Medicine@Brown
Date October 15, 2025
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Dawn of a Pandemic

By Patricia Myskowski ’72 ScM’74 MD’75

My road to dermatology was a circuitous one.

My fascination with the field developed late in my fourth year of medical school, after a March elective with a wonderful mentor, Dr. Charles McDonald. Before that elective I had no plans to pursue dermatology; in fact, I even resisted somewhat, as the words “it’s a great field for a woman ...” kept reaching my ears. 

I loved my internship at Rochester General, but ultimately became engaged to Alex Swistel MD’75 and moved to New York City, where we married in 1976. I was successful getting a PGY-2 position in medicine at the Bronx VA, and then a dermatology residency at New York Hospital/Weill Cornell. I finished, and I got a one-year research fellowship position at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where I became the second dermatology attending there. 

During the end of my fellowship, a conversation over coffee in the cafeteria determined my career for the next decade. My boss and I heard from our pathology fellow that there was an epidemic of Kaposi sarcoma among young homosexual men in NYC. We realized that we had also seen some of these unusual patients, and as the fellow, it was my job to collect them. We quickly reported this to the CDC, becoming three of the co-authors in the July 3, 1981, issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. “Kaposi’s Sarcoma and Pneumocystis Pneumonia among Homosexual Men—New York City and California”—yes, the beginning of AIDS. 

The next years were difficult ones, as Kaposi sarcoma and other AIDS-related diseases were relentless, and our multidisciplinary group worked tirelessly on etiology and treatments. Anthony Fauci and other National Institutes of Health investigators were frequent visitors, and ultimately HIV was isolated by Robert Gallo from the blood of our patients, drawn in green-topped tubes in Tuesday clinics and sent to the NIH on Delta Dash. 

With the advent of antiretroviral agents, the incidence of Kaposi sarcoma rapidly dropped, and I found a new direction in research: retinoids in cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, resulting in the FDA approval of oral bexarotene for cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. About the same time, I found myself tapped to lead the dermatology course for the second-year Weill Cornell medical students. I discovered my love for teaching and the challenge of curriculum reform during those years in a most satisfying way. Weill Cornell Medicine became my academic home, where, with my retirement from MSKCC in October 2024, I am a clinical professor of dermatology.

The next years were difficult ones, as Kaposi sarcoma and other AIDS-related diseases were relentless, and our multidisciplinary group worked tirelessly on etiology and treatments. Anthony Fauci and other National Institutes of Health investigators were frequent visitors, and ultimately HIV was isolated by Robert Gallo from the blood of our patients, drawn in green-topped tubes in Tuesday clinics and sent to the NIH on Delta Dash. 

With the advent of antiretroviral agents, the incidence of Kaposi sarcoma rapidly dropped, and I found a new direction in research: retinoids in cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, resulting in the FDA approval of oral bexarotene for cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. About the same time, I found myself tapped to lead the dermatology course for the second-year Weill Cornell medical students. I discovered my love for teaching and the challenge of curriculum reform during those years in a most satisfying way. Weill Cornell Medicine became my academic home, where, with my retirement from MSKCC in October 2024, I am a clinical professor of dermatology.