Characteristics of dermatologists who read dermatopathology slides

The characteristics and prevalence of dermatologists reading dermatopathology slides are not well understood.

We surveyed 1406 members of the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD), including all 497 who were also members of the American Society of Dermatopathology (ASDP) along with a random sample of the remaining AAD members who were not ASDP members. Seven hundred and thirty of 1406 (51.9%) responded with a usable survey. Logistic regression was used to analyze responses by ASDP member dermatologists, non-ASDP member dermatologists and in a weighted analysis for dermatologists as a whole.

A total of 32.7% of dermatologists as a whole generated at least one final microscopic diagnosis in the preceding year. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that men were significantly more likely to read dermatopathology slides (odds ratio (OR) = 1.90; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.16-3.12; p = 0.01). Additionally, there was significant variation by region (p < 0.001); compared with dermatologists in the Midwest, dermatologists in the Southeast (OR = 0.39; 95% CI 0.19-0.80) were significantly less likely to read slides, while those in the Mountain (OR = 3.09; 95% CI 1.10-8.72) and West (OR = 2.01; 95% CI 1.04-3.90) regions were significantly more likely. There were no significant associations found between reading slides and the year of residency completion, the number of patients seen per week or being primarily in academics.

The practice of dermatologists reading dermatopathology slides is relatively common, with significant regional and sex differences.