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DEFinitely August 2024

Educational Updates from DERM2024

The DEF Essential Resource Meeting 2024 (DERM2024) NP/PA CME Conference wrapped up last month in Las Vegas, bringing to a close 5 days of comprehensive education for health care professionals in dermatology. Lectures covered career development and planning, skin cancer, warts, autoimmune disease, inflammatory diseases, acne, rosacea, nutritional deficiencies, hair and nail diseases, and more.

DEF published Daily Recaps, summarizing important presentations from each day. A final recap offers perspectives from DEF Faculty members George Keough, MD, FAAD and Andrea Nguyen, MPAS, PA-C, who review key developments from the conference. 

Presentations went beyond traditional considerations of diagnosis and management. “Dr. Rosen had a great presentation on how to interact with patients with very helpful clues on body language. It really, I think, helped me to be more approachable to my patients and read their signs,” Dr. Keough said. “Dr. Michelle Hure gave a great lecture on practice pitfalls. She had a lot of passion describing that, having had to go through establishing a practice herself without a lot of help. And then, now develop into a very successful practice. So I think her tips and her advice were invaluable.”

Access DERM2024 Daily Recaps online.

Psoriasis Awareness in the Spotlight

For Psoriasis Awareness month in August, DEF is bringing attention to the impact of psoriasis on affected individuals and their families and highlighting the dangers of undiagnosed psoriatic joint disease.

“Despite the fact that we have therapeutics that we see in direct -to -consumer ads and other advertisements and on social media, there are still a number of patients that are not being met, that are not being reached,” observed Brad Glick, DO, MPH, FAAD in a recent video interview. “And I think the subject of psoriatic arthritis is critically important because I think even those of us that care for patients¾dermatologists, advanced practice practitioners¾it would be easy to pass by and not ask the right questions of these patients. We have to heighten the awareness of the significance of joint disease in psoriatic disease.”

Psoriasis and other inflammatory skin diseases will be front and center during the DEF Biologic and Small Molecule NP/PA CME Bootcamp coming to Huntington Beach, CA November 9. Registration is open for this in-person learning opportunity.

Survey Finds No Improvement in Burnout Among NPs

Seven out of 10 NPs in the US report feeling burned out and/or depressed, a rate that is consistent with two previous surveys, according to a Medscape report.

“A Silent Struggle: Medscape Nurse Practitioner Burnout & Depression Report 2024” is based on responses from 1,525 US-based NPs working in a variety of specialties. Family Medicine (26%), Psychiatry (10%), Pediatrics (9%), and Internal Medicine (8%) had the highest levels of representation. Just 1% of responses came from Dermatology NPs.

The most commonly cited contributors to burnout in the survey were “Too many bureaucratic tasks” (58%), followed by “Lack of respect from administrators/employers, colleagues, or staff” (47%), and “Insufficient compensation/salary” (45%).

Derm Briefs

FDA Approves Nemluvio for PN. Nemluvio (nemolizumab) from Galderma has been approved as a pre-filled pen for subcutaneous injection for the treatment of adults with prurigo nodularis. The FDA decision comes after Nemluvio was granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation in December 2019 and Priority Review in February 2024.

Nemluvio inhibits IL-31 cytokine signaling, which is known to drive itch and is involved in inflammation, altered epidermal differentiation, and fibrosis (hardening of skin tissue) in prurigo nodularis. Learn more about this and other biologic therapies at the in-person DEF Biologic and Small Molecule NP/PA CME Bootcamp November 9 in California.

Americans’ Mpox Knowledge Wanes. Knowledge about mpox among American adults has declined over two years, new survey results show. Knowledge of the disease in the US increased from July to August 2022, at which time 61% of Americans knew an mpox vaccine exists. Today, less than half (45%) know that a vaccine for mpox exists. Findings come from the Annenberg Science and Public Health (ASAPH) knowledge survey, which shows that fewer than 1 in 5 people (17%) know that mpox is less contagious than Covid-19, down from 41% in August 2022.

A current outbreak of mpox in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) involves an mpox strain known as clade I, which is especially virulent and dangerous to infants and children under the age of 5, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).