The Division of Dermatology at the University of Louisville - A Brief Historical Perspective

Prior to 1984 the Division of Dermatology was a volunteer effort populated by dermatologists in the local community. In 1984, Lafayette G. Owen, MD was appointed as Professor of Medicine (Dermatology) and Chief of the Division of Dermatology and Jeffrey P. Callen, MD was appointed as an Associate Professor of Medicine (Dermatology) and the Program Director of the Residency Program. Dr. Steve Hodge also became a member of the full-time faculty at that time.

Our history as a Division dates even further back. In 1968, LG Owen, upon his return from training in Dermatology and Dermatopathology at Baylor University Medical Center in Houston, Texas, recognized the opportunity to begin a residency program at the University of Louisville. He was initially appointed as a part-time (50%) position as the Director of Dermatology and spent the remainder of his time in private practice with Maurice Fliegelman, MD. Upon his arrival, he started a Dermatology clinic that met three days per week at the Louisville General Hospital. Eventually he enlisted other clinicians who had recently completed their training, including Drs. Chester Davidson, George Gataky and Joseph Thompson. LG began a journal club and a clinical conference roughly in 1970 which was modeled on the Baylor Training program's sessions and he convinced several other local practitioners to attend and present patients. Our program still functions in a similar manner in terms of the didactic sessions that were begun in the early 1970s.

In July 1970, the first resident entered the newly approved dermatology training program. Eventually, the program was educating 9 or more residents over a three year training period. In the early days of the training program there were only 4 slots for residency paid for by the University. Other positions were paid through pathology, surgery, plastic surgery or unfilled medicine subspecialty slots. Also, there were times when residency positions were unfunded, a practice that ended in the early 1980s by mandate from the American Board of Dermatology and the newly created Residency Review committee of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

Space to house the new residency program was a problem for Dr. Owen. In 1977, the offices were housed at the far end of the first floor of the Hospital, not too far from the Specialty Clinic (Venereal Diseases) and the morgue. In 1979, that space was demolished and we were moved next to the morgue and then a few years later to a relatively small space in the Medicine Department office space in the Ambulatory Care Building. When the Turner's Building (310 East Broadway) was up for sale, Dr. Owen convinced Drs. Parsley, Hodge, McCall, Callen and Fowler to purchase the building into which we could move the private practice offices, the dermatopathology offices and the offices of our Residency program.

In 1983, the Residency Review Committee reviewed our program and recommended to the Department of Medicine and the Dean's office that there be a number of full-time faculty in order to maintain the accreditation of the Dermatology Residency at the University. Therefore, in 1984 Drs. LG Owen, Steven Hodge and Jeffrey Callen were appointed as the first full time faculty members. Eventually others were added to our faculty including Joseph Fowler, Carrell Spann, Vilma Fabre, Janine Malone, Soon Bahrami, Cindy Owen and Courtney Schadt. At this time (2013) we have 5 full-time faculty, Dr. Callen is the Chief of the Division and the Residency Program Director, Dr. Cindy Owen is the Associate Program Director (she will become the PO in July 2014) and is the Director of the Clinic at the Ambulatory Care Building and of the Inpatient Consultation Service, Dr. Courtney Schadt is the Section head at the Rex Robley Veterans Hospital and Director of Medical Student Education, Dr. Soon Bahrami is our Chief of the Section of Dermatopathology and Dr. Janine Malone serves as our liaison with the Pathology Department. In addition we have a large number of volunteer faculty who contribute time and money to our program to educate residents and students.

Dr. Michael McCall joined our residency program in 1978 and recognized a need for Dermatologic Surgery. During his third year of residency, Drs. Lafayette Owen and Callen facilitated a six-month rotation with Dr. Frederick Mohs in Madison, Wisconsin. Upon his return he established the first Mohs surgery unit in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. In 1979 Dr. McCall began a Mohs College-approved program and has trained 22 people who have practices both in academic units and in private office in many areas of the United States. The approval process for Mohs College fellowships changed and with the change, Dr. Tim Brown, one of Dr. McCall's trainees, was appointed the Director of Dermatologic Surgery and in 2012 began an ACGME-approved fellowship in Procedural Dermatology.

Dermatopathology has always been a strength of our program from its onset, with two board-certified dermatopathologists (LG Owen and Steve Hodge) leading the effort beginning in 1976. They had an ACGME-approved fellowship for one year in 1981-1982 and trained Dr. Ruth Hanno. Today's two full time Dermatopathologists, Drs. Bahrami and Malone, are planning to apply for approval for a training program in the future.

Dr. Owen began the University of Louisville Spring meeting in the early 1970s and modeled it after several regional meetings. In 1977, Dr. Callen began a regular program that would bring visitors from other Universities to our department. This program has brought over 200 individual lecturers to our Division. In 1982, upon the death of Lew Fine, MD, monies were left to establish the Bernice M . Fine memorial lectureship in cutaneous medicine. These outside speakers have been part of our visiting professor program or our Spring meeting since 1984. In 2013 a second named lectureship has been established to commemorate Jeffrey P. Callen' s 25 years of service as Chief of the Division of Dermatology and to ensure the continued education provided by the Visiting Professor Program.

Dr. Callen had also become involved as a Director of the Winter Skin Seminar in 1991, and as of 2011, this annual meeting is organized by a committee including Soon Bahrami, MD, Carol Kulp-Shorten MD, Cindy E. Owen, MD and Jeffrey P. Callen, MD of the Division of Dermatology at the University of Louisville.