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A Conversation With Brett Sloan, MD
© 2023 HMP Global. All Rights Reserved.
Any views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and/or participants and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy, or position of The Dermatologist or HMP Global, their employees, and affiliates.
Dr Sloan is a professor of dermatology and the residency program director at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine in Farmington, CT. He is the founding editor of JAAD Case Reports. After graduation from the University of Alabama, he was commissioned in the US Air Force and received his medical degree from the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, MD. He did his internship in psychiatry at Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio, TX, then spent 7 years as a flight surgeon for the 15 Special Operations Squadron at Hurlburt Field, FL, and the 514th F-16 test squadron at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, and 4 years as a senior flight surgeon for the 510th F-16 squadron at Aviano Air Base, Italy. He logged numerous combat flight hours as part of Operation Northern Watch, Operation Southern Watch, and Operation Allied Force. He then completed his dermatology residency at the San Antonio Uniformed Services Health Education Consortium. He attends clinics at UConn and the Connecticut VA, where his clinical interests include dermato-pharmacology, nail disease, infectious diseases, geriatrics, and health care disparities in sexual and gender minorities. Dr Sloan lives in Northern Connecticut with Bob, his partner of 13 years. When not at work, he is reading, at his local CrossFit, mountain biking, running, or puttering around his yard and garden.
Q. What part of your work gives you the most pleasure?
A. Teaching. Whether it be patients, nurses, medical students, residents, or colleagues, 90% of my workday is spent teaching to some degree. It is one of the most fulfilling ways to have an impact on people’s lives and keeps me “on my toes.” I enjoy daily interactions with medical students and residents as they challenge me to keep current and force me to view the world through different perspectives.
Q. Are an understanding and appreciation of the humanities important in dermatology and why?
A. Yes. Understanding history, art, literature, religion, and language can only enhance a dermatologist’s ability to observe, communicate, and connect with patients. An understanding of liberal arts helps develop critical-thinking skills and is essential for understanding people who have had different life experiences.
This understanding of the experience of others is essential to developing empathy.
Q. Who was your hero/mentor and why?
A. I have been very fortunate in my career to have many great mentors. Jane Grant-Kels, Dirk Elston, Bruce Thiers, Bob Dellavalle, and Jeff Meffert have all been very supportive of my career and have always been available for advice and encouragement.
My father is undoubtedly my hero. He was a decorated US Air Force F-4 Phantom II pilot, earning 9 Air Medals and the Distinguished Flying Cross after flying 130 combat missions over North Vietnam. He died in October 2022, and not until I wrote his obituary, did I realize what an amazing life he led. Not only did he teach me to shave, tie a tie, shoot a gun, drive a car, fly a plane, and deep-sea dive, but for his entire life he emulated kindness, charity, and humility.
Q. Which patient had the most effect on your work and why?
A. As an intern in psychiatry, I took care of a young Marine Corps officer with severe depression who had recently attempted suicide.
He was an inpatient for my month-long rotation, and we had daily therapy sessions together. He was around my age and his life paralleled mine so there was some degree of countertransference, yet I felt we had a good therapeutic relationship. I genuinely thought I was helping him, yet he had been hoarding his tricyclic antidepressants the entire time and toward the end of my rotation was found dead in the bathroom having overdosed. I was devastated and felt I could not trust my virgining clinical instincts. Soon after, I decided psychiatry was not my calling. Not only did this encounter change the trajectory of my career, but it also gave me a profound appreciation of the complexities of mental health.
Q. What is the best piece of advice you have received and from whom?
A. It may sound harsh and may have been more of an ultimatum, but soon after traumatically losing my right leg, my prosthetist told me to “adapt or die.” I left that appointment thinking he was a real jerk, but the advice eventually sunk in. I immersed myself in fitness and became very active in competing in triathlons and CrossFit competitions. In hindsight, I have been employing this
philosophy to some degree my entire life. Growing up a “military brat” and then spending 16 years in the military, I have moved every few years and adjusted to new environments. Despite settling in Connecticut, “the land of steady habits,” I have definitely learned to embrace change.
Q. Which medical figure in history would you want to have a drink with and why?
A. Linda Laubenstein for her tenacity, courage, and resiliency. She was an oncologist in New York City who is credited as one of the first to recognize the AIDS epidemic. Despite being wheelchair bound after contracting polio as a child, she finished medical school, residency, and fellowship in the 1970s. She, along with the dermatologist Alvin Friedman-Kien, published the first paper recognizing Kaposi sarcoma in gay men. At a time when many physicians refused to treat AIDS patients, she was making house calls in her wheelchair. She became an outspoken AIDS activist and criticized the American government and other physicians for their handling of the epidemic and further marginalizing an already vulnerable population.
