At the annual AAD (American Academy of Dermatology) meeting in Miami Beach, Fla, one of the more interesting panel discussions was titled, "Ethical Economics in Dermatology and Dermatologic Surgery." Audience members used keypads to respond to questions from the podium. The event took place Saturday, March 6, 2010.

A panel of physicians, together with the audience, explored the ethical ramifications of the vignettes and the tallied audience responses. Ethics forum uses audience response keypads to elicit votes, generate discussion:

Clifford Warren Lober, M.D., who is also an attorney, defines the term "ethics" and pointed out that most ethics textbooks -- even those for medical and law schools -- don't actually define the term. When a definition of the word is found, it typically uses general words, such as "correct," "good" and "moral," he said, but that doesn't leave people with a measurable standard.

"Ethics are behavioral ideals defined by fundamental beliefs," he says. "These beliefs are either arbitrarily accepted as true in and of themselves or are derived inductively or deductively from other fundamental beliefs."

Ethics, he adds, are inherently subjective.

"If we change our fundamental beliefs, our ethics will change," he says. "Ethics will certainly differ in different societies. Human sacrifice is either an ideal to please the gods or absolutely abhorrent."

And just because something may be legal, such as abortion or the death penalty, doesn't mean it's ethical.

"Never conclude that something is ethical because it is legal or unethical because it is illegal," Dr. Lober says.

Scenarios shared by presenters and voted on by attendees ran the gamut, from funny to contentious. All, however, were applicable in some way.

Read it all.

What Comdex is to computer professionals, the annual AAD (American Academy of Dermatology) scientific meeting is to derms, and by no means is the AAD anything less than a good show. The organizers choose venues that provide good support to attendees inasfar as elbow room on the exhibit floor and several fair-to-middling fast food joints (overpriced) on the various decks and in the four halls. As I type this, in between quickie meetings with a few esteemed physicians, the scientific sessions are quietly bustling. The AAD this year seemed to fill every room at the 4-hall Miami Beach Convention Center. The attendee count was over 19,000, according to the AAD.

For the aesthetic practitioner, new products in the laser- and light-based devices category included offerings from Sciton, Palomar, and Viora, among others. These devices go straight for the body contouring crowd and those who employ "touch-up laser" technologies when treating post-lipo conditions. A wide range of skin care treatments dot the show floor, with a cast of corporations that one expects -- J&J, Allergan, Neutrogena -- and the many more smaller entrepreneurships that seemed to be on every aisle. The scientific sessions that I have attended were mostly full.

I did not attend the keynote by Donna Shalala, the former Secretary of Health and Human Services, and would have preferred Dave Barry in her place, as he was originally scheduled to speak here. However, Shalala is probably more in keeping with the serious side of dermatology and health care issues.

For those of us who watched the steady stream of speeches and pitches from video monitors throughout the halls, the new AAD president is Lynn Drake, MD, Professor and Chair of the Department of dermatology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City.

Throughout the upcoming week, check this blog and the PSP Web site home page for additional news and updates that came out of this year's AAD meeting.

Robert Kotler, MD, a cosmetic surgeon in Beverly Hills, recently published a well-done overview of the ASPS meeting of a few weeks back. I have looked high and low for other physicians to report on the meeting from the "inside looking out" -- that is, eschewing the non-professional's or journalist's point of view in favor of what a physician thought of the event. Overview of the Recent American Society of Plastic Surgeons' Annual Meeting:

My friends reported good attendance although there is concern by plastic surgeons regarding the difficulties of a slow economy. Practices that are primarily elective cosmetic plastic surgery, particularly in some areas of the country, are suffering greatly. And for those practices that are still heavily engaged in reconstructive plastic surgery, which relies on health insurance payments, there is the uncertainty of how the new health care legislation, being bandied about in Congress, will effect practitioners.

Apropos of the concerns of reconstructive plastic surgeons, it is important that the public be reminded that plastic surgery has both reconstructive and cosmetic surgery arms.

There were awards given to patients who underwent reconstructive plastic surgery and "triumphed over adversity". An Iraqi citizen injured in the war there, a breast reconstructive patient, a patient with port-wine stain, as well as a patient with a difficult skin cancer on the nose were identified and their stories told.

The Society's underlying message is that plastic surgery is not exclusively about beautification, celebrities, and high-profile public figures. Every day, plastic surgeons are in the trenches performing necessary repairs wrought by injury, accidents, cancer, and birth deformities.

It is very important that plastic surgeons continue to have training in these areas to help relieve misery and suffering.

There were a variety of subjects discussed that will be of interest to the public. 

Kotler goes on to describe a few of the "hot topics" unveiled at the meeting. And don't miss the response from Michael C. Pickart, MD, FACS, at the end of the blog entry.

Read it all here.