Publish or Perish?

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An event was recently held at Ave Maria University¹ honoring the oeuvre of beloved professor of history Dr Michael Sugrue who died in January 2024.² Mike and I were undergraduates and dorm mates at the University of Chicago in the 1970s. I “rediscovered” Mike in an advertisement on the back page of an airplane magazine for The Teaching Company’s Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition course.

As I understand it, Professor Sugrue— after getting a doctorate at Columbia, teaching at Princeton, and chairing the department of history at Ave Maria for many years—published no academic papers or books. Zilch! Yet he was enormously influential, especially during COVID, when his entertaining, enlightening lectures went viral on YouTube.³ He took millions on a journey through Western intellectual thought, always close to the underlying theme of understanding reason vs faith. With nary a single printed word, Sugrue’s thinking had and will have a lasting impact on people.

The Dermatologist magazine is founded in the tradition of sharing information through the printed word. As Mike proved, that is not the only way, and may not even be the best way, to communicate scholarship with an audience or to develop an enduring legacy. Few, if any, academic papers find an audience as large as Michael’s online viewership.

This month, we feature an article on vitiligo that describes the clinical impact of the disease, our understanding of the specific immune pathways that drive melanocyte destruction, and the resulting rapid developments in new vitiligo treatment. This article complements lecture and discussion on this same topic from our online Dermatology Week educational meeting.⁴Dermatology Week brings dermatologists, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants together for 3 days of immersive sessions focused on delivering excellence in patient care. This educational resource is available both live and on demand. Continue reading us here and find us online with Dermatology Week to stay at the forefront of dermatologic science and clinical best practices.