very fascinating. And I think part of this also all revolves around recognizing the common things you see in the inner city. And so talking about molluscum and the different molluscum patterns that people can have as molluscum is going away. And then I even enjoyed my own talk, which I think is kind of new, because we talked about the role of the Aryl hydrocarbon receptor, and its involvement in atopic dermatitis and hidradenitis, and how pollution can play a role in both of these two diseases. So I think all of these things, were pretty fascinating. And they've kind of helped me like trigger and think some more and kind of focus on those things, especially like I said, psoriasis, and recognizing things like scaling, which, in darker skin types may indicate, you know, for example, in a scalp tinea capitis, or, you know, certain things that are not so clear cut like sebopsoriasis, where people can have seborrheic dermatitis and psoriasis, which is more common in African American skin types and how often it gets misdiagnosed as fungal infections of the scalp. So I think a lot of interesting things and I think a lot of that revolves around skin of color, better recognition, learning about the different resources that are available to the AAD, for the skin of color and the curriculum that they have available was news to me. So all of these are the big takeaways that I've taken away from the meeting so far.

Dermatology Times®: What do you enjoy about South Beach Symposium and Masters of Pediatric Dermatology Symposium?

Lal: I love the South Beach Symposium and the Masters of Pediatric Dermatology Symposium because first, MOPD is run by Larry Schachner. Larry Schachner is a world renowned pediatric dermatologist. He has his own textbook, he's been around forever. And so you know, being that he is directing this meeting, there's esteemed faculty. I always learn from the true experts. These are not like, you know, no named people. These are like big name people who have very relevant clinical pearls that always you know, give me things to take away from. And that I love South Beach Symposium because it's smaller meeting, beautiful location, wonderful exhibitors, and a lot of more relevant information. So it's not as esoteric; it's a lot of what's happening now and stuff that I can use to change my clinical practice now. I think there's very few meetings that have that type of focus and that they have multiple areas of focus: cosmetics, medical dermatology, pediatric dermatology, LGBT and gender issues, which is actually a big part of this meeting this year, which I think is very exciting. And it's going to open up the discussion for a lot of people that may not be aware of the issues in LGBT care and will prompt people to kind of assess those patients differently and learn more and recognize better ways to care for those patients.

Transcript edited for clarity