Dermatology and University Education

Looking back over the history of the dermatology discipline in Spain, we find that its inclusion as a university subject in its own right (ie, not bundled up with another subject) is relatively recent. It featured for the first time, in 1902, as a mandatory subject—called dermatology and syphilography—in medical degree courses in Spanish universities. The first university chairs in dermatology were not appointed until 1936, and then only in the medical schools of Madrid, Granada, and Barcelona. Throughout the 20th century, the position of dermatology in universities gradually improved. Sadly, however, dermatology has recently begun to lose ground in medical degree curricula in many Spanish medical schools. This is due to a number of complex factors, many not directly associated with the discipline as such, but related generally to the distribution of credits for different clinical subjects in medical degree programs—a distribution which, historically, has indirectly reflected the relative ranking of academics representing different departments. In 2008, dermatology was taught as a mandatory core subject in all 28 Spanish medical schools, with the course load valid for between 5 and 7 credits (50 to 70 hours), and with varying proportions of hours allocated to theory and practice: this seemed too much for some, but was considered insufficient by others. We should not overlook the fact that dermatology credits are also awarded in other university degrees (such as odontology, podology, and nursing), for optional dermatology subjects, and in master