Down memory lane...

When I started off in dermatology 30 years ago, I wondered about specialising in dermatological surgery – it seemed so much more fun than complex medical dermatology! As I struggled to help patients with rare dermatoses I couldn’t remember, intractable psoriasis and difficult eczema, despite the role of immunosuppressants, surgery, where you just ‘chopped it out’ and fiddled around with interesting reconstructions, seemed so much more attractive. However, a wise mentor commented that it could be choice I might regret as, at some point, a cream would come along to cure these lesions and I would be out of a job. Well this therapeutic revolution, although delayed, is now gaining pace and Alison Honan’s article on non-surgical management of non-melanoma skin cancer shows how this exciting area is developing.