Under My Skin

“Have a nice time!”

I looked around, trying to tell where the piping, childish voice was coming from. I’d just swiped the barcode of my pass to the local lake I swim in every summer. There it was – the voice of one of the high school kids who works at the lake. She wore a wan smile.

I’ve been swimming at this lake for 35 years. No kid ever said a word to me before. “Have a good swim!” said a young man standing at the desk where, “All Children Under 12 Must Check In!”

Goodness me, I thought. The management consultants have made it to the lake.

You know who I mean. The ones who see to it that front-desk personnel always flash a bright smile and recite the corporate script. At the hardware store, the fast-food chain, the airline counter. Even the people in the auto dealer’s service department smile and murmur sweet nothings. They used to glare and growl, and make you feel like an idiot. “Whatsamattter, Bud? Dontcha know anything about cars?” Now it’s all politeness and smiles and “How may we help you, kind sir?”

And of course there’s the pharmacy. When I fill my prescription, the tech flashes a bright grin of welcome. Either that, or she has tetanus.

“Welcome to DrugTown!” she says. “May I have your name?”

I tell her. She retrieves the prescription. “Verify your address?” I do.

“Do you have a DrugTown Rewards Card?” she asks. I enter in my cellphone number, swipe my card, turn to leave.

“Be sound!” she says, still grinning. The DrugTown motto is: “Where Safe Meets Sound!”

It is easy to mock this sort of thing as formulaic and false. Insincere or not, smiling makes a difference. Some say you can actually get happier by making yourself smile. Whether that’s true or not, watching other people smile and make eye contact makes you feel good. Seeing them scowl and look away does the reverse.

This is true in doctors’ offices too. I learned this recently by being a patient.

I approached the front desk at my first visit. The lone receptionist was looking at some papers. I tried to get her attention. “Hello,” I said, “My name is ... ”

Still looking down, she shoved a clipboard across the counter. “Sign in,” she said. “And fill this out.” She handed me a sheaf of forms. “Leave it here when you’re done.” She was still looking away.

I sat in one of the waiting room chairs to work on the forms. I felt bad. As I watched the clerk ignore a succession of other patients, I asked myself why I felt so bad. First of all, it wasn’t personal; she was churlish to everyone. Second, what did this have to do with my visit? I was there to see the doctor, not his receptionist. Weren’t his skill and expertise what mattered?

True enough, but I still felt lousy. At later visits I took on the personal challenge of trying to force the clerk to make eye contact. I failed. In truth, her behavior colored my impression of the medical experience – mixed anyway – more than the medical outcome.

Sometimes I force myself to look at my own online reviews. The bad ones often focus on the alleged rudeness of my staff. It can be hard to tell from cranky patients whether their complaints are justified. But sometimes they are.

Management consultants know this. They teach employers that the customer experience has to do with more than the quality of the good or service provided. Even if the quarter-pounder is delicious, it may not taste that way if the burger-flipper is having a bad day and doesn’t know how to hide it.

So my office manager now trains our front-desk staff to be insistently cheery. This can be hard when patients are stacked three-deep, each with a form to scan, a credit card to swipe, a follow-up to book. But smile we have them do.

We don’t, however, have them recite a script when smiling. (“Make the scene! Wear sunscreen!”) We’re not up to that chapter in the customer-service handbook.

Who do you think we are? The town lake?

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years. Write to him at dermnews@frontlinemedcom.com.

“Have a nice time!”

I looked around, trying to tell where the piping, childish voice was coming from. I’d just swiped the barcode of my pass to the local lake I swim in every summer. There it was – the voice of one of the high school kids who works at the lake. She wore a wan smile.

I’ve been swimming at this lake for 35 years. No kid ever said a word to me before. “Have a good swim!” said a young man standing at the desk where, “All Children Under 12 Must Check In!”

Goodness me, I thought. The management consultants have made it to the lake.

You know who I mean. The ones who see to it that front-desk personnel always flash a bright smile and recite the corporate script. At the hardware store, the fast-food chain, the airline counter. Even the people in the auto dealer’s service department smile and murmur sweet nothings. They used to glare and growl, and make you feel like an idiot. “Whatsamattter, Bud? Dontcha know anything about cars?” Now it’s all politeness and smiles and “How may we help you, kind sir?”

And of course there’s the pharmacy. When I fill my prescription, the tech flashes a bright grin of welcome. Either that, or she has tetanus.

“Welcome to DrugTown!” she says. “May I have your name?”

I tell her. She retrieves the prescription. “Verify your address?” I do.

“Do you have a DrugTown Rewards Card?” she asks. I enter in my cellphone number, swipe my card, turn to leave.

“Be sound!” she says, still grinning. The DrugTown motto is: “Where Safe Meets Sound!”

It is easy to mock this sort of thing as formulaic and false. Insincere or not, smiling makes a difference. Some say you can actually get happier by making yourself smile. Whether that’s true or not, watching other people smile and make eye contact makes you feel good. Seeing them scowl and look away does the reverse.

This is true in doctors’ offices too. I learned this recently by being a patient.

I approached the front desk at my first visit. The lone receptionist was looking at some papers. I tried to get her attention. “Hello,” I said, “My name is ... ”

Still looking down, she shoved a clipboard across the counter. “Sign in,” she said. “And fill this out.” She handed me a sheaf of forms. “Leave it here when you’re done.” She was still looking away.

I sat in one of the waiting room chairs to work on the forms. I felt bad. As I watched the clerk ignore a succession of other patients, I asked myself why I felt so bad. First of all, it wasn’t personal; she was churlish to everyone. Second, what did this have to do with my visit? I was there to see the doctor, not his receptionist. Weren’t his skill and expertise what mattered?

True enough, but I still felt lousy. At later visits I took on the personal challenge of trying to force the clerk to make eye contact. I failed. In truth, her behavior colored my impression of the medical experience – mixed anyway – more than the medical outcome.

Sometimes I force myself to look at my own online reviews. The bad ones often focus on the alleged rudeness of my staff. It can be hard to tell from cranky patients whether their complaints are justified. But sometimes they are.

Management consultants know this. They teach employers that the customer experience has to do with more than the quality of the good or service provided. Even if the quarter-pounder is delicious, it may not taste that way if the burger-flipper is having a bad day and doesn’t know how to hide it.

So my office manager now trains our front-desk staff to be insistently cheery. This can be hard when patients are stacked three-deep, each with a form to scan, a credit card to swipe, a follow-up to book. But smile we have them do.

We don’t, however, have them recite a script when smiling. (“Make the scene! Wear sunscreen!”) We’re not up to that chapter in the customer-service handbook.

Who do you think we are? The town lake?

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years. Write to him at dermnews@frontlinemedcom.com.

“Have a nice time!”

I looked around, trying to tell where the piping, childish voice was coming from. I’d just swiped the barcode of my pass to the local lake I swim in every summer. There it was – the voice of one of the high school kids who works at the lake. She wore a wan smile.

I’ve been swimming at this lake for 35 years. No kid ever said a word to me before. “Have a good swim!” said a young man standing at the desk where, “All Children Under 12 Must Check In!”

Goodness me, I thought. The management consultants have made it to the lake.

You know who I mean. The ones who see to it that front-desk personnel always flash a bright smile and recite the corporate script. At the hardware store, the fast-food chain, the airline counter. Even the people in the auto dealer’s service department smile and murmur sweet nothings. They used to glare and growl, and make you feel like an idiot. “Whatsamattter, Bud? Dontcha know anything about cars?” Now it’s all politeness and smiles and “How may we help you, kind sir?”

And of course there’s the pharmacy. When I fill my prescription, the tech flashes a bright grin of welcome. Either that, or she has tetanus.

“Welcome to DrugTown!” she says. “May I have your name?”

I tell her. She retrieves the prescription. “Verify your address?” I do.

“Do you have a DrugTown Rewards Card?” she asks. I enter in my cellphone number, swipe my card, turn to leave.

“Be sound!” she says, still grinning. The DrugTown motto is: “Where Safe Meets Sound!”

It is easy to mock this sort of thing as formulaic and false. Insincere or not, smiling makes a difference. Some say you can actually get happier by making yourself smile. Whether that’s true or not, watching other people smile and make eye contact makes you feel good. Seeing them scowl and look away does the reverse.

This is true in doctors’ offices too. I learned this recently by being a patient.

I approached the front desk at my first visit. The lone receptionist was looking at some papers. I tried to get her attention. “Hello,” I said, “My name is ... ”

Still looking down, she shoved a clipboard across the counter. “Sign in,” she said. “And fill this out.” She handed me a sheaf of forms. “Leave it here when you’re done.” She was still looking away.

I sat in one of the waiting room chairs to work on the forms. I felt bad. As I watched the clerk ignore a succession of other patients, I asked myself why I felt so bad. First of all, it wasn’t personal; she was churlish to everyone. Second, what did this have to do with my visit? I was there to see the doctor, not his receptionist. Weren’t his skill and expertise what mattered?

True enough, but I still felt lousy. At later visits I took on the personal challenge of trying to force the clerk to make eye contact. I failed. In truth, her behavior colored my impression of the medical experience – mixed anyway – more than the medical outcome.

Sometimes I force myself to look at my own online reviews. The bad ones often focus on the alleged rudeness of my staff. It can be hard to tell from cranky patients whether their complaints are justified. But sometimes they are.

Management consultants know this. They teach employers that the customer experience has to do with more than the quality of the good or service provided. Even if the quarter-pounder is delicious, it may not taste that way if the burger-flipper is having a bad day and doesn’t know how to hide it.

So my office manager now trains our front-desk staff to be insistently cheery. This can be hard when patients are stacked three-deep, each with a form to scan, a credit card to swipe, a follow-up to book. But smile we have them do.

We don’t, however, have them recite a script when smiling. (“Make the scene! Wear sunscreen!”) We’re not up to that chapter in the customer-service handbook.

Who do you think we are? The town lake?

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years. Write to him at dermnews@frontlinemedcom.com.

No good deed goes unpunished.

We froze Myrna’s keratosis off her forehead. Gratis, of course.

This was followed by repeated calls from Myrna: the spot was red, it was painful, it wasn’t healing right.

So we mailed her an envelope filled with cream to help heal the skin. Although we used our regular postage meter, somehow Myrna got the package with $1.42 postage due.

Not going to work.

Myrna called to complain. Then she drove over and walked into the office, but we weren’t there. Then she called again and left a message. “I’m coming in this afternoon,” she said. “I expect to pick up my $1.42.”

Really.

Later that morning, Stephanie came by for a skin check. Because Stephanie is catering manager at a downtown ultra-upscale hotel, I knew she would both appreciate the tale of $1.42 and be able to top it. Everyone in her field can fill several books of client encounters no one could make up.

When I asked her to share some stories, Stephanie did not disappoint.

Wikimedia/Wikicommons

“Sure,” she said. “People plan lavish weddings, no expense spared. But when they send gift baskets, we have to charge $3.50 each to pay the livery people who deliver them. That they object to.

“But what’s even worse,” she went on, “is when it comes to feeding the band. We discount the meals for musicians 60%-70% below the per-plate rate for guests.

“That’s not low enough for some people, though. We explain to them that the band members do have to eat. ‘Yes,’ say some of the brides, ‘but do we have to give them a whole meal? Can’t we just give them a sandwich or something?’ This is from people who are spending six figures on food alone.”

“Sounds like Marie Antoinette,” I said. “What do you tell them?”

“We say, OK, we’ll see if we can discount the band meals even more,” Stephanie said.

Not an hour later, Ken came in. Ken manages an art-house movie theater in a close-in, affluent suburb. As I knew he would, Ken had stories, too.

“People are always angling for some kind of special privilege,” he said. ‘I’ve been a patron for years,” they say. ‘Can’t you do something for me?’

“What do they want?” I ask. “Free tickets?”

“Yes, or preferential seating,” said Ken, “but we tell them that if we do that for them, we’d have to do it for everybody.

