Liisa Väkevä became interested in skin diseases and their contributing factors through research. Visible conditions on the skin are relatively easy to examine, and the visual aspect is also important to Liisa in patient work. You do not always need a large amount of medical equipment to make a diagnosis; experienced doctors can obtain plenty of information just by looking.
“In addition to the job’s visual nature, the best thing about being a dermatologist is being able to help patients. Many illnesses are not life threatening, but still have a tremendous effect on the patient. Itching, for example, can be intolerable and, at worst, a major disability. The symptoms and causes of skin diseases vary considerably, which makes the related work interesting. And effective treatment can be found for most such illnesses.”
In her day job at Helsinki University Hospital, Liisa works with challenging skin lymphoma patients as well as skin diseases in general. Her goal is to continue research while practicing medicine and to contribute to the field in the best interests of patients. She is known as an empathic doctor and a good listener, with experience of a range of skin diseases and identifying the related treatments.
