These two paragraphs are written by a dermatologist.  It’s an excerpt from Cosmopolitan.  It’s two of 14 things she wish she knew before she became a Dermatologist.  The last paragraph is actually factually incorrect.  I would like to address the subject matter but I find it disturbing and if you need to know, I suggest the reader to Google the facts.

This article can be seen in Cosmopolitan.com and is written by Kate Beckham.

It’s better to be honest with patients if you know you can’t help them. Rather than tell people it’s going to be OK when you know it’s not going to get better, just assure them that you will be there to help them manage the disease along the way. Psoriasis, for example, is so common, and there’s a reason it’s referred to as the “heartbreak of psoriasis”: for most people it doesn’t get better. I think just being there to let them know you’re on their side and that you’re going to do whatever you can to make it better is the best thing you can do.

Just because a skin condition might not be life-threatening doesn’t mean your work can’t change lives. I recently had a young woman with one of the worst cases of psoriasis that I’ve ever seen. She had it since she was maybe 8 or 10 years old, and her entire body is covered, and it really affects everything about her life. She had decided to never have children because she never wanted to have a child that had to go through what she went through. When I met her, she was really bad and we had been through so many drugs and nothing seemed to work for her. I called [other experts] and talked to them about different treatment options for her and finally — finally — we have her on a drug and she’s clear. She came in just about two weeks ago and she is a different person. That is really a good feeling, because it is life-changing for her to be able to wear shorts and to be able to wear short sleeves without having to cover up all year.

Terry P. Morris, M.D., Ph.D is a board-certified dermatologist with her own practice in Virgina.