Purpose
The purpose of the Forum is to provide an online community for the exchange of ideas and information related to dermatology.

Questions in this Forum should be directed toward a career in dermatology, and specifically the first step in this process for medical students: matching in a program. Questions regarding the value of research, away rotations, extra curricular activities are all appropriate, as they direct the student to what they can do with their available time to optimize their chance of matching. Since the match process is less than transparent, questions regarding how applications are reviewed and what aspects reviewers consider important are also appropriate.

At the same time, when asking a question one should be aware that this is a public Forum. Questions regarding the chances of matching where specifics are involved are inappropriate for the Forum, as the Faculty Advisors are not able to provide evaluations of individual applications. Only broad generalizations can be given, because each applicant is different, and each institution is different in what they look at. Such questions are best answered with an individual meeting with a dermatologist or other advisor from one's institution. Rather, appropriate questions would be those that apply not only to one individual, but also a group of other readers.

Behavior
No abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, or sexually-oriented posts will be tolerated. We reserve the right to remove such post and remove permission from users making such posts from using the Forum.

Registration
All users are required to register with a valid email address, but since the Forum is anonymous, this email address will not be visible to other users. During registration, please specify under Occupation whether you are a medical student, dermatology resident, other resident, fellow, etc.

Features
The Ask a Faculty Advisor and Ask a Resident topics are opportunities for registered users to ask questions about dermatology training and the application process. While any user can post an answer to these questions, only users who are actual Program Directors or derm residents will have this description under their usernames.

Time
All times are Central Standard Time.