Physicians are hardly the shining beacons of maintaining work-life balance, but a growing number of medical students would beg to differ. Many in the upcoming med school classes have found a way to get a doctor’s generous payday without the notoriously long hours associated with the career. They do it by practicing dermatology.
“It’s one of the only fields where you can work 40 hours a week like a normal person,” Dr. Lindsey Zubritsky, a dermatologist in Ocean Springs, Miss., who sees patients three days a week, told The Wall Street Journal.
A discipline built on identifying and treating skin conditions, dermatology is largely a preventative practice, allowing physicians in the field to mostly avoid emergency calls, weekend hours, and late-night emails. The flexibility means many have four-day work weeks. The discipline's unsparing salary is just as enticing; dermatologists earn a median salary of $541,000 annually, according to the Medical Group Management Association, WSJ reported. According to Doximity & Curative’s 2023 Physician Compensation Report, dermatologists earn an average salary of $468,000 a year.
For millennial and Gen Z doctors demanding work-life balance in a career track infamous for crushing hopes of it, dermatology has become an appealing track. There’s been a 15% increase of MD applicants in dermatology in the U.S. from 2022 to 2024, according to data from the Association of American Medical Colleges. While there’s been more applicants, there aren’t many more job openings, as dermatology ranks the second-most competitive medical discipline to break into, second only to plastic surgery, according to medical school admissions consultancy Inspira Advantage. By comparison, other physicians paid in the half-a-million-dollar range include anesthesiology, gastroenterology, radiology, and neurology, according to Inspira Advantage.
Dermatology is "ungodly competitive,” said Zubritsky, who goes by DermGuru on Instagram.
Dermatology owes its rise in popularity, in part, to the viral “dermfluencer” or “skinfluencer” trends gripping TikTok users. The social media platform has become a cornucopia of knowledge on products from hydrating snail mucin serums to pore-shrinking retinoids, helping dermatologists like Zubritsky, who boasts 1.3 million Instagram followers, spread understanding of skin science.
This wave of content creation is hardly reserved for just medical professionals. Influencers—MD or not—are cashing in on skincare content, with skincare and cosmetics becoming the No. 1 source of brand deals, according to September data from SponsorUnited’s 2024 Celebrities & Influencer Report, which analyzed 650 brands and 1,350 deals. Take CeraVe’s play ahead of the Super Bowl in February. The moisturizer brand recruited 450 influencers to tease its products across social media. Even before the big game’s kickoff, the campaign generated 6 billion views across TikTok and Instagram.
Skinfluencing’s growing rash
For all TikTok has done to draw the next generation of doctors to dermatology, the exponential growth of skincare videos has been both a soothing balm and a creeping rash. The proliferation of accessible information about dermatology has led some patients to address problems they were able to identify through TikTok scrolling, according to Emma Chiu, global director for trend forecasting firm VML.
“Education and accessibility are why millennials are turning to professionals on TikTok for advice,” Chiu told Elle in 2021. “There is this level of being able to break down barriers so pros can reach the audience in a way they may not have at their clinic.”
But as dermfluencing on social media becomes as beguiling as the discipline’s half-a-million-dollar salary, there’s also the risk of doctors turning away from a traditional medical practice in favor of content creation.
“I've had patients show me a TikTok of someone doing a dance and supporting a product and ask, ‘Why aren't you doing this?’” Dr. Adam Friedman, chair of George Washington University’s dermatology department, said in a March interview with Allure. “I'm like, ‘Because I'm here seeing you.’”
For every young doctor dermfluencing has inspired, it’s perhaps also reared a young person vulnerable to the glamor of new products. A generation of Gen Alpha "Sephora kids" has emerged from the more than $200 billion skincare industry as tweens and grade-schoolers apply masks and eye creams. Young people’s skincare obsession became untenable for summer camps, who banned skincare products for fear of it distracting from camp activities.
Some products touted by skinfluencers present a danger for their young audiences. Anti-aging products like retinols and acids are really only intended for older consumers, but that hasn’t stopped young people from growing curious and raiding parent’s cabinets, forcing dermatologists to speak out about children using the serums and creams.
“They don’t understand the function of skin and that it’s not just this wall you can throw anything at,” dermatologist Brooke Jeffy told USA Today.
