Many children follow in a parent's footsteps when it comes to their job.
Dr. Gloria Graham was no exception. A doctor in North Carolina, Graham was
inspired to become a dermatologist just like her father.
"My father loved the skin," she explains. "He was 72 when I was born, and
he practiced medicine until he died at age 97. He was fascinated by the skin
all his life."
Graham had always wanted to be a doctor, but it wasn't until she got to
medical school that she realized she wanted to specialize in dermatology.
"I had a patient with a very rare and serious skin disease -- I've never
seen it since," she says. "He was completely disabled by it. One night, I
was sitting up with another student, and it was nearing the time that we had
to choose our specialty. The young man said, 'I think I'll go into dermatology.'
I thought about it and said, 'I think I will too.' It was just like that.
There was my father, the young boy with the disease and this student. I had
a lot of pieces in a puzzle come together."
Graham completed her education in 1965 and opened a private practice in
North Carolina. After all these years in the business, she's seen some changes
in her patients' skin diseases. Like many health-care professionals, she's
concerned about the rising number of skin cancer cases.
"We've recently had several patients with malignant melanoma [a potentially
fatal skin cancer], which is really scary," she says.
Graham says that a big part of her job is educating people on how to care
for their skin. "We try to encourage our patients to wear sunscreen," she
says.
During a long career, Graham has seen her fair share of unusual cases.
"This young man came in with his hand swollen to almost twice its normal
size," she remembers. "It turns out that he had a case of strep throat that
had spread to his hands. You have to be a bit of a Sherlock Holmes to do this
job well."
Dermatologists often take on different roles. While Graham adopts the guise
of detective, Dr. Harvey Lui is one dermatologist who feels more like Freud.
"There was this one woman who thought there was something wrong with her
face -- she thought she had blemishes and skin cancer," says Lui.
"I examined her and tried to explain that nothing was wrong. But when I
started talking with her, I found out the real problem -- she was depressed
because she had found out her husband was having an affair with a younger
woman.
"I've always been interested in what makes people click, in the psychology
of human nature," says Lui.
"I love the satisfaction you get from seeing people get better," he adds.
"If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing. I consider myself
lucky. Many people spend their whole lives looking for the right job. I was
lucky that I found something that fit my aptitude and my skills. This is what
is right for me."
Lui is also a specialist in lasers and light. As a professor, he has the
opportunity to spend more time in the research lab than many dermatologists.
Like Graham, Lui has made some interesting findings.
"We have published a few papers on treating skin disease with light," he
says. "It's a rare opportunity to push the frontiers of knowledge. As a dermatologist,
I'm not orbiting the Earth or anything, but this is something that no one
has ever done before."
Research isn't Lui's only interest. He's fascinated by the
wide array of people he treats on a day-to-day basis.
"I get to see a variety of patients and I enjoy that," he says. "If I was
a cardiologist, I would only be examining middle-aged businessmen who eat
badly and don't exercise enough. As a dermatologist, I get to see all age
groups."
Most dermatologists agree that whether they do research on skin disease
or work with patients, they all have one thing in common: in dermatology,
there's never a dull moment.
"The variety has always been interesting. I've never, ever had a boring
day," says Graham.