Newer May Not Always Be Better

About 15 years ago, while riding on a shuttle bus at the annual American Academy of Dermatology meeting, I overheard two elderly dermatologists discussing the state of dermatology, as they perceived it. One gentleman commented that he had not seen a single advance to rival the advent of tetracycline for acne, and that most of the new treatments did not work very well. At the time, I remember thinking that these practitioners were out of touch with all of the hot new therapies for skin disorders. Since that time, as I have been bombarded by myriad new and supposedly revolutionary "advances," I, too, am beginning to question whether we should equate the concept of "newness"