#231: St. John's Episcopal Dermatology Residency Program w/Program Director Dr. Sirota-Rozenberg

So before we learn about the St. John's Episcopal Dermatology Residency Program, we would love to hear a little bit about you and your career as a dermatologist.

So first, tell us, why did you choose dermatology?

I think it's more dermatology chose me.

I was practicing as a family practitioner for 10 years, and I was doing a lot of derm within family medicine, and my former resident who was the first year resident of Durham came to me and said, you know, you're doing a lot of this.

Why don't you think about switching careers? And I thought about it.

I thought about where I was in my career.

And I said, you know what? I think you're right.

I'm doing so much.

And it really chose me because although it was the hardest decision in three years of my life, it was also the best decision that I ever made.

Well, I can imagine how difficult that must have been to transition from a practitioner, like you said, for 10 years to then go into have to be a resident again and a little bit have to take on kind of the student perspective.

But it sounds like you didn't look back.

No, I have never looked back.

But yes, it was an extremely challenging.

difficult three years because of that.

After I was already teaching in medical schools, I was an attending in the family practice residency program.

I was a chief.

So there were a lot of changes, you know, when you digress backwards to go ahead, but sometimes you just have to do that.

And it was the right decision for me.

So with that as well, being that you had a different career prior to dermatology, tell us what you love about having a career in dermatology now.

Well, two things.

I mean, being a family practitioner gave me a really good in-depth knowledge for derms.

The second thing is that in dermatology itself, dermatology encompasses almost every single aspect of medicine, immunology, allergy, pathology, you know, dermatopathology, surgery, rheumatology is something we've grabbed back a lot on.

And so it really, my...

I love medicine, and I'm passionate about medicine, and it just mixed really well with my derm career.

My practice now is 50% medical, 50% cosmetic and surgical, but I also am the program director in DIO, so I do a lot of academia as well.