EVER SINCE I was a first-year resident, I began to reflect on what might be the essential qualities of an ideal chairman of an academic department of dermatology. Now, 35 years later, after having done residency training in 3 different programs, having served as a full-time member of departments of dermatology in 3 different universities, and having been a visiting professor at more than 3 score departments of dermatology in the United States and abroad, the image of an ideal chairman has come into sharp focus in my mind's eye. Like all ideals, mine of a chairman would seem to exist only as an idea; an ideal, which connotes perfection, is impossible to attain.