To cure sometimes, to relieve often, to comfort always.  Abstract:  The patient, a teenage boy with early male-pattern alopecia, is brought to a respected academic dermatologist at a famous medical center for an opinion.  Sixty years later, the experience still resonates. Keywords:  doctor-patient communication, alopecia, baldness, consultation, cruelty, male pattern alopecia My father was especially sensitive about being bald, which, in the context of the 1950’s, was not unusual.  So, when I was in my mid-teens, and the familiar signs of thinning and receding hair began to show, he took me to see a dermatologist. Determined to spare no expense to find a cure for my impending affliction he had … Continue reading →