Friday 6th July 2018

From the 3rd-5th July 2018, Jen and Naomi (from the Alopecia UK team) attended the British Association of Dermatologists' (BAD) annual meeting in Edinburgh. This annual conference is an opportunity to promote our aims of Support, Awareness and Research within the dermatology field. 

We had conversations with more than 100 dermatologists, mainly from the UK but also a few from around the world. It was pleasing to hear that many dermatologists were already aware of Alopecia UK and regularly signposted their patients towards the charity. For those who were not aware of us, we explained how important support, information and advice from Alopecia UK can be in helping people to come to terms with their alopecia. 

Many dermatologists agreed that it is often the psychological impact of hair loss that can leave people lost and out of control. As such many congratulated our team on the hard work the charity does to make things easier for those with alopecia. 

Whilst at the conference we also had the opportunity to promote our new children's booklets, encouraging  dermatologists to sign up to receive some of these for their clinics. The printing cost of the latest round of booklets has been kindly supported by the BAD. The booklets are a great resource for helping a child understand what is happening to them and to take to school to help other children to understand about their alopecia. And we're delighted to have posted over 500 of the new booklets, as well as a similar number of general charity leaflets, to dermatologists all across the UK. (Naomi pictured on her day back to the office with her tower of post!). Visit our shop to get your own copies.

We also took the opportunity to advertise the availability of our new Research Pots Grant Scheme whereby two pots of funding are available for alopecia research projects. It was exciting to discover that some doctors involved in research had already heard of our new grant scheme and asked further questions on how to apply. 

We were very pleased to attend the 2018 BAD annual meeting and continue our work in raising awareness of alopecia, and Alopecia UK, with dermatologists in the UK.