A successful career is not just skin deep.(Under My Skin)

I started practicing dermatology 25 years ago next month. The usual cliches apply: Yes, it seems like just yesterday, only it wasn't; and no, I don't know where the time went, but it did.

Since my start, I've walked into an exam room and introduced myself ("Hi, I'm Dr. Rockoff. How can I help you?") upwards of 200,000 times. Though hardly a record, this figure has a certain satisfying heft.

When I was in medical school, dermatology didn't even make my radar screen. Like many students today, I met few skin doctors in school and learned little about skin disease.

Then, as now, the common ailments of ordinary people earned scant curricular commitment.

When a drug firm offered students a free textbook, I passed on Fitzpatrick in favor of "The Metabolic Basis of Inherited Disease," an impressive tome that stayed unopened.

I chose pediatrics, mostly because I found children's diseases less threatening than those of adults, and pediatricians less elitist and aggressive than the internists at my high powered institution. After training, I took a job at a small Hartford hospital affiliated with the University of Connecticut.

A month into it, my boss sat me down. "What do you want to do?" he asked, "Practice or academics?"