Didactic Curriculum & Conferences

Our residency program features high-quality, faculty-led didactics in two half-day sessions per week. With these sessions, our residents have eight to 10 hours per week of dedicated and protected didactic time.

Residents also have monthly journal club, monthly grand rounds from September to June, monthly hands-on workshops, bi-annual morbidity and mortality conferences, and an annual Nebraska Dermatologic Society meeting.

Dermatology residents also will have opportunities to present and discuss challenging patients at monthly dermatology grand rounds, bi-weekly melanoma/sarcoma tumor boards, and monthly multidisciplinary high-risk cutaneous H&N tumor boards.

We have developed formal curricula with a corresponding reading schedule in general dermatology, surgical & aesthetic dermatology, pediatric dermatology, dermatopathology, basic science, and professionalism/business of medicine. We have guest lecturers from the community and other UNMC departments, as well as a funded visiting professor program to bring dermatology leaders from across the country to Omaha.

Formal Didactics/Conference Schedule

A general overview of our didactic curriculum can be seen here:

• Monthly clinical journal club: Held montly on the fourth Friday at 7 am in the Resident Library to review previous months' issues of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology and JAMA Dermatology, or other relevant clinical journal articles. Residents are expected to review the entire journal and to present selected articles of interest. Residents are expected to attend each Journal Club meeting.
• Hands-on surgical workshops: Held on the fifth Friday mornings (and ad hoc at other times) during didactic session time, these will be hands-on surgical, procedural, and cosmetic/aesthetic dermatology workshops. Attendance is required by all residents.
• Morbidity and Mortality conference – Residents will work with faculty to select at least one case each to present to the department for evaluation and discussion at this biannual conference. QI/root cause analysis will be included as appropriate.
• Resident monthly meetings: Held monthly by program leadership to cover important administrative and other topics for the residency. Attendance is mandatory.
• Research meetings: These departmental meetings are held from 12:15 p.m. to 1 p.m. bimonthly on first and third Mondays. Residents are strongly encouraged to participate.
• National and regional academic meetings: PGY2, PGY3 and PGY4 residents are encouraged to present abstracts or cases at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology. This is most often done at the Residents’ Forum or Gross and Microscopic Symposium. Presentation at other academic meetings, such as the Society for Pediatric Dermatology, American College of Mohs Surgery, American Society of Dermatopathology, or Society of Investigative Dermatology meeting is strongly encouraged. Residents also will be required to attend the annual/bi-annual meetings of the Nebraska Dermatologic Society. The residents are further exposed to dermatology practice-based learning and improvement and system-based practice elements in these meetings.