Here’s a taster of what’s to come at the annual scientific meeting in Brisbane this month.
The 57th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australasian College of Dermatologists will be held at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre from Friday 30 May.
In preparation for the event, Dermatology Republic spoke with Professor Stephen Shumack, dermatologist at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, to hear about some highlights of the event.
Professor Shumack is one of the chairs of the Sunday late morning session on the current and future controversies of dermatology. The event will be a fun, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, debate about questions in the field such as whether lentigo maligna treatment should be downgraded, why dermatologists need to be on social media and whether teledermatology is essential in modern practice.
Another debate is set for Saturday morning in the melanoma/oncology session, where speakers will discuss questions around the overdiagnosis of melanoma in situ.
Adjunct Associate Professor Duncan Lambie and Dr Tamara Dawson will be arguing for the point that melanoma in situ should be renamed, while Professor David Whiteman and Adjunct Associate Professor Tony Caccetta will argue the negative.
Sunday afternoon’s session on AI in dermatology will be another to watch as the tool gains a foothold both in diagnosis and with medical records, Professor Shumack said.
Professor Pascale Guitera will discuss the pros and cons of adopting AI and outline possible directions for its role in the future of dermatology. The talk will cover the “unprecedented scrutiny” that such technologies will require to be safely and ethically incorporated into care.
The development of new drugs will make for interesting talks on topics such as paediatric eczema, with Associate Professor Li-Chuen Wong early Monday morning, and vitiligo, with Dr Michelle Rodrigues later that morning, Professor Shumack said.
“There are some new treatments just coming through, which are really quite effective in treating patients with vitiligo,” he said.
Professor Shumack also recommended the talks by Professor Esther Freeman and Dr Clare Fuller in the tropical diseases session, scheduled for late Monday. With efforts to get the World Health Organization to include skin diseases as a health priority, the talks will probably cover the latest developments on that and work with our global neighbours such as Fiji.
“Fiji has the Pacific Dermatology Training Centre …[and] there are about 20 or 30 Australian dermatologists who have spent some time in Fiji or have spent some time assisting the programme,” Professor Shumack said.
This could be of interest to dermatologists who want to know more about the programme and considering joining up, he said.
ACD’s Annual Scientific Meeting runs from 30 May to 2 June in Brisbane, Queensland. See the meeting website for further details regarding the program, presenters and how to register.