History of Latin American Dermatology

Historical sketch of Chilean DermatologyGastón Ramírez and Raúl Alarcón. From that list, Roberto Jaramillo (head of section A),Florencio Prats (head of section B) and Gastón Ramírez were extraordinary professors ofDermatology at UCH.Dr. Jaramillo (1884-1951) was one of the most outstanding figures in Chilean Dermatologybetween 1935 and 1950; he was educated in Europe, at the Saint-Louis Hospitalin Paris, among other institutions, in the years before the First World War. He was a declaredenemy of scientific dogmatism, and a pioneer of histopathology in Chile, followingthe line of the celebrated European pathologists of the early twentieth century; it was athis proposal that the histopathology laboratory was set up at the St. Louis Hospital. In1951 he was succeeded in the chair by Gastón Ramírez who held the post until 1968.Dr. Ramírez (1904-1996) trained first at the St. Louis Hospital and later at the St. Vincentde Paul Hospital, where he obtained the title of extraordinary professor in 1947, toreturn to the St. Louis in 1954. At the histopathology lab, Dr. Jaramillo was succeededfirstly by a brilliant dermatopathologist, Luis Toro Genkel, and later by Raúl AlarcónCasanueva. The latter won the competition to head the St. Louis Hospital in 1969 andduring his tenure the service and chair of Dermatology were transferred to the neighboringSavior Hospital, when the St. Louis ceased operations in 1978.During this period, Adelaida Tolic and Fernando Oyarzún also distinguished themselvesas educators. In 1982, upon Dr. Alarcón’s retirement, Carlos Vera Mora was appointedhead of that service, and he immediately turned teaching over to Ximena Raggio,who fulfilled that role until 1998. She was succeeded by Enrique Mullins up to the present.In this way, the Dermatology service of the Savior Hospital (as the heir of the St.Louis Hospital) is the oldest in the country in undergraduate education and the treatmentof dermatological and venereal diseases.Undergraduate education at the hospitals of the central and westernareas of Santiago associated with the University of ChileAt the St. Borja Hospital in the central area, the first undergraduate teaching of Dermatologywas handed to Hernán Hevia in the 1950s, while Florencio Prats taught at theAguirre Hospital; the former was interrupted when Dr. Hevia took over as full professorat the Aguirre Hospital in 1960. In 1972, those courses were set up again at the St. BorjaHospital under Daniel Villalobos, until his resignation in 1990, which brought an end toteaching in that area. At the Barros Luco and Trudeau hospitals in the southern area,UCH appointed Ignacio González Díaz as the first head of education, from the late 1950sto 1972; he was then succeeded Jaime Ruiz (1972-1996), Alfredo Cardemil (1996-2002)and Héctor Fuenzalida (2003-).At the St. John of God Hospital (western area), linked to UCH, the first extraordinaryprofessor was Mauricio Weinstein, from 1954 to 1970. Dr. Weinstein had started out atthe St. Louis Hospital to later join the St. Vincent de Paul Hospital. He was succeeded byIsidoro Pasmanik from 1970 until his retirement in 1990. Since then there have been noaccredited professors at that hospital, but the following have successively been at thehead of the undergraduate chair: María Isabel Benavides (1982-1993), María Isabel Herane(1993-1998) and Emilio Sudy (1999- ). Ximena Ancic, Ximena Moncada and FranciscoUrbina have also been outstanding teaching dermatologists at this hospital.Undergraduate education at the Pontifical CatholicUniversity of Chile (PUC)The Medical School at PUC in Santiago delegated undergraduate education in Dermatologyfor its students to the chair at the St. Vincent de Paul Hospital (later UCH’sAguirre Hospital) for several decades, from the incorporation of this discipline into the171