Jun 22, 2026 · 25 min · 10 segments
In this episode of the DIGA Podcast, we sit down with Dr. Sergey Rekhtman, Program Director of the Northwell Health Dermatology Residency Program. Dr. Rekhtman shares his journey into dermatology and…
Sergey RekhtmanGuest
Katelyn StengerHost
We would love to hear more about you, so if you could start off with telling us a little bit about yourself.
Uh, was convinced I was going to be a pharmacist, and then in my fifth or sixth year, uh, kind of it gets a little bit hazy, um, I really changed my trajectory.
I wanted to provide more holistic [laughs] kind of, um, comprehensive care to my patients, and I decided that I was going to apply to medical school.
And that, that naturally created a lot of challenges, uh, through the pathway that I was on, and so I took a little bit of extra time to finish my prerequisites.
Um, I went back to school in kind of the interim of that time and, um, uh, did a Master's of Public Health at, uh, Boston University Medical...
Uh, and at the same time, I worked as a clinical pharmacist, uh, for, for about two years, and eventually made it back to... made it to medical school, which was my kind of end goal.
Uh, and I, uh, attended medical school at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, um, uh, where I kind of learned about dermatology as well as kind of all the other, uh, kind of avenues within medicine.
Uh, went... did my residency at Northwell Health in New York, uh, as well as my intern year as well.
And so you could say that I'm essentially kind of homegrown here, which is where I've stayed on as faculty since, since graduating from residency.
Uh, it's something that I first learned about as a second-year during our dermatology course.
And I know the course is a little bit different at each medical school, but at our medical school we, we were very fortunate because we had about two weeks of dermatology lectures, uh, which is far above average.
Uh, and kind of as each lecture day went on, I really was surprised to learn that a lot of the, um, specialties that I was interested in, uh, were in one way or another, uh, kind of, um, touched by dermatology or, or intersected with it.
Uh, and it was really, um, a- around the third or fourth day where we had our first talk about complex medical dermatology that I really fell in love with the field.
Um, I, I really saw dermatology as a way to, uh, kind of treat patients comprehensively, systemically.
We would love to hear more about you, so if you could start off with telling us a little bit about yourself.
Uh, was convinced I was going to be a pharmacist, and then in my fifth or sixth year, uh, kind of it gets a little bit hazy, um, I really changed my trajectory.
I wanted to provide more holistic [laughs] kind of, um, comprehensive care to my patients, and I decided that I was going to apply to medical school.
And that, that naturally created a lot of challenges, uh, through the pathway that I was on, and so I took a little bit of extra time to finish my prerequisites.
Um, I went back to school in kind of the interim of that time and, um, uh, did a Master's of Public Health at, uh, Boston University Medical...
Uh, and at the same time, I worked as a clinical pharmacist, uh, for, for about two years, and eventually made it back to... made it to medical school, which was my kind of end goal.
Uh, and I, uh, attended medical school at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, um, uh, where I kind of learned about dermatology as well as kind of all the other, uh, kind of avenues within medicine.
Uh, went... did my residency at Northwell Health in New York, uh, as well as my intern year as well.
And so you could say that I'm essentially kind of homegrown here, which is where I've stayed on as faculty since, since graduating from residency.
Uh, it's something that I first learned about as a second-year during our dermatology course.
And I know the course is a little bit different at each medical school, but at our medical school we, we were very fortunate because we had about two weeks of dermatology lectures, uh, which is far above average.
Uh, and kind of as each lecture day went on, I really was surprised to learn that a lot of the, um, specialties that I was interested in, uh, were in one way or another, uh, kind of, um, touched by dermatology or, or intersected with it.
Uh, and it was really, um, a- around the third or fourth day where we had our first talk about complex medical dermatology that I really fell in love with the field.
Um, I, I really saw dermatology as a way to, uh, kind of treat patients comprehensively, systemically.
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