Skin trade

Looking to freshen up your face? The dermatologist will see you now, if you'll just have a seat among the spa-like flowers and music. Need your skin rash looked at? That'll be a while. And the regular waiting room will do for you.

So says a front-page story in today's New York Times about the separate but unequal treatment some dermatologists are giving their patients. Different phone numbers, waiting rooms, appointment durations, and the time to get an appointment mark a trend in which patients paying privately for beauty procedures receive first-class service while patients with medical skin conditions are relegated to coach.

“The message is that the cosmetic patient is more important than the medical patient, and that’s not a good message,” Dr. David M. Pariser, a dermatologist in Norfolk, Va., and the president-elect of the American Academy of Dermatology, told the Times.

It also aggravates a shortage of dermatologists, the story said, which by itself could lead to potentially dangerous delays for appointments. A Globe story last year reported on a national study that found patients in Eastern Massachusetts waited longer than anywhere else in the country for an appointment to check a "changing mole," which could be a sign of skin cancer.