Director of the University Dermatology and Venereology Clinic
June 2010

What is the origin of the University Dermatology Clinic? 

The Dermatology Service, integrated within the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon, was started a short time after the creation of the Santa Maria Hospital, (HSM) under the direction of Professor Juvenal Esteves. At that time Professor Juvenal Esteves took the care to designate the service as the University Dermatology Clinic of Lisbon, a name which many of us still use even today.

This service was created by its director in order to have three elements: the element of care, the teaching element, and the laboratory element, structuring the service into three areas: the outpatient area (which is the most important one in dermatology), the in-patient area, and the laboratories: of Mycology and of Dermatopathology. The official inauguration of the service was only held when it possessed these three aspects. This has been maintained in the spirit of the service, which still has these three areas.

What are the functions and activities in the three major areas of action – teaching, research and service to the community?

Teaching
Teaching is carried out by the group connected to the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon, but not only them. There are several hospital assistants who participate in the practical teaching on a voluntary basis. Indeed, without them I don’t know whether it would be possible to carry out the teaching of dermatology with the quality intended. The subject is part of the course in Medicine, and has a timetable workload which we consider to be, if not ideal, that which allows us to achieve the aims desired for the subject of Dermatology.
Besides the teaching in the fourth year, we carry out a more differentiated teaching aimed at hospital interns from other specialties who are on training periods at this service and for general practitioners. One should also mention that the service carries out training periods for sixth year students, as well as supervising Masters theses.

Research
The service has several ongoing research works in different areas, ranging from Basic research to clinical application, which has led to publications in magazines of renown, as well as holding three PhD examinations that were recently the completion of some of these research projects.

Within the field of research, a project underway at the moment is the creation of a Dermatology Centre in the Institute of Molecular Medicine, which will be headed by Professor Paulo Filipe. Another area is that of Dermatopathology, namely with works in the field of melanoma, which led to the recent PhD by Professor Luis Soares de Almeida. The Dermatopathology laboratory is a great honour for us. It has already been visited by the Evaluation Committee for accreditation on the European level, with a decision to be announced in December. This laboratory was invited to join the Group of Dermopathology Laboratories in Europe, which are accredited for the preparation of dermatologists and of anatomopathologists for the European examination of that sub-specialty.

Also in the field of the European recognition of the service, it was also recently invited to develop an area dedicated to Genodermatoses and other rare diseases in Portugal in the Paediatric Dermatology Consultation. At this moment, doctors and nurses are being trained in Paris in one of the centres in this network in order to carry on this work.

Service to the Community 
Service to the community is the main aspect of the dermatology clinic – treating patients. In the outpatient treatment and in admission to hospital, we offer Diagnosis and Treatment. Besides general consultations in Dermatology, there are consultations in sub-specialties: cutaneous oncology, sexually transmitted diseases, Allergology /Contact Dermatology,consultation for HIV patients. Also being held, in small spaces outside the service, are consultations of Paediatric Dermatology, including the consultation of Germodermatoses, and a consultation of Pathology of the Vulva, held by a dermatologist in the consultation of Gynaecology.

As areas of diagnosis, we have the laboratories (of Mycology and Dermatopathology) and the different techniques carried out in the consultations: Dermatoscopy, Techniques of Photobiology, Tests for Contact Dermites and others. In the therapeutic areas, besides the large surgical area, which today occupies an important space in Dermatology, techniques of Laser therapy, Phototherapy, and others are carried out. This is the structure of the service.

What is the pedagogical mission, definition of the aims that it is intended to achieve in the scope of the training of future doctors?

The service holds some courses. There will be a course on sexually transmitted diseases, held by the HSM within the scope of the hospital’s teaching activities. There has already been a course in Cutaneous Biology, and in October there will be a second course in Mycology, with there also having been courses in the area of Phototherapy.

As a rule, the service’s policy, more than holding courses located “in-house”, has been to collaborate with institutions in the dermatological area, namely with the Portuguese Dermatology Society. The next course in Mycology will be held by the subject of Dermatology, but on scientific heritage and within the scope of the Portuguese Dermatology Society.

I should mention that there has been a great effort made by all of Portuguese dermatology in Lisbon’s candidature for the holding of the European Dermatology Congress, which has been won and will be held in Lisbon in 2011. The whole service is committed, and will participate actively in the Congress, with I myself occupying the functions of General Secretary.

Manuel Marques Gomes