Dr. Lucia Seminario-Vidal Visits Pre-Med Club

In late October, just days before Halloween, Shorecrest’s Pre-Med club welcomed Dr. Lucia Seminario-Vidal to teach them about something much scarier than ghosts and ghouls: rashes and skin cancer. 

Presenting various images and case reports she has worked on, Dr. Seminario-Vidal illustrated to the students the importance of skin care and why parents, like herself, nag their children about using sunscreen even when the sun isn’t visibly out. Not only that, she explained how students can identify potential melanomas (a type of malignant skin cancer) through using the ABCDE’s of skin cancer – asymmetry, border, color, diameter and evolution. 

Along with informing the students about skin care and how to detect cancers, Dr. Seminario-Vidal also showed them many possible career pathways in dermatology. Ranging from looking at skin cells under a microscope as a dermatopathologist, to removing cancerous cell tissues as a Mohs surgeon, to developing new medicines and writing papers as researchers in industry, she showed how dermatologists have it all.  

Dr. Seminario-Vidal is an MD, PhD, with a Postdoc in immunobullous disorders and a US board-certified dermatologist. She has worked in academia at USF and Moffitt Cancer Center leading clinic trials, inpatient consult service, and having specialized clinics for patients with complex dermatological conditions. She then began to work in a private practice and was recruited to simultaneously work as the Executive Director in immunology at Eli Lilly where she continues her role as a mentor teaching the younger generation of doctors, as well as in develops and launches new medicines for treating dermatological diseases. 

She concluded her presentation with the final note to “always give back to the community,” because she feels being a doctor is an honor and privilege and she should help service those in need. 

The students enjoyed Dr. Lucia Seminario-Vidal and thank her for speaking about her profession and teaching them about the wonders of dermatology.