The British Association of Dermatologists annual meeting was held in Glasgow this year from 1st - 3rd July with a huge variety of speakers from local and international dermatology departments. Sessions I attended were the BADGEM (British Assocaiation of Dermatologists Dermatology & Genetic Medicine) meeting, the main plenary session on the Tuesday afternoon, the 'Professors and Registrars' forum and the continuing professional development session as well as a couple of smaller 'break-out' sessions focusing on more specific topics.
The BADGEM meeting was the first of it's kind. Of particular note was the talk given by Professor Edel O'Toole on 'What's new in keratodermas' since there was some overlap with the Clouston Syndrome case reports which I have been working on recently. Another inteesting talk was the 'XP and DNA Repair' talk given by Dr Robert Sarkany, where he described the national xeroderma pigmentosum multi-disciplinary clinic which has been set up serving patients from around the whole of the UK suffering from this rare inherited skin disease.
The main plenary session lecture which I felt was of most interest was the talk given on 'Vitiligo - an Indian perspective' by Professor Amrinder J Kanwar about the huge amount of research which his team has undertaken to tackle the problem of vitiligo in India where it has a high prevalence and carries a significant socioeconomic burden. The Professors and Registrars forum is split between invited and submitted talks, often from registrars who have completed PhD work. It's both interesting and inspiring to hear about the work being carried out by dermatology registrars and certainly continues to encourage me in thinking about engaging in research at a later stage in my career.
In the final session, continuing professional development, Dr Rachel Clark from Boston gave a fascinating lecture entitled 'The magic and mayhem of human skin resident T cells' and talked about their role in health and skin disease. All in all a very successful conference in Glasgow and I hope to be able to attend the event next year where it will take place in Manchester.