“Or else it’s a cold, winter night and the theater is a little chilly. Some of the patrons want us to give them free popcorn.” Ken sighed.

Anybody in the service business is going to meet up with behavior like this. We probably should be grateful that most patients have enough respect for our profession to dissuade them from:

• Demanding to be seen for free or have us waive the copay since “the treatment didn’t work.”

• Refusing to hand over the copay for a follow-up, because, “It was just a quick check, didn’t take any time.”

• Insist on having us treat the wart or skin tag again at no charge, because “you missed a spot.”

And so on. At least even our demanding patients don’t ask for popcorn.

Myrna did show up that afternoon, by the way. I don’t know how much she spent on gas to come in. Our office manager Fatima took care of things. She gave Myrna her Buck-42:

Three quarters.

Two dimes.

Five nickels.

And 22 pennies.

Fatima is really good at keeping a straight face.

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

No good deed goes unpunished.

We froze Myrna’s keratosis off her forehead. Gratis, of course.

This was followed by repeated calls from Myrna: the spot was red, it was painful, it wasn’t healing right.

So we mailed her an envelope filled with cream to help heal the skin. Although we used our regular postage meter, somehow Myrna got the package with $1.42 postage due.

Not going to work.

Myrna called to complain. Then she drove over and walked into the office, but we weren’t there. Then she called again and left a message. “I’m coming in this afternoon,” she said. “I expect to pick up my $1.42.”

Really.

Later that morning, Stephanie came by for a skin check. Because Stephanie is catering manager at a downtown ultra-upscale hotel, I knew she would both appreciate the tale of $1.42 and be able to top it. Everyone in her field can fill several books of client encounters no one could make up.

When I asked her to share some stories, Stephanie did not disappoint.

Wikimedia/Wikicommons

“Sure,” she said. “People plan lavish weddings, no expense spared. But when they send gift baskets, we have to charge $3.50 each to pay the livery people who deliver them. That they object to.

“But what’s even worse,” she went on, “is when it comes to feeding the band. We discount the meals for musicians 60%-70% below the per-plate rate for guests.

“That’s not low enough for some people, though. We explain to them that the band members do have to eat. ‘Yes,’ say some of the brides, ‘but do we have to give them a whole meal? Can’t we just give them a sandwich or something?’ This is from people who are spending six figures on food alone.”

“Sounds like Marie Antoinette,” I said. “What do you tell them?”

“We say, OK, we’ll see if we can discount the band meals even more,” Stephanie said.

Not an hour later, Ken came in. Ken manages an art-house movie theater in a close-in, affluent suburb. As I knew he would, Ken had stories, too.

“People are always angling for some kind of special privilege,” he said. ‘I’ve been a patron for years,” they say. ‘Can’t you do something for me?’

“What do they want?” I ask. “Free tickets?”

“Yes, or preferential seating,” said Ken, “but we tell them that if we do that for them, we’d have to do it for everybody.

“Or else it’s a cold, winter night and the theater is a little chilly. Some of the patrons want us to give them free popcorn.” Ken sighed.

Anybody in the service business is going to meet up with behavior like this. We probably should be grateful that most patients have enough respect for our profession to dissuade them from:

• Demanding to be seen for free or have us waive the copay since “the treatment didn’t work.”

• Refusing to hand over the copay for a follow-up, because, “It was just a quick check, didn’t take any time.”

• Insist on having us treat the wart or skin tag again at no charge, because “you missed a spot.”

And so on. At least even our demanding patients don’t ask for popcorn.

Myrna did show up that afternoon, by the way. I don’t know how much she spent on gas to come in. Our office manager Fatima took care of things. She gave Myrna her Buck-42:

Three quarters.

Two dimes.

Five nickels.

And 22 pennies.

Fatima is really good at keeping a straight face.

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

No good deed goes unpunished.

We froze Myrna’s keratosis off her forehead. Gratis, of course.

This was followed by repeated calls from Myrna: the spot was red, it was painful, it wasn’t healing right.

So we mailed her an envelope filled with cream to help heal the skin. Although we used our regular postage meter, somehow Myrna got the package with $1.42 postage due.

Not going to work.

Myrna called to complain. Then she drove over and walked into the office, but we weren’t there. Then she called again and left a message. “I’m coming in this afternoon,” she said. “I expect to pick up my $1.42.”

Really.

Later that morning, Stephanie came by for a skin check. Because Stephanie is catering manager at a downtown ultra-upscale hotel, I knew she would both appreciate the tale of $1.42 and be able to top it. Everyone in her field can fill several books of client encounters no one could make up.

When I asked her to share some stories, Stephanie did not disappoint.

Wikimedia/Wikicommons

“Sure,” she said. “People plan lavish weddings, no expense spared. But when they send gift baskets, we have to charge $3.50 each to pay the livery people who deliver them. That they object to.

“But what’s even worse,” she went on, “is when it comes to feeding the band. We discount the meals for musicians 60%-70% below the per-plate rate for guests.

“That’s not low enough for some people, though. We explain to them that the band members do have to eat. ‘Yes,’ say some of the brides, ‘but do we have to give them a whole meal? Can’t we just give them a sandwich or something?’ This is from people who are spending six figures on food alone.”

“Sounds like Marie Antoinette,” I said. “What do you tell them?”

“We say, OK, we’ll see if we can discount the band meals even more,” Stephanie said.

Not an hour later, Ken came in. Ken manages an art-house movie theater in a close-in, affluent suburb. As I knew he would, Ken had stories, too.

“People are always angling for some kind of special privilege,” he said. ‘I’ve been a patron for years,” they say. ‘Can’t you do something for me?’

“What do they want?” I ask. “Free tickets?”

“Yes, or preferential seating,” said Ken, “but we tell them that if we do that for them, we’d have to do it for everybody.

“Or else it’s a cold, winter night and the theater is a little chilly. Some of the patrons want us to give them free popcorn.” Ken sighed.

Anybody in the service business is going to meet up with behavior like this. We probably should be grateful that most patients have enough respect for our profession to dissuade them from:

• Demanding to be seen for free or have us waive the copay since “the treatment didn’t work.”

• Refusing to hand over the copay for a follow-up, because, “It was just a quick check, didn’t take any time.”

• Insist on having us treat the wart or skin tag again at no charge, because “you missed a spot.”

And so on. At least even our demanding patients don’t ask for popcorn.

Myrna did show up that afternoon, by the way. I don’t know how much she spent on gas to come in. Our office manager Fatima took care of things. She gave Myrna her Buck-42:

Three quarters.

Two dimes.

Five nickels.

And 22 pennies.

Fatima is really good at keeping a straight face.

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

Brad came in with his mother for me to treat a small wart on the sole of his left foot. “It doesn’t bother me,” he said.

“I had one of those when I was Brad’s age,” said his mother, Mary Lou. “We neglected it and it really grew! With a thing like that, you have to nip it in the bud.”

We all learn little maxims about how the world works and what to do about it. One of these is that to avoid trouble, you should nip things in the bud.

This sounds like it makes sense. Sometimes it’s actually true. But there are other times when what you’re trying to nip doesn’t have a bud.

If you have a plantar wart on the bottom of your foot and you don’t treat it, here are some things that can happen:

•  It can grow and become painful.

•  It can stay the same for years, never bother you, and go away.

•  New ones can appear elsewhere on the sole.

•  It can disappear tomorrow afternoon.

Which will happen? For the individual case, I have no idea. Like you, I’ve seen ‘em all.

There are reasons other than functional disability to treat plantar warts. For instance, they’re ugly and embarrassing. So if treatment is not too painful or expensive, why not? But sometimes we freeze it – a standard treatment – and it takes forever, visit after visit, and the wart is still there, grinning complacently. Some insurance plans don’t cover treatments unless the wart hurts, so therapy gets too expensive.

That’s when it might make sense to explain to the patient that you can nip some buds off plants to help them grow better, but you really can’t nip the buds off warts, which have neither roots nor buds.

Another maxim we all pick up is that it’s better to be safe than sorry. That sounds like plain common sense. “Can’t you take off that mole?” asks Annie. “I’m sure it’s bigger that it used to be.”

It’s just an ordinary mole, though, and it doesn’t look worrisome. All moles grow – they start out small and get a bit bigger before they stop. Plus, Annie is a young woman, and her mole is on her face. Even if a plastic surgeon takes it off, she’ll have a scar with no wrinkles to hide it in.

I explain this to Annie. “But isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?” she asks.

Well, sometimes maybe. Just not this time.

Ankur has eczema. He is really frustrated. “Doctors keep giving me creams,” he says. “The rash gets a little better,” but then it comes back. “I’d like you to give me a treatment that will kick it in the butt.”

What Ankur wants, of course, is for me to do something that will shove eczema out the door and then lock the door behind it so it can’t come back.

I would love to do that. Only I can’t. Like the many other recurring conditions we treat every day, nothing specific causes eczema, so nothing definitive gets rid of it once and for all.

In other words, eczema has no butt. So you can’t kick it.

The examples I’ve given are common and homely. There are bigger issues, in medicine and in life, to which common-sense maxims seem to apply but sometimes don’t.

The well-known public debates over prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening for prostate cancer in older men and routine mammography in younger women attest to how tricky it is to decide whether catching things early is necessarily a good idea. It also shows how the public reacts when data contradict common sense. Of course you should catch cancer early, says the outraged public. Isn’t it always better to be safe than sorry?

No, actually it sometimes isn’t.

We all pick up maxims to live by. We hear them as children without realizing we’re learning them. That makes it hard to accept that not everything is a plant with a bud to be nipped. Or that there are situations when trying to be safe can make you sorrier.

Or that there are indeed butts, big and small. But not everything has one to kick.

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

Brad came in with his mother for me to treat a small wart on the sole of his left foot. “It doesn’t bother me,” he said.

“I had one of those when I was Brad’s age,” said his mother, Mary Lou. “We neglected it and it really grew! With a thing like that, you have to nip it in the bud.”

We all learn little maxims about how the world works and what to do about it. One of these is that to avoid trouble, you should nip things in the bud.

This sounds like it makes sense. Sometimes it’s actually true. But there are other times when what you’re trying to nip doesn’t have a bud.

If you have a plantar wart on the bottom of your foot and you don’t treat it, here are some things that can happen:

•  It can grow and become painful.

•  It can stay the same for years, never bother you, and go away.

•  New ones can appear elsewhere on the sole.

•  It can disappear tomorrow afternoon.

Which will happen? For the individual case, I have no idea. Like you, I’ve seen ‘em all.

There are reasons other than functional disability to treat plantar warts. For instance, they’re ugly and embarrassing. So if treatment is not too painful or expensive, why not? But sometimes we freeze it – a standard treatment – and it takes forever, visit after visit, and the wart is still there, grinning complacently. Some insurance plans don’t cover treatments unless the wart hurts, so therapy gets too expensive.

That’s when it might make sense to explain to the patient that you can nip some buds off plants to help them grow better, but you really can’t nip the buds off warts, which have neither roots nor buds.

Another maxim we all pick up is that it’s better to be safe than sorry. That sounds like plain common sense. “Can’t you take off that mole?” asks Annie. “I’m sure it’s bigger that it used to be.”

It’s just an ordinary mole, though, and it doesn’t look worrisome. All moles grow – they start out small and get a bit bigger before they stop. Plus, Annie is a young woman, and her mole is on her face. Even if a plastic surgeon takes it off, she’ll have a scar with no wrinkles to hide it in.

I explain this to Annie. “But isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?” she asks.

Well, sometimes maybe. Just not this time.

Ankur has eczema. He is really frustrated. “Doctors keep giving me creams,” he says. “The rash gets a little better,” but then it comes back. “I’d like you to give me a treatment that will kick it in the butt.”

What Ankur wants, of course, is for me to do something that will shove eczema out the door and then lock the door behind it so it can’t come back.

I would love to do that. Only I can’t. Like the many other recurring conditions we treat every day, nothing specific causes eczema, so nothing definitive gets rid of it once and for all.

