ABD Pediatric Dermatology study guide
ABD Pediatric Dermatology · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Pediatric Dermatology Subspecialty Certification Exam is a subspecialty examination offered by the American Board of Dermatology (ABD), one of the 24 member boards of the American Board of Medical Specialties. The ABD describes its mission as serving the public and the profession by certifying that diplomates have the knowledge and skills to provide high-quality, safe, and effective dermatologic care. This subspecialty exam is intended for dermatologists who have completed subspecialty training in pediatric dermatology and wish to demonstrate added expertise in skin, hair, and nail disease in infants, children, and adolescents. Content spans pediatric dermatology plus the general and medical dermatology foundation on which pediatric practice rests - broadly, half pediatric and half general/medical dermatology. Topics on this exam: Pediatric Dermatology and General and Medical Dermatology. The ABD Pediatric Dermatology study guide has 2 sections and about 640 words.
01Pediatric Dermatology: Diagnosing by Age, Morphology, and Distribution
Pediatric dermatology rewards pattern recognition anchored to age and morphology . The same papule means different things in a newborn, a toddler, and an adolescent. Build a mental index of conditions that are (a) neonatal and transient, (b) inherited/genetic, (c) inflammatory, and (d) infectious. Know the benign neonatal eruptions cold: erythema toxicum neonatorum (blotchy erythema with yellow-white pustules on an erythematous base, eosinophil-rich, sparing palms/soles), transient neonatal pustular melanosis (pustules that rupture leaving collarette scale and hyperpigmentation, more common in darkly pigmented infants), milia and miliaria (obstruction at different depths), and seborrheic dermatitis of the scalp.
336 words, about 2 min02General and Medical Dermatology: Morphology, Reaction Patterns, and Systemic Clues
General dermatology tests whether you can describe a lesion precisely and then reason from that description. Master the primary lesion lexicon: macule, papule, plaque, nodule, vesicle, bulla, pustule, wheal, cyst . Then layer secondary changes (scale, crust, erosion, ulcer, lichenification, atrophy, scarring) and distribution (photodistributed, acral, intertriginous, dermatomal, mucosal). Reaction patterns matter more than memorized disease lists.
304 words, about 2 min