Enliven: Clinical Dermatology

The maiden edition of a journal should always be one full of hope and expectation. It brings the promise of another avenue whereby knowledge of the nature of disease and its treatment would be disseminated. But are there not already enough journals to serve the needs of the dermatologic community?

Keywords

Dermatology; Journals; Evidence-based medicine; Complementary and alternative medicine; Homeopathy; Acupuncture

The maiden edition of a journal should always be one full of hope and expectation. It brings the promise of another avenue whereby knowledge of the nature of disease and its treatment would be disseminated. But are there not already enough journals to serve the needs of the dermatologic community?

The advent of the internet era would appear to have changed the world in more ways than the advent of printing did. It exposes what the advent of printing also did, i.e., it exposed the insatiable need of humans for knowledge, explaining the increased number of medical journals.

Why do we require so much knowledge as a species? How does this knowledge help us?

There is the old adage that if one were to give a man a fish, he would be feeding him for one day, yet if he were to give him the knowledge of how to fish, he would be feeding him for life. Through this adage, we see how knowledge can affect mankind. Knowledge gives us the possibility to harness our potentials and to bring them to bear fruit.

Yet does the large amount of scientific information available today help science? Do the many scientific meetings disseminate as much knowledge as one would expect from them? Are we writing more to make our mark rather than to disseminate knowledge that would be of real value?

Part of what may have opened up this line of thought may be the fact that we are very often talking of the pathology of the same disorders and less in the way of real progress towards their real permanent healing.

This begs the question of whether another journal that would potentially address the same talking points of other journals in the same specialty would be of further value to needy mankind, although it may help feed the need of physicians in this field to be heard and to make their mark.

Keep a person in utter darkness and he will have to feel his way around. His experiencing with bumping into various objects may show him a path, but it would always be ardent trial and error. Shine a light into the room and he begins to move around with less trial and error and more certainty. This light comes from knowledge, which would increase if we would allow more room for therapeutic modalities that show promise, but are yet to accrue sufficient acceptance that mainstream methods may have accrued. It is through permitting the light from such methods to shine that we may yet release ourselves from much trial and error. What was once unthinkable has become acceptable on a number of occasions. On such example is maggot therapy in wound healing. Thus may other methods arise and change our concepts of disease, thereby enriching us and giving us more certainty on our path as physicians who offer possibilities of healing.

One must remember that there are mainstream methods that are widely accepted and practiced, without the backing of initial research that is demanded today. One such example is the use of penicillin in the treatment of syphilis [1], which is only backed by clinical experience and was not trialed before being put to use. There are also other methods such as homeopathy and acupuncture that do have the same backing of experience, which come under complementary and alternative medicine that deserve to be allowed to prove their mettle. We must remember that these methods continue to have increasing acceptance among our patients who feel that it has offered help where mainstream medicine has been unable to [2-7].

Medicine is at once an art and a science. It speaks to the human soul and to the human mind, when practiced with the arduous desire to truly bring help to needy mankind.

Such ardour readily embraces other directions that may not initially fit the mould that one has learnt to accept as the concept of real medicine, simply because it brings with it the potential to satisfy that burning desire to bring succour to those in need.

At the start of its maiden journey into the world of dermatologic literature, may Enliven: Clinical Dermatology live up to the name â??Enlivenâ? and spark fresh debate in all fields of dermatology by also welcoming viewpoints on aetiology and therapy that are not mainstream to become a staple of this journal, perhaps providing answers to the questions of the true value of these methods thereby blazing a new and courageous path that can only be of value to mankind that we physicians profess to serve.

References

1. Centres for Disease Control Sexually transmitted disease guidelines (2014 ) Sexually Transmitted Diseases Treatment Guidelines 66.


2. Nahin RL, Barnes PM, Stussman BJ, Bloom B (2009) Costs of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) and Frequency of Visits to CAM Practitioners: United States, 2007. Natl Health Stat Report 18: 1-14.


3. Itamura R, Hosoya R (2003) Homeopathic treatment of Japanese Patients with Intractable Atopic Dermatitis. Homeopathy 92: 108-114.


4. Signore RJ (2011) Classic homeopathic medicine and the treatment of eczema. Cosm Derm 24: 420-425.


5. Signore RJ (2011) Treatment of lichen striatus with homeopathic calcium carbonate. Jl Amer Ost College of Derm 21: 43.


6. Nwabudike LC (2012) Melasma and Homeopathy. Homeopathic Links 25: 99-101.


7. Nwabudike LC (2012) Atopic dermatitis and homeopathy. Our Dermatol Online 3: 217-220.


8. Nwabudike LC (2015) Homeopathy in the treatment of dermatitis herpetiformis â?? a case presentation Homeopathic. In Press.