In other words, eczema has no butt. So you can’t kick it.

The examples I’ve given are common and homely. There are bigger issues, in medicine and in life, to which common-sense maxims seem to apply but sometimes don’t.

The well-known public debates over prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening for prostate cancer in older men and routine mammography in younger women attest to how tricky it is to decide whether catching things early is necessarily a good idea. It also shows how the public reacts when data contradict common sense. Of course you should catch cancer early, says the outraged public. Isn’t it always better to be safe than sorry?

No, actually it sometimes isn’t.

We all pick up maxims to live by. We hear them as children without realizing we’re learning them. That makes it hard to accept that not everything is a plant with a bud to be nipped. Or that there are situations when trying to be safe can make you sorrier.

Or that there are indeed butts, big and small. But not everything has one to kick.

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

Brad came in with his mother for me to treat a small wart on the sole of his left foot. “It doesn’t bother me,” he said.

“I had one of those when I was Brad’s age,” said his mother, Mary Lou. “We neglected it and it really grew! With a thing like that, you have to nip it in the bud.”

We all learn little maxims about how the world works and what to do about it. One of these is that to avoid trouble, you should nip things in the bud.

This sounds like it makes sense. Sometimes it’s actually true. But there are other times when what you’re trying to nip doesn’t have a bud.

If you have a plantar wart on the bottom of your foot and you don’t treat it, here are some things that can happen:

•  It can grow and become painful.

•  It can stay the same for years, never bother you, and go away.

•  New ones can appear elsewhere on the sole.

•  It can disappear tomorrow afternoon.

Which will happen? For the individual case, I have no idea. Like you, I’ve seen ‘em all.

There are reasons other than functional disability to treat plantar warts. For instance, they’re ugly and embarrassing. So if treatment is not too painful or expensive, why not? But sometimes we freeze it – a standard treatment – and it takes forever, visit after visit, and the wart is still there, grinning complacently. Some insurance plans don’t cover treatments unless the wart hurts, so therapy gets too expensive.

That’s when it might make sense to explain to the patient that you can nip some buds off plants to help them grow better, but you really can’t nip the buds off warts, which have neither roots nor buds.

Another maxim we all pick up is that it’s better to be safe than sorry. That sounds like plain common sense. “Can’t you take off that mole?” asks Annie. “I’m sure it’s bigger that it used to be.”

It’s just an ordinary mole, though, and it doesn’t look worrisome. All moles grow – they start out small and get a bit bigger before they stop. Plus, Annie is a young woman, and her mole is on her face. Even if a plastic surgeon takes it off, she’ll have a scar with no wrinkles to hide it in.

I explain this to Annie. “But isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?” she asks.

Well, sometimes maybe. Just not this time.

Ankur has eczema. He is really frustrated. “Doctors keep giving me creams,” he says. “The rash gets a little better,” but then it comes back. “I’d like you to give me a treatment that will kick it in the butt.”

What Ankur wants, of course, is for me to do something that will shove eczema out the door and then lock the door behind it so it can’t come back.

I would love to do that. Only I can’t. Like the many other recurring conditions we treat every day, nothing specific causes eczema, so nothing definitive gets rid of it once and for all.

In other words, eczema has no butt. So you can’t kick it.

The examples I’ve given are common and homely. There are bigger issues, in medicine and in life, to which common-sense maxims seem to apply but sometimes don’t.

The well-known public debates over prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening for prostate cancer in older men and routine mammography in younger women attest to how tricky it is to decide whether catching things early is necessarily a good idea. It also shows how the public reacts when data contradict common sense. Of course you should catch cancer early, says the outraged public. Isn’t it always better to be safe than sorry?

No, actually it sometimes isn’t.

We all pick up maxims to live by. We hear them as children without realizing we’re learning them. That makes it hard to accept that not everything is a plant with a bud to be nipped. Or that there are situations when trying to be safe can make you sorrier.

Or that there are indeed butts, big and small. But not everything has one to kick.

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

They put Bill’s chart on my desk, with a cover sheet. “I authorize you to send all my medical records,” it read, over his signature. The destination was a dermatologist across town.

I reviewed Bill’s record. His last visit was 6 months ago, just a skin check to mop up some solar keratoses. One of many such visits over 20 years. A basal cell on the shoulder 10 years ago. Nothing eventful.

“What happened?” I wondered, as I signed off on sending his chart. Had I missed a skin cancer?

That thought brought to mind Maxine. She, too, had been my patient for many years. Her niece still comes in.

Maxine had a history of sun damage, along with a few low-grade skin cancers. One day I biopsied a hand lesion. It was a squamous cell. I called her with the results and referred her to a surgeon. Nothing new or special, or so it seemed.

A few weeks later I got Maxine’s letter. “Send all my medical records.”

So I had not missed her squamous cell, but she still wanted out. How come?

Over the course of a clinical career, patients drop out. They move away, pass away, change insurance, retire to Florida or Arizona. Sometimes they come back, years later. They lost their job in L.A., or moved back to nurse a sick parent. Perhaps they got their old insurance back, or their new doctor stopped accepting the kind they had. It’s been 5 years, 10 years. You didn’t even notice they were gone.

The same thing happens of course in other aspects of life. People move in and out of our orbit: school chums, work mates, parents of kids who play with our kids, neighbors. They grow up, move away, get lost somehow. Unless they reappear, we often don’t realize they aren’t there anymore.

Most of the time there was no special event, no angry falling out. Lives just diverged. We lost whatever we had in common. Nothing personal.

But former acquaintances don’t generally send you a note officially severing relations, a letter notifying you to, “Forget about me. You won’t be seeing me again.”

If we got such a letter, we might actually be relieved. Chances are, though, that if we weren’t expecting it (or secretly wishing for it), we would wonder what it was about. Was there a quarrel we didn’t even know about?

Chances are we wouldn’t try too hard to find out what the problem was, though. Whatever we did manage to learn would probably be unpleasant and unfixable.

The same is true when patients ask us to send all their records. Most people stay, unless something propels them to move on. Absent a shift in geography or health insurance, whatever did overcome their inertia it is probably not something we want to know.

“This will happen to you,” I tell my students. “Count on it. Patients will ask for their records. They may send you a note of complaint. ‘You didn’t find the skin cancer on mother’s leg,’ they may say. Or else, ‘Your treatments were useless. I went to another doctor who actually knew what was wrong and gave me what I needed.’ ” Nowadays, people put such sentiments into unfavorable online reviews.

“When you get letters or read reviews like those,” I advise, “count to 10 before you respond. Then count to 10 again. Then don’t respond. I’ve tried doing it the other way and regretted it every time.

“Mostly, there’s no potential litigation involved,” I continue. “If there is a threatened suit, you’ll need an attorney to respond anyway. Otherwise, learn what you can from the patient’s disappointment, file the letter, note the review, send all the records, and move on.”

We doctors tend to be an ingratiating sort. Because we try to help people, we want them to like us. Many will, often to excess. But good as we ever get, try as hard as we can, not everybody will like us. That’s life, in and out of medical practice.

Rejection is never pleasant. Experience thickens the skin, but even then a signed request to “Send all my records” can sting. Even after all these years, it still does.

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

They put Bill’s chart on my desk, with a cover sheet. “I authorize you to send all my medical records,” it read, over his signature. The destination was a dermatologist across town.

I reviewed Bill’s record. His last visit was 6 months ago, just a skin check to mop up some solar keratoses. One of many such visits over 20 years. A basal cell on the shoulder 10 years ago. Nothing eventful.

“What happened?” I wondered, as I signed off on sending his chart. Had I missed a skin cancer?

That thought brought to mind Maxine. She, too, had been my patient for many years. Her niece still comes in.

Maxine had a history of sun damage, along with a few low-grade skin cancers. One day I biopsied a hand lesion. It was a squamous cell. I called her with the results and referred her to a surgeon. Nothing new or special, or so it seemed.

A few weeks later I got Maxine’s letter. “Send all my medical records.”

So I had not missed her squamous cell, but she still wanted out. How come?

Over the course of a clinical career, patients drop out. They move away, pass away, change insurance, retire to Florida or Arizona. Sometimes they come back, years later. They lost their job in L.A., or moved back to nurse a sick parent. Perhaps they got their old insurance back, or their new doctor stopped accepting the kind they had. It’s been 5 years, 10 years. You didn’t even notice they were gone.

The same thing happens of course in other aspects of life. People move in and out of our orbit: school chums, work mates, parents of kids who play with our kids, neighbors. They grow up, move away, get lost somehow. Unless they reappear, we often don’t realize they aren’t there anymore.

Most of the time there was no special event, no angry falling out. Lives just diverged. We lost whatever we had in common. Nothing personal.

But former acquaintances don’t generally send you a note officially severing relations, a letter notifying you to, “Forget about me. You won’t be seeing me again.”

If we got such a letter, we might actually be relieved. Chances are, though, that if we weren’t expecting it (or secretly wishing for it), we would wonder what it was about. Was there a quarrel we didn’t even know about?

Chances are we wouldn’t try too hard to find out what the problem was, though. Whatever we did manage to learn would probably be unpleasant and unfixable.

The same is true when patients ask us to send all their records. Most people stay, unless something propels them to move on. Absent a shift in geography or health insurance, whatever did overcome their inertia it is probably not something we want to know.

“This will happen to you,” I tell my students. “Count on it. Patients will ask for their records. They may send you a note of complaint. ‘You didn’t find the skin cancer on mother’s leg,’ they may say. Or else, ‘Your treatments were useless. I went to another doctor who actually knew what was wrong and gave me what I needed.’ ” Nowadays, people put such sentiments into unfavorable online reviews.

“When you get letters or read reviews like those,” I advise, “count to 10 before you respond. Then count to 10 again. Then don’t respond. I’ve tried doing it the other way and regretted it every time.

“Mostly, there’s no potential litigation involved,” I continue. “If there is a threatened suit, you’ll need an attorney to respond anyway. Otherwise, learn what you can from the patient’s disappointment, file the letter, note the review, send all the records, and move on.”

We doctors tend to be an ingratiating sort. Because we try to help people, we want them to like us. Many will, often to excess. But good as we ever get, try as hard as we can, not everybody will like us. That’s life, in and out of medical practice.

Rejection is never pleasant. Experience thickens the skin, but even then a signed request to “Send all my records” can sting. Even after all these years, it still does.

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

They put Bill’s chart on my desk, with a cover sheet. “I authorize you to send all my medical records,” it read, over his signature. The destination was a dermatologist across town.

I reviewed Bill’s record. His last visit was 6 months ago, just a skin check to mop up some solar keratoses. One of many such visits over 20 years. A basal cell on the shoulder 10 years ago. Nothing eventful.

“What happened?” I wondered, as I signed off on sending his chart. Had I missed a skin cancer?

That thought brought to mind Maxine. She, too, had been my patient for many years. Her niece still comes in.

Maxine had a history of sun damage, along with a few low-grade skin cancers. One day I biopsied a hand lesion. It was a squamous cell. I called her with the results and referred her to a surgeon. Nothing new or special, or so it seemed.

A few weeks later I got Maxine’s letter. “Send all my medical records.”

So I had not missed her squamous cell, but she still wanted out. How come?

Over the course of a clinical career, patients drop out. They move away, pass away, change insurance, retire to Florida or Arizona. Sometimes they come back, years later. They lost their job in L.A., or moved back to nurse a sick parent. Perhaps they got their old insurance back, or their new doctor stopped accepting the kind they had. It’s been 5 years, 10 years. You didn’t even notice they were gone.

The same thing happens of course in other aspects of life. People move in and out of our orbit: school chums, work mates, parents of kids who play with our kids, neighbors. They grow up, move away, get lost somehow. Unless they reappear, we often don’t realize they aren’t there anymore.

Most of the time there was no special event, no angry falling out. Lives just diverged. We lost whatever we had in common. Nothing personal.

