Notes from the Second Annual Meeting
Contributed by Jessica Zmolik

Students from thirteen medical schools attended DIGA's second annual meeting on March 4, 2006 in San Francisco, CA. Twenty-four members were present, representing Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Drexel University, Indiana University School of Medicine, Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences, Ohio State University, Northeastern Ohio Universities College Of Medicine, Temple University, Texas Tech, University of California Irvine, University of California San Francisco, University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas, Vanderbilt University, and Western University of Health Sciences.

After the members introduced themselves, each regional director reported the new member schools in his / her region since last year's meeting. Since our last meeting, 13 new member-schools have joined DIGA bringing the total number of member-schools to 27. The treasurer revealed that the financial status of our organization is healthy and our grants from industry are renewable.

We discussed the year's achievements of our service projects and voted to continue Miles for Melanoma (fundraiser for Melanoma Research Foundation) as our official national service project for the upcoming year. Other service projects that DIGA sponsors include the National Melanoma Awareness Project (education of middle / high school students, www.spotaspot.org), Links for Locks (a charity golf tournament which raises funds for the National Alopecia Areata Foundation), and Sun Protection Project (education of kids grades K-6 about skin / sun protection). We are also initiating a new relationship with Camp Discovery, a summer camp created by the AAD for children with serious dermatologic disorders.

Our website has seen many improvements and updates in the past year. Future additions to the DIGA site will include a national database of fellowship / research opportunities within dermatology, a national database of interview dates for dermatology residencies, and several dermatologic educational tools. Also, in the upcoming year, DIGA will help conduct a multi-center study of medical student dermatologic education. Students from UCSF have obtained $3,000 in funding for this project from the Association of Professors of Dermatology, and this money will divided equally between all participating DIGA schools.

This year's Leadership Award was given to Thomas Lambert and Texas Tech for recruiting the most new member schools in a region. The Service Award was given to Alex Eshaghian and Vanderbilt for raising the most money from one school for the Melanoma Research Foundation. The DIGA leadership structure was expanded this year to accommodate the great demand for leadership positions. In addition to the previous offices, there are now chairs for four new committees: Links for Locks, Camp Discovery, Miles for Melanoma, and Curricular Development.

We concluded this very successful meeting by signing the DIGA Constitution.