272 Black dermatologists listed nationwide, 2 offering telehealth. Every listing self-identified; 269 license-checked.
Dr. Edigin is a board-certified dermatologist and rheumatologist. He is one of a handful of physicians in the United States with dual training in both specialties. His unique background allows him to provide comprehensive, integrative care …
A dermatologist treats skin, hair and nails. That covers acne, eczema, psoriasis, hair loss, pigment changes, keloids and skin cancer, and it covers the medical side and the cosmetic side of each one.
Book an appointment when a rash has not settled in two weeks, when a mole or a dark streak under a nail changes, when hair is thinning at the temples or the crown, when acne is leaving marks that outlast the spots, or when a scar keeps growing after the wound has closed. Anything that bleeds, grows or changes gets seen sooner rather than watched.
Bring three things with you. A photo of the problem at its worst, because skin rarely behaves on the day of the appointment. A list of everything that touches the area, including hair grease, edge control, shampoo, and any product a barber or stylist uses on you. And the names of relatives with the same problem, since much of what a dermatologist treats runs in families.
Three percent of dermatologists in the United States are Black, while Black people are 12.8 percent of the population [2]. For many patients that arithmetic has a plain meaning: they have never sat across from a dermatologist who has treated their own hair texture or their own skin tone before.
The cost of that gap has been measured. In a randomized study in Oakland, Black men were assigned either a Black doctor or a doctor of another race for a free screening. Before meeting anyone, both groups picked a similar set of preventive services. After the consultation, the men who had met a Black doctor were much more likely to accept every service offered, and the difference was largest for the invasive ones. The authors estimate that, at scale, the effect could narrow the Black and white gap in male cardiovascular deaths by about 19 percent [1]. Read it carefully: the same care sat on the table in both rooms. It was taken up more often in one of them.
Dermatology has its own version of the problem, and it is a diagnostic one. The American Academy of Dermatology writes that when someone with a darker skin tone develops skin cancer, the cancer is often advanced by the time it is diagnosed [3]. Part of the reason is where it hides. In darker skin, melanoma often appears in places the sun never reaches: the palms, the soles, the fingers and toes, under a nail, inside the mouth or on a lip, and the buttocks or genitals [3]. A clinician who has been taught to look there, and who checks those places without being asked, finds it earlier.
None of this says a clinician of another race cannot give you good care. It says that concordance changes what gets offered, what gets looked at, and what gets accepted, and that those three things decide outcomes.
CCCA is a scarring hair loss that starts at the crown and can become permanent, and it is the most common form of scarring hair loss in women of African descent.
On brown and black skin, eczema often looks gray, purple or dark brown rather than red, and it is more common in non-Hispanic Black children.
A keloid is scar tissue that keeps growing past the wound that started it, and it is far more common in Black skin than in lighter skin.
Melasma and the dark marks left behind by acne or a rash are most likely in medium to dark skin tones, and they fade over months and years rather than days.