But former acquaintances don’t generally send you a note officially severing relations, a letter notifying you to, “Forget about me. You won’t be seeing me again.”

If we got such a letter, we might actually be relieved. Chances are, though, that if we weren’t expecting it (or secretly wishing for it), we would wonder what it was about. Was there a quarrel we didn’t even know about?

Chances are we wouldn’t try too hard to find out what the problem was, though. Whatever we did manage to learn would probably be unpleasant and unfixable.

The same is true when patients ask us to send all their records. Most people stay, unless something propels them to move on. Absent a shift in geography or health insurance, whatever did overcome their inertia it is probably not something we want to know.

“This will happen to you,” I tell my students. “Count on it. Patients will ask for their records. They may send you a note of complaint. ‘You didn’t find the skin cancer on mother’s leg,’ they may say. Or else, ‘Your treatments were useless. I went to another doctor who actually knew what was wrong and gave me what I needed.’ ” Nowadays, people put such sentiments into unfavorable online reviews.

“When you get letters or read reviews like those,” I advise, “count to 10 before you respond. Then count to 10 again. Then don’t respond. I’ve tried doing it the other way and regretted it every time.

“Mostly, there’s no potential litigation involved,” I continue. “If there is a threatened suit, you’ll need an attorney to respond anyway. Otherwise, learn what you can from the patient’s disappointment, file the letter, note the review, send all the records, and move on.”

We doctors tend to be an ingratiating sort. Because we try to help people, we want them to like us. Many will, often to excess. But good as we ever get, try as hard as we can, not everybody will like us. That’s life, in and out of medical practice.

Rejection is never pleasant. Experience thickens the skin, but even then a signed request to “Send all my records” can sting. Even after all these years, it still does.

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

In a previous column, I warned about the high cost of generic desonide. This month, I alert you to the many potential dangers of this drug. By the time I’m done, you may not want to go near the stuff.

To approve e-scribe refills, we all need to acknowledge warnings and dangers and click “Benefit outweighs risk” or “Previously tolerated” or some other option. But some of these warnings make me wonder who on earth writes them.

Desonide comes with more warnings than almost any other medicine I prescribe electronically. I counted 21 such warnings. Here are some examples:

1. Desonide External Cream 0.05% should be used cautiously in Bacterial Infection, especially in Systemic Bacterial Infection. Since Folliculitis is a specific form of Bacterial Infection, the same precaution may apply.

I confess that I never thought of prescribing desonide for Bacterial Infection, Systemic or otherwise. Have you? (By the way, what’s with the excess use of capital letters?)

The second warning is even more dramatic.

2. Desonide External Cream 0.05% should be used cautiously in Viral Infection, especially in Systemic Viral Infection.

What makes this even more curious is the Viral Infections the warnings go on to enumerate.

2a. Since Actinic Keratosis is a specific form of Viral Infection, the same precaution may apply.

Actinic Keratosis is a Viral Infection? I didn’t know that.

3. Since Actinic Keratosis of the Hands and Arms is a specific form of Viral Infection, the same precaution may apply.

Now we learn of different subgroups of Actinic Keratoses that are Viral Infections. Did they teach you these in Dermatology School? (Please see Warnings 6-10, below.)

4. This warning refers to a specific Bacterial Infection called Folliculitis Nares Perforans. I don’t know what that is, but it sounds bad. Glad they warned me.

5. Since Pseudofolliculitis Barbae is a specific form of Bacterial Infection, the same precaution may apply.

I never used much desonide for pseudofolliculitis, cautiously or otherwise.

Warnings 6-10 describe more specific forms of Viral Infection: (6) Non-Hyperkeratotic Actinic Keratosis, (7) Actinic Keratosis of Face and Anterior Scalp, (8) Non-Hyperkeratotic Non-Pigmented Actinic Keratosis, (9) Non-Hyperkeratotic Face and Scalp Actinic Keratosis, (10) Pigmented Actinic Keratosis.

This is most disturbing. What Systemic Viral Infections did they leave me to use desonide on? Hyperkeratotic Non-Pigmented Actinic Keratoses of the Posterior Scalp?

Warning 11 is another specific Bacterial Infection: Local Folliculitis. What is the opposite of Local Folliculitis? Express Folliculitis?

Warning 12 is Perioral Dermatitis. Steroids on rosacea? Really? Maybe a cheaper one.

I will now skip to warning 16: Hirsutism has been associated with Desonide External Cream 0.05%. Since Hair Disease is a more general form of Hirsutism, it may also be considered a drug-related medical condition.

Did you know that desonide causes unwanted hair growth? Or realize that Hair Disease is a more general form of Hirsutism? I myself have male-pattern baldness. (Sorry, Male-Pattern BALDNESS.) Since Baldness is a Hair Disease, is it also a more general form of Hirsutism? Instead of having too little hair, do I now have too much?

The same is true for warning 17, which is identical to 16, except that it substitutes “Hypertrichosis” for “Hirsutism.”

Okay, colleagues, it’s time for a personal reckoning. You trained, practiced, took CME, but you didn’t know about any of these risks, did you? You’ve just been just heedlessly, incautiously, throwing around desonide, producing hairy patients with Systemic Bacterial and Viral Infections. And on “Non-Hyperkeratotic Non-Pigmented Actinic Keratosis,” no less. Aren’t you disappointed in yourselves?

When I first read warnings like these, I wrote my EMR provider to ask who puts together this stuff, and which consultants vet it. They never answered. It is very hard to believe that a dermatologist was involved at any stage of developing these warnings, with their irrelevant caveats and absurd classification schemes.

Who would develop electronic prescribing guidelines without at least consulting the physicians who do the prescribing? Why would they want to?

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

In a previous column, I warned about the high cost of generic desonide. This month, I alert you to the many potential dangers of this drug. By the time I’m done, you may not want to go near the stuff.

To approve e-scribe refills, we all need to acknowledge warnings and dangers and click “Benefit outweighs risk” or “Previously tolerated” or some other option. But some of these warnings make me wonder who on earth writes them.

Desonide comes with more warnings than almost any other medicine I prescribe electronically. I counted 21 such warnings. Here are some examples:

1. Desonide External Cream 0.05% should be used cautiously in Bacterial Infection, especially in Systemic Bacterial Infection. Since Folliculitis is a specific form of Bacterial Infection, the same precaution may apply.

I confess that I never thought of prescribing desonide for Bacterial Infection, Systemic or otherwise. Have you? (By the way, what’s with the excess use of capital letters?)

The second warning is even more dramatic.

2. Desonide External Cream 0.05% should be used cautiously in Viral Infection, especially in Systemic Viral Infection.

What makes this even more curious is the Viral Infections the warnings go on to enumerate.

2a. Since Actinic Keratosis is a specific form of Viral Infection, the same precaution may apply.

Actinic Keratosis is a Viral Infection? I didn’t know that.

3. Since Actinic Keratosis of the Hands and Arms is a specific form of Viral Infection, the same precaution may apply.

Now we learn of different subgroups of Actinic Keratoses that are Viral Infections. Did they teach you these in Dermatology School? (Please see Warnings 6-10, below.)

4. This warning refers to a specific Bacterial Infection called Folliculitis Nares Perforans. I don’t know what that is, but it sounds bad. Glad they warned me.

5. Since Pseudofolliculitis Barbae is a specific form of Bacterial Infection, the same precaution may apply.

I never used much desonide for pseudofolliculitis, cautiously or otherwise.

Warnings 6-10 describe more specific forms of Viral Infection: (6) Non-Hyperkeratotic Actinic Keratosis, (7) Actinic Keratosis of Face and Anterior Scalp, (8) Non-Hyperkeratotic Non-Pigmented Actinic Keratosis, (9) Non-Hyperkeratotic Face and Scalp Actinic Keratosis, (10) Pigmented Actinic Keratosis.

This is most disturbing. What Systemic Viral Infections did they leave me to use desonide on? Hyperkeratotic Non-Pigmented Actinic Keratoses of the Posterior Scalp?

Warning 11 is another specific Bacterial Infection: Local Folliculitis. What is the opposite of Local Folliculitis? Express Folliculitis?

Warning 12 is Perioral Dermatitis. Steroids on rosacea? Really? Maybe a cheaper one.

I will now skip to warning 16: Hirsutism has been associated with Desonide External Cream 0.05%. Since Hair Disease is a more general form of Hirsutism, it may also be considered a drug-related medical condition.

Did you know that desonide causes unwanted hair growth? Or realize that Hair Disease is a more general form of Hirsutism? I myself have male-pattern baldness. (Sorry, Male-Pattern BALDNESS.) Since Baldness is a Hair Disease, is it also a more general form of Hirsutism? Instead of having too little hair, do I now have too much?

The same is true for warning 17, which is identical to 16, except that it substitutes “Hypertrichosis” for “Hirsutism.”

Okay, colleagues, it’s time for a personal reckoning. You trained, practiced, took CME, but you didn’t know about any of these risks, did you? You’ve just been just heedlessly, incautiously, throwing around desonide, producing hairy patients with Systemic Bacterial and Viral Infections. And on “Non-Hyperkeratotic Non-Pigmented Actinic Keratosis,” no less. Aren’t you disappointed in yourselves?

When I first read warnings like these, I wrote my EMR provider to ask who puts together this stuff, and which consultants vet it. They never answered. It is very hard to believe that a dermatologist was involved at any stage of developing these warnings, with their irrelevant caveats and absurd classification schemes.

Who would develop electronic prescribing guidelines without at least consulting the physicians who do the prescribing? Why would they want to?

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

In a previous column, I warned about the high cost of generic desonide. This month, I alert you to the many potential dangers of this drug. By the time I’m done, you may not want to go near the stuff.

To approve e-scribe refills, we all need to acknowledge warnings and dangers and click “Benefit outweighs risk” or “Previously tolerated” or some other option. But some of these warnings make me wonder who on earth writes them.

Desonide comes with more warnings than almost any other medicine I prescribe electronically. I counted 21 such warnings. Here are some examples:

1. Desonide External Cream 0.05% should be used cautiously in Bacterial Infection, especially in Systemic Bacterial Infection. Since Folliculitis is a specific form of Bacterial Infection, the same precaution may apply.

I confess that I never thought of prescribing desonide for Bacterial Infection, Systemic or otherwise. Have you? (By the way, what’s with the excess use of capital letters?)

The second warning is even more dramatic.

2. Desonide External Cream 0.05% should be used cautiously in Viral Infection, especially in Systemic Viral Infection.

What makes this even more curious is the Viral Infections the warnings go on to enumerate.

2a. Since Actinic Keratosis is a specific form of Viral Infection, the same precaution may apply.

Actinic Keratosis is a Viral Infection? I didn’t know that.

3. Since Actinic Keratosis of the Hands and Arms is a specific form of Viral Infection, the same precaution may apply.

Now we learn of different subgroups of Actinic Keratoses that are Viral Infections. Did they teach you these in Dermatology School? (Please see Warnings 6-10, below.)

4. This warning refers to a specific Bacterial Infection called Folliculitis Nares Perforans. I don’t know what that is, but it sounds bad. Glad they warned me.

5. Since Pseudofolliculitis Barbae is a specific form of Bacterial Infection, the same precaution may apply.

I never used much desonide for pseudofolliculitis, cautiously or otherwise.

Warnings 6-10 describe more specific forms of Viral Infection: (6) Non-Hyperkeratotic Actinic Keratosis, (7) Actinic Keratosis of Face and Anterior Scalp, (8) Non-Hyperkeratotic Non-Pigmented Actinic Keratosis, (9) Non-Hyperkeratotic Face and Scalp Actinic Keratosis, (10) Pigmented Actinic Keratosis.

This is most disturbing. What Systemic Viral Infections did they leave me to use desonide on? Hyperkeratotic Non-Pigmented Actinic Keratoses of the Posterior Scalp?

Warning 11 is another specific Bacterial Infection: Local Folliculitis. What is the opposite of Local Folliculitis? Express Folliculitis?

