Joely Kaufman, MD, FAAD
President, Florida Academy of Dermatology

Dear FAD Members,

I would like to thank you for allowing me to serve as your president for the 2022-2023 year. I am honored to be able to take on this role for our membership and its board. I have been an active member of the FAD (formerly the FSDDS) since I was a University of Miami dermatology resident 24 years ago. It was around that time that the FAD and its PAC lobbied to provide direct access to Dermatology care for our Florida patients, which still continues today. We all recognize the need for a state society that can bring us together to protect our specialty and our ability to care for our patients, and we are privileged to have that in our FAD. I want to thank each and every one of you for your membership and for your contributions to our PAC which directly impact our ability to be successful in our role.

We should all be proud that we are one of the strongest specialty state societies and for the last 9 years we have been recognized with the AAD Model State Society Award with Highest Honors from the American Academy of Dermatology. This award is based on our society's ability to demonstrate excellence in education, community engagement, patient support, legislative advocacy, while providing special programs to support our specialty of dermatology. We look forward to serving you this year while fulfilling these goals.

Last year, our president, Dr. Cyndi Yag-Howard, led us in a rebranding of our society name with the purpose of allowing our name to better differentiate and highlight the inclusivity of our society and its purpose to serve all dermatologists, including surgeons, pediatric, Mohs, oncology, cosmetic, laser and academic. With the Florida Academy of Dermatology, we now parallel our national society name.

We will continue to strive to connect our specialty- thru education, thru membership, and thru opportunities to serve our community. We are here to educate and distribute information related to the practice of dermatology and the changes that come with each year. While national information is important, much also happens on a state level, including legislation that affects our daily practice of medicine. We will send email and social media updates as to changes that may impact our practices and patient care. Please follow us on Instagram and Facebook.
Also, please click here and make sure that your information is up to date in our peer to peer database. This will allow members to contact each other to refer patients or get guidance from other members.

This year will be a busy year in the legislature. Our PAC will continue to support patient direct access to dermatologists and also support honesty in education. Our patients deserve the right to factual information on the training of the of desire, with others loosely using the term 'dermatologist', who may or may not have done the training and/or the certification process.

Each year we host an annual educational FAD conference with speakers from our state and also over the country to give updates on the latest research and clinical tools in dermatology. The conference will also include lectures on practice management, updates on coding and legislative pushes affecting us as dermatologists. It is also a great way to meet your fellow members and dermatology residents from our 11 state programs. Our 2023 meeting will take place at the Four Seasons Orlando on May 19-21. You can REGISTER HERE for what is sure to be an amazing educational and social event.

I want to personally thank you for your membership, it is an investment in dermatology in Florida and the future security of our specialty. I would also encourage you to remind any other dermatologists in your area about the importance of membership. We are all in this together and we are stronger as a united front. We already have a large and supportive membership, but our goal this year is to increase our membership by 20%. Please put the word out on the street to your fellow dermatologists who may not realize what the FAD does each and every day. It is more important than ever to make sure that we continue to protect our scope of practice in dermatology. Our patients and our practices demand it. The larger our membership, the stronger we are when it comes to legislation and delineating the importance of our vital skill sets to patients, legislature, and payers.

Please reach out to me with any issues, questions, concerns or suggestions! We have an incredible team and are looking forward to a productive year ahead,

Thank you,
Joely Kaufman, MD, FAAD

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