Clinical pearls of pediatric dermatology

Contemporary OB/GYN:

What are some clinical pearls of pediatric dermatology?

Toby Maurer, MD:

It's been a pleasure to be here. I am a dermatologist by training, but I also have been trained in family medicine, and as a result, I have seen a lot of children in my day. And so, I am speaking in the pediatric conference, we are talking about infestations and infections, things that make your skin crawl. Of course, many of our kids present with childhood infections of the skin. It's important to know when to use antibiotics, when not to use antibiotics, and how to differentiate some of those skin conditions from auto inflammatory diseases, and that's what I spend most of my time doing. In addition, many of our kids worldwide have been plagued with various infestations to include scabies, lice, etc. These big problem in kids around the world, and I hope that we can solve some of those problems and have some in depth discussions about infestations as well.

Contemporary OB/GYN:

Are there any messages clinicians can take home?

Maurer:

One of the big issues that we have around the world is scabies and the importance of getting rid of scabies in children. It is very disruptive, of course, to inch and scratch all day long and all night long, and we've seen some very bad effects of that in terms of learning and sleep disruption for these children. But more importantly, it opens children up to infection, and scabies as it disrupts the skin opens a child up to glomerulonephritis from bacterial infection. So again, we're really trying to make headway with regard to eradicating scabies and lessening the contagiousness of it.