Warning 12 is Perioral Dermatitis. Steroids on rosacea? Really? Maybe a cheaper one.

I will now skip to warning 16: Hirsutism has been associated with Desonide External Cream 0.05%. Since Hair Disease is a more general form of Hirsutism, it may also be considered a drug-related medical condition.

Did you know that desonide causes unwanted hair growth? Or realize that Hair Disease is a more general form of Hirsutism? I myself have male-pattern baldness. (Sorry, Male-Pattern BALDNESS.) Since Baldness is a Hair Disease, is it also a more general form of Hirsutism? Instead of having too little hair, do I now have too much?

The same is true for warning 17, which is identical to 16, except that it substitutes “Hypertrichosis” for “Hirsutism.”

Okay, colleagues, it’s time for a personal reckoning. You trained, practiced, took CME, but you didn’t know about any of these risks, did you? You’ve just been just heedlessly, incautiously, throwing around desonide, producing hairy patients with Systemic Bacterial and Viral Infections. And on “Non-Hyperkeratotic Non-Pigmented Actinic Keratosis,” no less. Aren’t you disappointed in yourselves?

When I first read warnings like these, I wrote my EMR provider to ask who puts together this stuff, and which consultants vet it. They never answered. It is very hard to believe that a dermatologist was involved at any stage of developing these warnings, with their irrelevant caveats and absurd classification schemes.

Who would develop electronic prescribing guidelines without at least consulting the physicians who do the prescribing? Why would they want to?

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

“So tell me, Kathy,” I asked as I walked in. “Is the wedding still on?”

“Yes!” she said.

I was kidding, of course. I wanted to defuse the tension every bride feels as her big day approaches. With her nuptials 2 months off, Kathy was here for an acne tune-up.

Good news: no new pimples. Though Kathy had stopped squeezing her old ones, their marks were fading slowly. Brides don’t want to depend on makeup or Photoshop.

Her current regimen was a topical antibiotic in the morning and a retinoid at night. The question was whether to add or change anything.

“Maybe we should consider adding an oral medicine to help speed healing?” I asked. Then I watched her eyes. Her frown gave me my answer.

“I’d prefer to avoid oral medications unless I absolutely need them,” Kathy said.

“No problem,” I said. “You’re doing well, and we still have 2 months for the marks you have to fade.” I arranged to see her again shortly before the wedding, for any last-minute adjustments.

Outside the exam room, I took my student aside. “That’s how you negotiate,” I told her.

“Some young women approach their weddings in a kind of panic. They want to do whatever it takes to speed healing. If Kathy had felt that way, and I told her things were fine as they were, she would have been upset. ‘Isn’t there something else we can do, maybe something to take by mouth?’ she’d have asked.

“Instead, Kathy felt the opposite,” I told my student. “When patients have a specific problem, you can make a shrewd guess about how aggressive they want to be in addressing it. But you can’t be sure. That means watching their eyes and body language when making suggestions.

“Of course, not every medical condition is negotiable. Sometimes, the matter is so urgent or dire that there really is only one thing to do. Then you have to be more direct. But many situations are not so clear cut. You and the patient will have choices. Which is best may depend less on the medical condition than on the patient’s mindset and circumstances.

“Your job is to know the options, watch their eyes, and negotiate,” I said.

My student nodded, probably noticing that this is not standard clinical advice. In school, they teach you to make the right diagnosis and prescribe the treatment of choice. Anything else would be substandard care, a dereliction of professional duty.

Nowadays, teachers – and insurers – go in for algorithms, cookbook medicine. If the patient has this, do this. If that, do that. “How do you treat acne?” students often ask at the start of their rotation. “Can you give me a decision tree?”

These days more and more doctors spend their visit time clicking tablets or laptops. If the patient has acne, they are checking off vital data points like:

• Are there pimples, pustules, whiteheads, blackheads, cysts?

• How many of each?

• Where they are – face, chest, back?

This information is supposed to objectively describe and grade the patient’s acne. You click what is important: what you can count and measure.

Here is what electronic medical records do not have you click off:

• Is the patient getting married soon?

• Is she afraid of oral antibiotics because she’s heard they wreck your immune system and make you sick?

• Have her friends recommended an acne cream they are sure is the best thing since sliced tretinoin?

They don’t make boxes for what goes on inside people’s brains. You can’t count or measure that, and if you can’t count it, it doesn’t count.

So doctors click what they tell us to. As we click the keyboard, we are not looking at the patient’s face. So we don’t know whether the patient is buying what we have to offer.

More medical treatment than we care to admit is – or should be – a process of negotiation. Negotiating means looking people in the eye and hearing what they say and the way they say it. That way you know not only what they have, but what they want. In Kathy’s case, that would be a wedding to remember.

As she proceeds in her career, my student may do more than counting pimples and grading acne. At any rate, I hope so.

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

“So tell me, Kathy,” I asked as I walked in. “Is the wedding still on?”

“Yes!” she said.

I was kidding, of course. I wanted to defuse the tension every bride feels as her big day approaches. With her nuptials 2 months off, Kathy was here for an acne tune-up.

Good news: no new pimples. Though Kathy had stopped squeezing her old ones, their marks were fading slowly. Brides don’t want to depend on makeup or Photoshop.

Her current regimen was a topical antibiotic in the morning and a retinoid at night. The question was whether to add or change anything.

“Maybe we should consider adding an oral medicine to help speed healing?” I asked. Then I watched her eyes. Her frown gave me my answer.

“I’d prefer to avoid oral medications unless I absolutely need them,” Kathy said.

“No problem,” I said. “You’re doing well, and we still have 2 months for the marks you have to fade.” I arranged to see her again shortly before the wedding, for any last-minute adjustments.

Outside the exam room, I took my student aside. “That’s how you negotiate,” I told her.

“Some young women approach their weddings in a kind of panic. They want to do whatever it takes to speed healing. If Kathy had felt that way, and I told her things were fine as they were, she would have been upset. ‘Isn’t there something else we can do, maybe something to take by mouth?’ she’d have asked.

“Instead, Kathy felt the opposite,” I told my student. “When patients have a specific problem, you can make a shrewd guess about how aggressive they want to be in addressing it. But you can’t be sure. That means watching their eyes and body language when making suggestions.

“Of course, not every medical condition is negotiable. Sometimes, the matter is so urgent or dire that there really is only one thing to do. Then you have to be more direct. But many situations are not so clear cut. You and the patient will have choices. Which is best may depend less on the medical condition than on the patient’s mindset and circumstances.

“Your job is to know the options, watch their eyes, and negotiate,” I said.

My student nodded, probably noticing that this is not standard clinical advice. In school, they teach you to make the right diagnosis and prescribe the treatment of choice. Anything else would be substandard care, a dereliction of professional duty.

Nowadays, teachers – and insurers – go in for algorithms, cookbook medicine. If the patient has this, do this. If that, do that. “How do you treat acne?” students often ask at the start of their rotation. “Can you give me a decision tree?”

These days more and more doctors spend their visit time clicking tablets or laptops. If the patient has acne, they are checking off vital data points like:

• Are there pimples, pustules, whiteheads, blackheads, cysts?

• How many of each?

• Where they are – face, chest, back?

This information is supposed to objectively describe and grade the patient’s acne. You click what is important: what you can count and measure.

Here is what electronic medical records do not have you click off:

• Is the patient getting married soon?

• Is she afraid of oral antibiotics because she’s heard they wreck your immune system and make you sick?

• Have her friends recommended an acne cream they are sure is the best thing since sliced tretinoin?

They don’t make boxes for what goes on inside people’s brains. You can’t count or measure that, and if you can’t count it, it doesn’t count.

So doctors click what they tell us to. As we click the keyboard, we are not looking at the patient’s face. So we don’t know whether the patient is buying what we have to offer.

More medical treatment than we care to admit is – or should be – a process of negotiation. Negotiating means looking people in the eye and hearing what they say and the way they say it. That way you know not only what they have, but what they want. In Kathy’s case, that would be a wedding to remember.

As she proceeds in her career, my student may do more than counting pimples and grading acne. At any rate, I hope so.

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

“So tell me, Kathy,” I asked as I walked in. “Is the wedding still on?”

“Yes!” she said.

I was kidding, of course. I wanted to defuse the tension every bride feels as her big day approaches. With her nuptials 2 months off, Kathy was here for an acne tune-up.

Good news: no new pimples. Though Kathy had stopped squeezing her old ones, their marks were fading slowly. Brides don’t want to depend on makeup or Photoshop.

Her current regimen was a topical antibiotic in the morning and a retinoid at night. The question was whether to add or change anything.

“Maybe we should consider adding an oral medicine to help speed healing?” I asked. Then I watched her eyes. Her frown gave me my answer.

“I’d prefer to avoid oral medications unless I absolutely need them,” Kathy said.

“No problem,” I said. “You’re doing well, and we still have 2 months for the marks you have to fade.” I arranged to see her again shortly before the wedding, for any last-minute adjustments.

Outside the exam room, I took my student aside. “That’s how you negotiate,” I told her.

“Some young women approach their weddings in a kind of panic. They want to do whatever it takes to speed healing. If Kathy had felt that way, and I told her things were fine as they were, she would have been upset. ‘Isn’t there something else we can do, maybe something to take by mouth?’ she’d have asked.

“Instead, Kathy felt the opposite,” I told my student. “When patients have a specific problem, you can make a shrewd guess about how aggressive they want to be in addressing it. But you can’t be sure. That means watching their eyes and body language when making suggestions.

“Of course, not every medical condition is negotiable. Sometimes, the matter is so urgent or dire that there really is only one thing to do. Then you have to be more direct. But many situations are not so clear cut. You and the patient will have choices. Which is best may depend less on the medical condition than on the patient’s mindset and circumstances.

“Your job is to know the options, watch their eyes, and negotiate,” I said.

My student nodded, probably noticing that this is not standard clinical advice. In school, they teach you to make the right diagnosis and prescribe the treatment of choice. Anything else would be substandard care, a dereliction of professional duty.

Nowadays, teachers – and insurers – go in for algorithms, cookbook medicine. If the patient has this, do this. If that, do that. “How do you treat acne?” students often ask at the start of their rotation. “Can you give me a decision tree?”

These days more and more doctors spend their visit time clicking tablets or laptops. If the patient has acne, they are checking off vital data points like:

• Are there pimples, pustules, whiteheads, blackheads, cysts?

• How many of each?

• Where they are – face, chest, back?

This information is supposed to objectively describe and grade the patient’s acne. You click what is important: what you can count and measure.

Here is what electronic medical records do not have you click off:

• Is the patient getting married soon?

• Is she afraid of oral antibiotics because she’s heard they wreck your immune system and make you sick?

• Have her friends recommended an acne cream they are sure is the best thing since sliced tretinoin?

They don’t make boxes for what goes on inside people’s brains. You can’t count or measure that, and if you can’t count it, it doesn’t count.

So doctors click what they tell us to. As we click the keyboard, we are not looking at the patient’s face. So we don’t know whether the patient is buying what we have to offer.

More medical treatment than we care to admit is – or should be – a process of negotiation. Negotiating means looking people in the eye and hearing what they say and the way they say it. That way you know not only what they have, but what they want. In Kathy’s case, that would be a wedding to remember.

As she proceeds in her career, my student may do more than counting pimples and grading acne. At any rate, I hope so.

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

The other day I had a chat with a chiropractor I’ll call Stan. Stan was excited about a new technique he has used to build his practice, whose clients now number several celebrities (some of whom I’d even heard of). “I specialize in muscular work and performance enhancement,” he said. “Performers with strenuous routines and a lot of stress need to sustain peak performance.”

A colleague out West whom Stan described as “very brilliant” had developed this technique. “It’s patented,” he said.

Stan went on to describe how this method has given him a whole new sense of the body. “I can actually feel the small transverse muscles of the vertebrae respond under my fingers,” he said. “The results are amazing.”

