The Johns Hopkins Hospital opened in 1889 in Baltimore, Maryland. The university offshoot opened 4 years later. Hopkins has its own diverse dermatology department. The department focuses on three different aspects of dermatology: clinical, educational and research. Clinical dermatology includes diagnosing and treating skin diseases. Educational dermatology focuses on becoming a teacher and research tries to find new treatments and enrich the understanding of the skin and its various diseases. One of the major focuses at Hopkins is patient care. The school teaches its doctors to be gentle and understanding of their patients. Skin diseases may embarrass sufferers, so dermatologists take extra care to put patients at ease.
Harvard Medical School, located in Boston, Massachusetts, has an entire center dedicated to dermatology. Formed in 1994, the Harvard Skin Disease Research Center, or HSDRC, mostly focuses on the research aspects of dermatology. One of its major research focuses is on understanding the way that skin diseases may be similar to, affected by or even influence other diseases such as cancer and infections. The program focuses on the various structures of the skin, including cellular, molecular and genetic. HSDRC also focuses on enrichment programs designed to help increase the effectiveness of research centers across the nation.
Baylor College of Medicine, located in Houston, Texas, has a dermatology department. According to their mission statement, they are dedicated to providing "outstanding dermatological care for patients" as well as training future dermatologist in the diagnosis and treatment of all skin problems. Major program focuses include medical, surgical and cosmetic dermatology. The department also focuses on the education of future research dermatologists. Baylor focuses on teaching students the basics of dermatology in a classroom setting. The school then shifts its students into hands-on laboratory work.
The University of North Carolina, or UNC, at Chapel Hill has a dermatology focus in the medical department. UNC has three different areas in which future dermatologists can study: routine and highly specialized dermatological care, National Institutes of Health-sponsored innovative dermatological research and resident education. Routine and highly specialized care include treating normal skin problems, such as rashes, as well as very specialized diseases. The research program focuses on autoimmune diseases and melanoma. The resident program focuses on a 3-year residency in the university hospital, which is filled by only 12 students around the nation each year.