Dermatologist

I'm not sure this qualifies as a crazy story, but I decided I wanted to be a dermatologist when I was in the fifth grade. My dad had had a few melanoma skin cancers and his dermatologist was our family friend. So at that time I had some exposure to the field. Not too long after that I ended up spending some time shadowing him in clinic and getting a taste of what his life is like. And when we had to write our fifth grade autobiography predicting our future, I wrote that I was going to be a dermatologist. So I think the crazy part of that story for me is just knowing that even a young childhood dream can become a reality with some planning, some hard work, some connections, and luck. I'm fortunate that it all worked out for me. Crazy that it did work out, but if you have a dream of something you want to do, it's definitely possible to achieve it.

One of the most difficult diagnoses that is not rare, we'll see three, four, five patients a year, is people who think they have parasites, insects, critters living in their skin that cause bites, itching, pain, discomfort, and no matter, no amount of proof basically dissuades them from this conception, this belief. Even though they've seen half a dozen or more physicians, it is a very strange narrow neurosis but known to all dermatologists and the people are otherwise seemingly normal.