“How did you learn this technique?” I asked him.

“I took courses with the inventor,” he said. “His courses are patented, and can only be taught by accredited instructors. That ensures that the method is being done right. There are nine levels of certification.”

“Nine?”

“Yes, you have to keep taking more courses, learning new things. It’s very exciting.”

“By the way,” I asked, “how do you know that this method works better than the older ones you learned when you went to school?”

“Oh, you can feel and see the difference,” he said. “If you’re asking if there are studies or things like that, I guess there aren’t. But there’s no question that it’s better.”

“Do they teach this technique in chiropractic school?”

“No. As I said, it’s patented.”

“In that case,” I said, “it seems your professional schools are teaching inferior treatment methods.”

That gave Stan some pause. While he was thinking, I continued.

“It’s interesting,” I said. “In my profession, if someone came up with a treatment that was better than what everyone else was doing, he would need to do studies that proved he was right. He would also feel ethically bound to let everyone else know about the method, so all patients could be treated that way.”

Stan’s blank look suggested that this line of analysis had not occurred to him.

“But you must have some special techniques you use in your practice,” he said.

“No,” I said, “actually I don’t. I just practice conventional dermatology. Nothing special or unique about what I do.”

“What about the teaching hospitals in Boston,” he went on. “Don’t they do things no one else does?”

“Possibly,” I said. “But if they come up with a new technique, they have to convince others in the profession – and insurance companies – that their innovation is better in some measurable way.”

I’d gone as far as I wanted to. “It’s exciting that your patients do so well,” I said. “By the way,” I said, “what are celebrities really like up close and personal?”

“Most of them are very nice people,” he said. “They work hard to be good at what they do.”

“Do they ever complain that your treatment didn’t work, didn’t give their performance the boost they were expecting?”

“No,” he said. “Not one. They’re all happy.”

“That is really amazing,” I said. Stan nodded in agreement, though I don’t think he knew what I found so remarkable about it.

Stan is no cynic. He truly believes that what he does is valid, and that it helps his patients more than other treatments do. His patients believe it too.

Nor is our own profession as selfless and sharing as I made it sound. Hospitals love to trumpet their cyberknife technology or state-of-the-art orthopedic techniques or comprehensive cancer care, implying that they do whatever they do better than anyone else can.

Patients love to read this. They want to believe they’re seeing the “top” doctor, the one with the best results. Boston magazine (and the equivalent in every other city) publishes a list of “Top Doctors” this time of year.

Patients sometimes say, “I came to you because you did such a great job clearing up my sister’s acne,” or “You cleared my older son’s wart when nobody else could – one freeze, and it was gone. You’re a miracle worker!”

Oh sure I am. Nobody sprays liquid nitrogen the way I do.

I didn’t patent it, though. Teddy Roosevelt banned patent medicines in this country in 1906. But I guess in some quarters, patented never has gone away.

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

The other day I had a chat with a chiropractor I’ll call Stan. Stan was excited about a new technique he has used to build his practice, whose clients now number several celebrities (some of whom I’d even heard of). “I specialize in muscular work and performance enhancement,” he said. “Performers with strenuous routines and a lot of stress need to sustain peak performance.”

A colleague out West whom Stan described as “very brilliant” had developed this technique. “It’s patented,” he said.

Stan went on to describe how this method has given him a whole new sense of the body. “I can actually feel the small transverse muscles of the vertebrae respond under my fingers,” he said. “The results are amazing.”

“How did you learn this technique?” I asked him.

“I took courses with the inventor,” he said. “His courses are patented, and can only be taught by accredited instructors. That ensures that the method is being done right. There are nine levels of certification.”

“Nine?”

“Yes, you have to keep taking more courses, learning new things. It’s very exciting.”

“By the way,” I asked, “how do you know that this method works better than the older ones you learned when you went to school?”

“Oh, you can feel and see the difference,” he said. “If you’re asking if there are studies or things like that, I guess there aren’t. But there’s no question that it’s better.”

“Do they teach this technique in chiropractic school?”

“No. As I said, it’s patented.”

“In that case,” I said, “it seems your professional schools are teaching inferior treatment methods.”

That gave Stan some pause. While he was thinking, I continued.

“It’s interesting,” I said. “In my profession, if someone came up with a treatment that was better than what everyone else was doing, he would need to do studies that proved he was right. He would also feel ethically bound to let everyone else know about the method, so all patients could be treated that way.”

Stan’s blank look suggested that this line of analysis had not occurred to him.

“But you must have some special techniques you use in your practice,” he said.

“No,” I said, “actually I don’t. I just practice conventional dermatology. Nothing special or unique about what I do.”

“What about the teaching hospitals in Boston,” he went on. “Don’t they do things no one else does?”

“Possibly,” I said. “But if they come up with a new technique, they have to convince others in the profession – and insurance companies – that their innovation is better in some measurable way.”

I’d gone as far as I wanted to. “It’s exciting that your patients do so well,” I said. “By the way,” I said, “what are celebrities really like up close and personal?”

“Most of them are very nice people,” he said. “They work hard to be good at what they do.”

“Do they ever complain that your treatment didn’t work, didn’t give their performance the boost they were expecting?”

“No,” he said. “Not one. They’re all happy.”

“That is really amazing,” I said. Stan nodded in agreement, though I don’t think he knew what I found so remarkable about it.

Stan is no cynic. He truly believes that what he does is valid, and that it helps his patients more than other treatments do. His patients believe it too.

Nor is our own profession as selfless and sharing as I made it sound. Hospitals love to trumpet their cyberknife technology or state-of-the-art orthopedic techniques or comprehensive cancer care, implying that they do whatever they do better than anyone else can.

Patients love to read this. They want to believe they’re seeing the “top” doctor, the one with the best results. Boston magazine (and the equivalent in every other city) publishes a list of “Top Doctors” this time of year.

Patients sometimes say, “I came to you because you did such a great job clearing up my sister’s acne,” or “You cleared my older son’s wart when nobody else could – one freeze, and it was gone. You’re a miracle worker!”

Oh sure I am. Nobody sprays liquid nitrogen the way I do.

I didn’t patent it, though. Teddy Roosevelt banned patent medicines in this country in 1906. But I guess in some quarters, patented never has gone away.

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

The other day I had a chat with a chiropractor I’ll call Stan. Stan was excited about a new technique he has used to build his practice, whose clients now number several celebrities (some of whom I’d even heard of). “I specialize in muscular work and performance enhancement,” he said. “Performers with strenuous routines and a lot of stress need to sustain peak performance.”

A colleague out West whom Stan described as “very brilliant” had developed this technique. “It’s patented,” he said.

Stan went on to describe how this method has given him a whole new sense of the body. “I can actually feel the small transverse muscles of the vertebrae respond under my fingers,” he said. “The results are amazing.”

“How did you learn this technique?” I asked him.

“I took courses with the inventor,” he said. “His courses are patented, and can only be taught by accredited instructors. That ensures that the method is being done right. There are nine levels of certification.”

“Nine?”

“Yes, you have to keep taking more courses, learning new things. It’s very exciting.”

“By the way,” I asked, “how do you know that this method works better than the older ones you learned when you went to school?”

“Oh, you can feel and see the difference,” he said. “If you’re asking if there are studies or things like that, I guess there aren’t. But there’s no question that it’s better.”

“Do they teach this technique in chiropractic school?”

“No. As I said, it’s patented.”

“In that case,” I said, “it seems your professional schools are teaching inferior treatment methods.”

That gave Stan some pause. While he was thinking, I continued.

“It’s interesting,” I said. “In my profession, if someone came up with a treatment that was better than what everyone else was doing, he would need to do studies that proved he was right. He would also feel ethically bound to let everyone else know about the method, so all patients could be treated that way.”

Stan’s blank look suggested that this line of analysis had not occurred to him.

“But you must have some special techniques you use in your practice,” he said.

“No,” I said, “actually I don’t. I just practice conventional dermatology. Nothing special or unique about what I do.”

“What about the teaching hospitals in Boston,” he went on. “Don’t they do things no one else does?”

“Possibly,” I said. “But if they come up with a new technique, they have to convince others in the profession – and insurance companies – that their innovation is better in some measurable way.”

I’d gone as far as I wanted to. “It’s exciting that your patients do so well,” I said. “By the way,” I said, “what are celebrities really like up close and personal?”

“Most of them are very nice people,” he said. “They work hard to be good at what they do.”

“Do they ever complain that your treatment didn’t work, didn’t give their performance the boost they were expecting?”

“No,” he said. “Not one. They’re all happy.”

“That is really amazing,” I said. Stan nodded in agreement, though I don’t think he knew what I found so remarkable about it.

Stan is no cynic. He truly believes that what he does is valid, and that it helps his patients more than other treatments do. His patients believe it too.

Nor is our own profession as selfless and sharing as I made it sound. Hospitals love to trumpet their cyberknife technology or state-of-the-art orthopedic techniques or comprehensive cancer care, implying that they do whatever they do better than anyone else can.

Patients love to read this. They want to believe they’re seeing the “top” doctor, the one with the best results. Boston magazine (and the equivalent in every other city) publishes a list of “Top Doctors” this time of year.

Patients sometimes say, “I came to you because you did such a great job clearing up my sister’s acne,” or “You cleared my older son’s wart when nobody else could – one freeze, and it was gone. You’re a miracle worker!”

Oh sure I am. Nobody sprays liquid nitrogen the way I do.

I didn’t patent it, though. Teddy Roosevelt banned patent medicines in this country in 1906. But I guess in some quarters, patented never has gone away.

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

As we all know, professional life gets more complicated every passing year. Meaningful use regulations grow more burdensome, even as the medical records we get fill up with electronic medical records boilerplate. To renew my medical license, my state board has me take a course in opioid management and end-of-life issues. Fill in your own examples.

But recently I’ve become aware of a new wrinkle that complicates daily practice life for both doctors and patients in a significant way. I can’t make any sense if it.

I mean the high price of desonide.

When I was student many years ago, my teachers told me that I should prescribe generic drugs whenever possible. This would help hold down medical costs. It was the right thing to do.

Because I am a good person who tries to do the right thing, I prescribe generics because it’s the right thing to do. I also do it for Pavlovian reasons: prescribing brand-name drugs means more prior authorization forms – we have enough of those anyway – and more calls from patients unhappy with high copays or other out-of-pocket costs. Also, fewer threats of sanctions from insurers or hospital purchasing groups over my pricey prescribing habits.

Besides, most patients I prescribe generics for do just fine.

Of course, some of the anomalous realities of generic prescribing filter through at times. Generic terbinafine and finasteride, for instance, may have higher profit margins, but don’t save patients much money.

But lately I’ve been getting complaints from patients about the high cost of desonide. My first reaction to these was, “How on earth is that possible?”

One patient a few months ago insisted that I contact his mail order pharmacy in Nevada to find a cheaper alternative. I considered this an unreasonable demand – I obviously can’t do a cost comparison for every patient, but this time I went along. The pharmacist came up with another nonfluorinated steroid that was much less expensive under that patient’s particular contract.

Then this week it happened again. I prescribed hydrocortisone valerate 0.2% for a groin rash. The patient left a message asking me for an over-the-counter suggestion, since the prescription was going to cost him $52.70 out of pocket.

I asked my secretary to call the pharmacy to get a price for other generic steroid creams. Triamcinolone would cost $14.70. Alclometasone would cost $35.20.

And desonide – generic desonide – would cost $111.70. For a 15-g tube. $111.70 for 15 g of a generic cream that’s been on the market forever! Does that make any sense?

I’ve gotten similar calls, by the way, from patients unhappy with the cost of generic doxycycline.

There are no doubt economic reasons for such pricing anomalies. Maybe generic manufacturers have dropped out of making certain drugs because they don’t make enough money on them, leaving the ones who remain in a position to charge whatever they can get away with. Maybe insurers or pharmacies cut deals with the makers of some drugs at the expense of others.

I don’t know. And that’s the point.

