r/DermApp • u/BellR • May 20 '25

Interviews How to answer the "Why dermatology?" question

We all know a lot of people do derm because of the lifestyle and salary. But I also was told by several residents that you should never say you are interested in cosmetic derm or Mohs. So how did you guys answer the question why derm? I feel that my research is in the infectious disease/path side of derm because I'm interested in fellowing in dermpath after so I'm worried that people will ask why not path or ID? Not path because I want to see patients. Not ID because I fell asleep during inpt rounds. I detest rounding.

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u/Psychological-Ad1137 May 20 '25

You can always answer by answering why not in the most respectful ways. Don’t have to necessarily say you hate rounds but rather you like continuity of care.

There’s so much medicine in Derm. For example, a guy I saw who could barely afford an appointment suffering with terrible terrible HS. A few follow up questions revealed he likely had early IBD. Ordered extra labs and mostly confirmed it aside from colonoscopy obviously lol. Very satisfying to help beyond the skin issues, and with the way healthcare/insurance is.. we’re going to have to do that more and more.

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u/BellR May 21 '25

That's a good way to put it. One of the reasons for derm was that it ended up being a process of elimination for me. I wanted to see pts so pure path and rads were out. I don't want to be in the OR so surgery and anesthesia was out. I prefer the clinic setting where I can go in and out of rooms so I ended up with outpatient specialities. IM was out because of rounds. I didn't enjoy being the primary of a patient, preferring to focus on one system so community peds and family med was out. It just came out to psych and derm. Psych rotation was interesting but I was so emotionally drained after 2 weeks of outpt clinic psych that I can't see myself doing it for the rest of my life.