Asked about it, not just looked at

Aurelio Vance’s condition is mild by every clinical measure. He had not been swimming since he was nineteen.

Adherence to topical treatment is low almost everywhere and is a design problem rather than a character one: the regimens are long, greasy and unpleasant.

Beyond the rash

Nothing here is cosmetic, and the clinic is explicit about that in its letters, because the word decides funding.

Severity and impact are barely correlated. If you only measure severity, you miss most of the problem.

Dr. Ilse Marchand, dermatology

Fingertip units

Quantity is the most under-explained part of topical treatment. Patients are given a tube and an instruction and left to invent the dose.

“Somebody asked,” he says. “In eight years, nobody had asked.”