May 21, 1956
To the Editor: The number of hours available for teaching during the four-year undergraduate medical course is static. Within this inflexible boundary, however, there is a continually changing pattern of medical education. Many departments are always pressing for a larger proportion of the available time because of the claimed relative importance of their special fields to the prospective physician. As part of this never-ending struggle for the time and the minds of undergraduate students there has developed a growing tendency in some medical schools to reduce the amount of time devoted to the teaching of dermatology and to relegate dermatology to the role of a minor specialty. This trend is particularly ominous for the future of medical practice, for, while most general practitioners will probably refrain from performing difficult surgical or technical procedures, all of them will see patients with diseases of the skin; many