DERMATOLOGY MICHELLE ENDICOTT, D.O.
Michelle Endicott, D.O., of WVSOM’s Class of 2001, has bad news and good news for aspiring dermatologists. The native of Point Pleasant, W.Va., who in 2005 founded South Charleston Dermatology, said there are far more medical students interested in the profession than opportunities to enter it. “You have to be at the top of your class. You have to do really well on your board exams, and these days you have to do research and present dermatology cases,” Endicott said. “Somebody who’s in the middle of their class might make a great dermatologist, but it’s probably going to be difficult for them. It’s unfair, but there just aren’t enough residencies.” But for those who do enter the specialty, the rewards are plentiful. “I get to see all age groups. I might see a newborn in one room and a 92-year-old in the next room. That’s great, because it keeps you from getting bored,” she said. “And even though I’m a specialist, I’m in the trenches along with our primary care doctors serving the people of West Virginia. Throughout the week, I’ll get texts from physicians asking, ‘Will you look at this rash?’ or ‘I’ve got this melanoma. Can you work it in?’” After graduating as one of the top five students in WVSOM’s Class of 2001, Endicott completed an osteopathic rotating internship at Charleston Area Medical Center and a dermatology residency at Case Western Reserve University. She said the specialty requires four years of residency work. In the first year, residents study internal medicine, surgery or complete a rotating internship. For the remaining three years, the focus is purely dermatology. The profession changes rapidly, requiring dermatologists to keep up with advances in pharmacological treatments. Endicott said that in the approximately two decades she has worked in the specialty, she’s seen dramatic improvements in treatments for conditions that previously were debilitating or fatal. “We now have medications that can make real differences in people’s lives. We can take someone with psoriasis and allow them to only have to think about their disease, say, once a month when they take their medication. We can dramatically improve a patient’s eczema. And people are living much longer with melanoma. Today even metastatic melanoma is being treated with immunotherapy, drastically changing the patient’s prognosis,” she said. Endicott said she enjoys working with students on dermatology elective rotations — even the ones with misconceptions about her profession. “Sometimes when people rotate here, they don’t realize how much medicine we do. They think we tell people what kind of makeup to use, and we don’t actually do that,” she said.
“We now have medications that can make real differences in people’s lives. We can take someone with psoriasis and allow them to only have to think about their disease, say, once a month when they take their medication.”
8 • WVSOM Magazine • WINTER 2024
