Annual AAD Meeting in San Diego Wraps Up | AAD 2024

The American Academy of Dermatology Association says that 19,867 dermatologists and other healthcare professionals attended its annual meeting this weekend in San Diego. The attendance likely made the meeting the largest dermatology meeting ever by attendance.

The meeting, which started on Thursday, March 8, and ended with a couple of sessions yesterday morning, featured a keynote address from William Shatner, the 92-year-old actor who played Captain Kirk in the original “Star Trek” television series and subsequent movies. Shatner spoke his diagnosis with stage 4 melanoma and receiving surgical treatment followed by unspecified immunotherapy.

The agenda listed 339 educational and other sessions on dermatological topics ranging from diseases, such as hidradenitis suppurativa, prurigo nodularis, keloids and atopic dermatitis, to clinical practice topics such as dermoscopy and dealing with difficult patients and there were also meetings of groups such as the Indian Association of Dermatologists, Venerologists and Leprologists.

Moments captured by MHE from this year's conference.

Sofia Oluwole, M.D., Ph.D., a dermatologist resident at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, a first-time attendee, said she went to a Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitor talk. “I think JAK inhibitors are becoming really popular in the treatment for the conditions we commonly see, so it is really interesting to get a feel for how providers who have more experience with them are monitoring patients when they are on JAK inhibitors.”

Oluwole said she was also looking forward to going to a session on nutrition and the skin. She thought the information would help guide patients who are wary of systematic therapies. “A lot of time we will get questions from patients who want to take a more natural route.”

Jon Dickson, a physician assistant at Advanced Dermatology and Skin Cancer Center PLLC in Fayetteville, Arkansas, said that “getting to hear from some of the leaders in dermatology from across the world has been pretty amazing, just to hear about their expertise and about the advancements in treatment and technology that are coming.”

Dickson said the exhibit hall was “really incredible, just to take in visually.”