Because I have no way of knowing any more which of the plain-vanilla generic drugs I’ve prescribed forever are going to be fine, and which are going to cost my patients an arm and a leg and encourage them to call back and yell at me – or else not bother to pick up the medication at all – I don’t even know half the time what to recommend anymore. I certainly don’t have the time to go shopping for every prescription I order. There are just too many drugs, too many prescriptions, too many patients, too many pharmacies, too many insurance contracts, each with its own formulary quirks.

If anyone out there has any explanations or suggestions, I’m all ears.

In the meantime, I may try to simplify my life by sending all my patients to the local Russian deli and prescribing topical caviar. It’s likely to be cheaper than desonide. 

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

As we all know, professional life gets more complicated every passing year. Meaningful use regulations grow more burdensome, even as the medical records we get fill up with electronic medical records boilerplate. To renew my medical license, my state board has me take a course in opioid management and end-of-life issues. Fill in your own examples.

But recently I’ve become aware of a new wrinkle that complicates daily practice life for both doctors and patients in a significant way. I can’t make any sense if it.

I mean the high price of desonide.

When I was student many years ago, my teachers told me that I should prescribe generic drugs whenever possible. This would help hold down medical costs. It was the right thing to do.

Because I am a good person who tries to do the right thing, I prescribe generics because it’s the right thing to do. I also do it for Pavlovian reasons: prescribing brand-name drugs means more prior authorization forms – we have enough of those anyway – and more calls from patients unhappy with high copays or other out-of-pocket costs. Also, fewer threats of sanctions from insurers or hospital purchasing groups over my pricey prescribing habits.

Besides, most patients I prescribe generics for do just fine.

Of course, some of the anomalous realities of generic prescribing filter through at times. Generic terbinafine and finasteride, for instance, may have higher profit margins, but don’t save patients much money.

But lately I’ve been getting complaints from patients about the high cost of desonide. My first reaction to these was, “How on earth is that possible?”

One patient a few months ago insisted that I contact his mail order pharmacy in Nevada to find a cheaper alternative. I considered this an unreasonable demand – I obviously can’t do a cost comparison for every patient, but this time I went along. The pharmacist came up with another nonfluorinated steroid that was much less expensive under that patient’s particular contract.

Then this week it happened again. I prescribed hydrocortisone valerate 0.2% for a groin rash. The patient left a message asking me for an over-the-counter suggestion, since the prescription was going to cost him $52.70 out of pocket.

I asked my secretary to call the pharmacy to get a price for other generic steroid creams. Triamcinolone would cost $14.70. Alclometasone would cost $35.20.

And desonide – generic desonide – would cost $111.70. For a 15-g tube. $111.70 for 15 g of a generic cream that’s been on the market forever! Does that make any sense?

I’ve gotten similar calls, by the way, from patients unhappy with the cost of generic doxycycline.

There are no doubt economic reasons for such pricing anomalies. Maybe generic manufacturers have dropped out of making certain drugs because they don’t make enough money on them, leaving the ones who remain in a position to charge whatever they can get away with. Maybe insurers or pharmacies cut deals with the makers of some drugs at the expense of others.

I don’t know. And that’s the point.

Because I have no way of knowing any more which of the plain-vanilla generic drugs I’ve prescribed forever are going to be fine, and which are going to cost my patients an arm and a leg and encourage them to call back and yell at me – or else not bother to pick up the medication at all – I don’t even know half the time what to recommend anymore. I certainly don’t have the time to go shopping for every prescription I order. There are just too many drugs, too many prescriptions, too many patients, too many pharmacies, too many insurance contracts, each with its own formulary quirks.

If anyone out there has any explanations or suggestions, I’m all ears.

In the meantime, I may try to simplify my life by sending all my patients to the local Russian deli and prescribing topical caviar. It’s likely to be cheaper than desonide. 

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

As we all know, professional life gets more complicated every passing year. Meaningful use regulations grow more burdensome, even as the medical records we get fill up with electronic medical records boilerplate. To renew my medical license, my state board has me take a course in opioid management and end-of-life issues. Fill in your own examples.

But recently I’ve become aware of a new wrinkle that complicates daily practice life for both doctors and patients in a significant way. I can’t make any sense if it.

I mean the high price of desonide.

When I was student many years ago, my teachers told me that I should prescribe generic drugs whenever possible. This would help hold down medical costs. It was the right thing to do.

Because I am a good person who tries to do the right thing, I prescribe generics because it’s the right thing to do. I also do it for Pavlovian reasons: prescribing brand-name drugs means more prior authorization forms – we have enough of those anyway – and more calls from patients unhappy with high copays or other out-of-pocket costs. Also, fewer threats of sanctions from insurers or hospital purchasing groups over my pricey prescribing habits.

Besides, most patients I prescribe generics for do just fine.

Of course, some of the anomalous realities of generic prescribing filter through at times. Generic terbinafine and finasteride, for instance, may have higher profit margins, but don’t save patients much money.

But lately I’ve been getting complaints from patients about the high cost of desonide. My first reaction to these was, “How on earth is that possible?”

One patient a few months ago insisted that I contact his mail order pharmacy in Nevada to find a cheaper alternative. I considered this an unreasonable demand – I obviously can’t do a cost comparison for every patient, but this time I went along. The pharmacist came up with another nonfluorinated steroid that was much less expensive under that patient’s particular contract.

Then this week it happened again. I prescribed hydrocortisone valerate 0.2% for a groin rash. The patient left a message asking me for an over-the-counter suggestion, since the prescription was going to cost him $52.70 out of pocket.

I asked my secretary to call the pharmacy to get a price for other generic steroid creams. Triamcinolone would cost $14.70. Alclometasone would cost $35.20.

And desonide – generic desonide – would cost $111.70. For a 15-g tube. $111.70 for 15 g of a generic cream that’s been on the market forever! Does that make any sense?

I’ve gotten similar calls, by the way, from patients unhappy with the cost of generic doxycycline.

There are no doubt economic reasons for such pricing anomalies. Maybe generic manufacturers have dropped out of making certain drugs because they don’t make enough money on them, leaving the ones who remain in a position to charge whatever they can get away with. Maybe insurers or pharmacies cut deals with the makers of some drugs at the expense of others.

I don’t know. And that’s the point.

Because I have no way of knowing any more which of the plain-vanilla generic drugs I’ve prescribed forever are going to be fine, and which are going to cost my patients an arm and a leg and encourage them to call back and yell at me – or else not bother to pick up the medication at all – I don’t even know half the time what to recommend anymore. I certainly don’t have the time to go shopping for every prescription I order. There are just too many drugs, too many prescriptions, too many patients, too many pharmacies, too many insurance contracts, each with its own formulary quirks.

If anyone out there has any explanations or suggestions, I’m all ears.

In the meantime, I may try to simplify my life by sending all my patients to the local Russian deli and prescribing topical caviar. It’s likely to be cheaper than desonide. 

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

In a recent column, I considered the different meanings some words we use every day can have when patients use them. The word I discussed was “biopsy.” There are, of course, many other words our patients use, or at least pronounce, differently than we do.

Many middle-aged men, for instance, have troubles with their prostrate.

Patients of both genders may be quite outgoing in general, but the cells in their skin cancers are squeamish.

And lots of people ask me to take a look at their molds. Or remove them. Or they write as a reason for “Why are you seeing the doctor today?” the answer “Check molds.”

Or sometimes patients tell me that the medicine I prescribed for their eczema not only hadn’t helped, but had exasperated things. (This works both ways. The other day a friend complained that his kids were really exacerbating him. As a parent, I can relate.)

And then there was Jim, who came in last month. “Dr. Skirball sent me over to have you look at this rash,” he said. “He wants you to do an autopsy.”

Well, Dr. Skirball was just going to have to wait, wasn’t he?

But then I saw Emma, who presented me with a linguistic insight I never heard before. Even after many years, patients can surprise you.

Emma is 17. She has acne. One glance showed that after 2 months of treatment, Emma wasn’t getting any better.

“Is the cream irritating you at all?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I’m not using it, Doctor.”

OK, I thought. That happens often enough. I needed to find out why, though. Maybe I could convince her to try it after all.

“How come you didn’t use it?” I asked.

“I read the instructions that came with it,” Emma said, brightly. “And I followed them!”

“That’s great,” I said. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I read the small print at the end, and I saw that there was a warning: ‘Only for tropical use.’ ”

“What?”

“It said it was just for tropical use. And just around then it got kind of chilly, so I decided not to take a chance.”

I’ve seen plenty of people who read a label warning that says, “Avoid excessive sun exposure,” (whatever that means) and think they should stop the medicine every time the sun comes out. In fact, I always tell patients up front to ignore that warning, to follow routine sun precautions when relevant, and take the medicine.

And I’ve also heard plenty of people pronounce topical treatment, “tropical treatment.” Or refer to the branded version of desoximetasone as “Tropicort.”

But never, ever, had I met someone who not only mispronounced “topical” as “tropical,” but understood it as “of or pertaining to the tropics.” And then didn’t use the product, because they live in the temperate zone.

Besides, it’s late fall in Boston. What was Emma planning to do? Wait till next spring? Move to the Cayman Islands?

While we’re at it, why don’t many patients bother calling to tell us that the reason they’ve decided to stop using something we prescribed? But that’s another story.

“Emma,” I explained. “It’s not ‘tropical use.’ It’s ‘topical use.’ That just means you use it externally. On top of the skin.”

“Oh, I get it,” Emma said.

As I said, patients never cease to amaze. The weather’s gotten even chillier around here, but now that Emma will use the cream, we’ll see how she does. If she goes to Mexico for winter break, she’ll do even better.

Where is global warming when you need it?

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

In a recent column, I considered the different meanings some words we use every day can have when patients use them. The word I discussed was “biopsy.” There are, of course, many other words our patients use, or at least pronounce, differently than we do.

Many middle-aged men, for instance, have troubles with their prostrate.

Patients of both genders may be quite outgoing in general, but the cells in their skin cancers are squeamish.

And lots of people ask me to take a look at their molds. Or remove them. Or they write as a reason for “Why are you seeing the doctor today?” the answer “Check molds.”

Or sometimes patients tell me that the medicine I prescribed for their eczema not only hadn’t helped, but had exasperated things. (This works both ways. The other day a friend complained that his kids were really exacerbating him. As a parent, I can relate.)

And then there was Jim, who came in last month. “Dr. Skirball sent me over to have you look at this rash,” he said. “He wants you to do an autopsy.”

Well, Dr. Skirball was just going to have to wait, wasn’t he?

But then I saw Emma, who presented me with a linguistic insight I never heard before. Even after many years, patients can surprise you.

Emma is 17. She has acne. One glance showed that after 2 months of treatment, Emma wasn’t getting any better.

“Is the cream irritating you at all?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I’m not using it, Doctor.”

OK, I thought. That happens often enough. I needed to find out why, though. Maybe I could convince her to try it after all.

“How come you didn’t use it?” I asked.

“I read the instructions that came with it,” Emma said, brightly. “And I followed them!”

“That’s great,” I said. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I read the small print at the end, and I saw that there was a warning: ‘Only for tropical use.’ ”

“What?”

“It said it was just for tropical use. And just around then it got kind of chilly, so I decided not to take a chance.”

I’ve seen plenty of people who read a label warning that says, “Avoid excessive sun exposure,” (whatever that means) and think they should stop the medicine every time the sun comes out. In fact, I always tell patients up front to ignore that warning, to follow routine sun precautions when relevant, and take the medicine.

And I’ve also heard plenty of people pronounce topical treatment, “tropical treatment.” Or refer to the branded version of desoximetasone as “Tropicort.”

But never, ever, had I met someone who not only mispronounced “topical” as “tropical,” but understood it as “of or pertaining to the tropics.” And then didn’t use the product, because they live in the temperate zone.

Besides, it’s late fall in Boston. What was Emma planning to do? Wait till next spring? Move to the Cayman Islands?

