World Skin Health Day 2018 with the Australasian College of Dermatologists

[ric id="3016" srcmoduleimage="https://ilds.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Port-Mac-derm-team-360x260.jpg" srcsquare="https://ilds.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Port-Mac-derm-team-360x360.jpg" srcoriginal="https://ilds.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Port-Mac-derm-team-450x346.jpg" srcvideo="https://ilds.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Port-Mac-derm-team-320x180.jpg" srcnarrow="https://ilds.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Port-Mac-derm-team-475x100.jpg" format="original" alt="" caption="The Port Macquarie dermatology team take part in World Skin Health Day 2018" classes="center"] The ACD undertook a social media campaign in collaboration with a number of patient support groups with the theme of “understand”. The purpose of this campaign was to promote the diversity of skin diseases in Australia. Through this campaign, the ACD was able to work with patient support groups to capture the physical, social and emotional challenges of patients with dermatological conditions. The ACD also encouraged the support groups to highlight challenges faced by their members particularly from regional and rural areas of Australia who may be isolated geographically or because of their condition. On the day of 29 August, participants in the campaign took a picture of themselves holding a banner, on which they wrote a personal statement about what understand means to them and what they want the world to understand about them and their skin disease. Participating groups were encouraged to share with their support network. Pictures were uploaded using social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn using the hashtags #understand #dermcoll #worldskinhealthday. Fellows and advocates of the ACD were equally enthusiastic about participating in the campaign and even took photographs of their patients expressing unique statements of their understanding on skin. Because social media is a universally used medium, the hashtags allowed patients from all over to relate to the statements posted by Australians. Many pictures were re-shared and re-tweeted which proved really instrumental in profiling the diversity of skin disease worldwide. If you wish to see some of the images from our World Skin Health Campaign, please see our Facebook page for details.