While we’re at it, why don’t many patients bother calling to tell us that the reason they’ve decided to stop using something we prescribed? But that’s another story.

“Emma,” I explained. “It’s not ‘tropical use.’ It’s ‘topical use.’ That just means you use it externally. On top of the skin.”

“Oh, I get it,” Emma said.

As I said, patients never cease to amaze. The weather’s gotten even chillier around here, but now that Emma will use the cream, we’ll see how she does. If she goes to Mexico for winter break, she’ll do even better.

Where is global warming when you need it?

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

In a recent column, I considered the different meanings some words we use every day can have when patients use them. The word I discussed was “biopsy.” There are, of course, many other words our patients use, or at least pronounce, differently than we do.

Many middle-aged men, for instance, have troubles with their prostrate.

Patients of both genders may be quite outgoing in general, but the cells in their skin cancers are squeamish.

And lots of people ask me to take a look at their molds. Or remove them. Or they write as a reason for “Why are you seeing the doctor today?” the answer “Check molds.”

Or sometimes patients tell me that the medicine I prescribed for their eczema not only hadn’t helped, but had exasperated things. (This works both ways. The other day a friend complained that his kids were really exacerbating him. As a parent, I can relate.)

And then there was Jim, who came in last month. “Dr. Skirball sent me over to have you look at this rash,” he said. “He wants you to do an autopsy.”

Well, Dr. Skirball was just going to have to wait, wasn’t he?

But then I saw Emma, who presented me with a linguistic insight I never heard before. Even after many years, patients can surprise you.

Emma is 17. She has acne. One glance showed that after 2 months of treatment, Emma wasn’t getting any better.

“Is the cream irritating you at all?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I’m not using it, Doctor.”

OK, I thought. That happens often enough. I needed to find out why, though. Maybe I could convince her to try it after all.

“How come you didn’t use it?” I asked.

“I read the instructions that came with it,” Emma said, brightly. “And I followed them!”

“That’s great,” I said. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I read the small print at the end, and I saw that there was a warning: ‘Only for tropical use.’ ”

“What?”

“It said it was just for tropical use. And just around then it got kind of chilly, so I decided not to take a chance.”

I’ve seen plenty of people who read a label warning that says, “Avoid excessive sun exposure,” (whatever that means) and think they should stop the medicine every time the sun comes out. In fact, I always tell patients up front to ignore that warning, to follow routine sun precautions when relevant, and take the medicine.

And I’ve also heard plenty of people pronounce topical treatment, “tropical treatment.” Or refer to the branded version of desoximetasone as “Tropicort.”

But never, ever, had I met someone who not only mispronounced “topical” as “tropical,” but understood it as “of or pertaining to the tropics.” And then didn’t use the product, because they live in the temperate zone.

Besides, it’s late fall in Boston. What was Emma planning to do? Wait till next spring? Move to the Cayman Islands?

While we’re at it, why don’t many patients bother calling to tell us that the reason they’ve decided to stop using something we prescribed? But that’s another story.

“Emma,” I explained. “It’s not ‘tropical use.’ It’s ‘topical use.’ That just means you use it externally. On top of the skin.”

“Oh, I get it,” Emma said.

As I said, patients never cease to amaze. The weather’s gotten even chillier around here, but now that Emma will use the cream, we’ll see how she does. If she goes to Mexico for winter break, she’ll do even better.

Where is global warming when you need it?

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Dermatology News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean…” – Humpty Dumpty

Even after all these years, I’m still surprised to learn new ways the words we use every day can mean different things to patients to whom we say them.

Take the word “biopsy.” To a dermatologist, it means “a test of a piece of tissue” (in our case, of skin), to help find out what the problem is.

I’ve always known that to many patients, the word “biopsy” suggests cancer, or at least the concern that there may be cancer, because cancer is the context in which most people hear the word: breast biopsy, prostate biopsy, and so on. It can therefore be useful to point out to patients when a biopsy is performed for diagnostic purposes and cancer is not even on the list of possibilities.

Lately, though, I’ve had a few encounters that highlighted other interesting ways the word “biopsy” can be misunderstood.

Case 1: Arnold the Irritated

“Arnold,” I say. “I need to biopsy this. Based on the results, it may need further treatment, but I doubt it.”

“I thought you were taking it off now,” says Arnold.

“No, I’m testing it, “I say.

“But I want it off,” says Arnold. “It gets irritated when I shave over it, so I want it off.”

“Yes,” I say, “but in order to remove it properly, I need to know what it is.”

“What?”

We have to go around a few more times before Arnold catches on.

Case 2: Gaetano the Outraged

“Gaetano is on the phone,” says my billing clerk. “He says you told him you weren’t going to biopsy his spot, and then he got a bill from the pathology lab.”

I call Gaetano. “You said you weren’t going to biopsy this,” he says. “You said you were sure you knew what it was, so you didn’t have to biopsy it.”

“First of all,” I explain, “I’m never totally sure. Your spot looked like a basal cell skin cancer, and that’s what it turned out to be. But I’ve had cases where the pathology results surprised me, and it turned out to be something less – or something more. So I have to check the biopsy.”

“I understand, Doctor” says Gaetano.

“In addition,” I go on, “what I actually meant to say was that I was not going to only take a biopsy of the spot. I was going to remove it completely, so that if my diagnosis was confirmed, you wouldn’t have to come back and have more done. Sorry if I didn’t make that clear.”

“So you biopsied it,” says Gaetano, but you didn’t just biopsy it. I get it. I think.”

Good for you, Gaetano. Next time I am going to – actually, next time I don’t know what I’ll do.

Case 3: Melvin the Clueless

“I understand your former dermatologist removed something from your arm,” I say to Melvin.

“Yes, they took a biopsy, and then they removed it,” says Melvin. “I just have one question.”

“What is that?” I ask.

“Which was the biopsy?” asks Melvin, “the first or the second?”

I didn’t let on, but inside I was shaking my head.

Even with the best will on both sides – and even if both are native speakers of the same language – there are just so many ways people can misunderstand each other. Humpty Dumpty was wrong. Words can mean what both the talker and the listener think they mean. Humpty Dumpty probably didn’t get out much.

Never biopsy an egg. 

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Skin & Allergy News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean…” – Humpty Dumpty

Even after all these years, I’m still surprised to learn new ways the words we use every day can mean different things to patients to whom we say them.

Take the word “biopsy.” To a dermatologist, it means “a test of a piece of tissue” (in our case, of skin), to help find out what the problem is.

I’ve always known that to many patients, the word “biopsy” suggests cancer, or at least the concern that there may be cancer, because cancer is the context in which most people hear the word: breast biopsy, prostate biopsy, and so on. It can therefore be useful to point out to patients when a biopsy is performed for diagnostic purposes and cancer is not even on the list of possibilities.

Lately, though, I’ve had a few encounters that highlighted other interesting ways the word “biopsy” can be misunderstood.

Case 1: Arnold the Irritated

“Arnold,” I say. “I need to biopsy this. Based on the results, it may need further treatment, but I doubt it.”

“I thought you were taking it off now,” says Arnold.

“No, I’m testing it, “I say.

“But I want it off,” says Arnold. “It gets irritated when I shave over it, so I want it off.”

“Yes,” I say, “but in order to remove it properly, I need to know what it is.”

“What?”

We have to go around a few more times before Arnold catches on.

Case 2: Gaetano the Outraged

“Gaetano is on the phone,” says my billing clerk. “He says you told him you weren’t going to biopsy his spot, and then he got a bill from the pathology lab.”

I call Gaetano. “You said you weren’t going to biopsy this,” he says. “You said you were sure you knew what it was, so you didn’t have to biopsy it.”

“First of all,” I explain, “I’m never totally sure. Your spot looked like a basal cell skin cancer, and that’s what it turned out to be. But I’ve had cases where the pathology results surprised me, and it turned out to be something less – or something more. So I have to check the biopsy.”

“I understand, Doctor” says Gaetano.

“In addition,” I go on, “what I actually meant to say was that I was not going to only take a biopsy of the spot. I was going to remove it completely, so that if my diagnosis was confirmed, you wouldn’t have to come back and have more done. Sorry if I didn’t make that clear.”

“So you biopsied it,” says Gaetano, but you didn’t just biopsy it. I get it. I think.”

Good for you, Gaetano. Next time I am going to – actually, next time I don’t know what I’ll do.

Case 3: Melvin the Clueless

“I understand your former dermatologist removed something from your arm,” I say to Melvin.

“Yes, they took a biopsy, and then they removed it,” says Melvin. “I just have one question.”

“What is that?” I ask.

“Which was the biopsy?” asks Melvin, “the first or the second?”

I didn’t let on, but inside I was shaking my head.

Even with the best will on both sides – and even if both are native speakers of the same language – there are just so many ways people can misunderstand each other. Humpty Dumpty was wrong. Words can mean what both the talker and the listener think they mean. Humpty Dumpty probably didn’t get out much.

Never biopsy an egg. 

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Skin & Allergy News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.

“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean…” – Humpty Dumpty

Even after all these years, I’m still surprised to learn new ways the words we use every day can mean different things to patients to whom we say them.

Take the word “biopsy.” To a dermatologist, it means “a test of a piece of tissue” (in our case, of skin), to help find out what the problem is.

I’ve always known that to many patients, the word “biopsy” suggests cancer, or at least the concern that there may be cancer, because cancer is the context in which most people hear the word: breast biopsy, prostate biopsy, and so on. It can therefore be useful to point out to patients when a biopsy is performed for diagnostic purposes and cancer is not even on the list of possibilities.

Lately, though, I’ve had a few encounters that highlighted other interesting ways the word “biopsy” can be misunderstood.

Case 1: Arnold the Irritated

“Arnold,” I say. “I need to biopsy this. Based on the results, it may need further treatment, but I doubt it.”

“I thought you were taking it off now,” says Arnold.

“No, I’m testing it, “I say.

“But I want it off,” says Arnold. “It gets irritated when I shave over it, so I want it off.”

“Yes,” I say, “but in order to remove it properly, I need to know what it is.”

“What?”

We have to go around a few more times before Arnold catches on.

Case 2: Gaetano the Outraged

“Gaetano is on the phone,” says my billing clerk. “He says you told him you weren’t going to biopsy his spot, and then he got a bill from the pathology lab.”

I call Gaetano. “You said you weren’t going to biopsy this,” he says. “You said you were sure you knew what it was, so you didn’t have to biopsy it.”

“First of all,” I explain, “I’m never totally sure. Your spot looked like a basal cell skin cancer, and that’s what it turned out to be. But I’ve had cases where the pathology results surprised me, and it turned out to be something less – or something more. So I have to check the biopsy.”

“I understand, Doctor” says Gaetano.

“In addition,” I go on, “what I actually meant to say was that I was not going to only take a biopsy of the spot. I was going to remove it completely, so that if my diagnosis was confirmed, you wouldn’t have to come back and have more done. Sorry if I didn’t make that clear.”

“So you biopsied it,” says Gaetano, but you didn’t just biopsy it. I get it. I think.”

Good for you, Gaetano. Next time I am going to – actually, next time I don’t know what I’ll do.

Case 3: Melvin the Clueless

“I understand your former dermatologist removed something from your arm,” I say to Melvin.

“Yes, they took a biopsy, and then they removed it,” says Melvin. “I just have one question.”

“What is that?” I ask.

“Which was the biopsy?” asks Melvin, “the first or the second?”

I didn’t let on, but inside I was shaking my head.

Even with the best will on both sides – and even if both are native speakers of the same language – there are just so many ways people can misunderstand each other. Humpty Dumpty was wrong. Words can mean what both the talker and the listener think they mean. Humpty Dumpty probably didn’t get out much.

Never biopsy an egg. 

Dr. Rockoff practices dermatology in Brookline, Mass., and is a longtime contributor to Skin & Allergy News. He serves on the clinical faculty at Tufts University, Boston, and has taught senior medical students and other trainees for 30 years.