About Mary B. Toporcer, MD

I was raised in a very small town in northeastern Pennsylvania. My personal family physician was my most noted role model. I volunteered during the summers while in high school at local hospitals. Subsequently, I entered into a six year pre-med / MD program at Wilkes College in affiliation with Hahnemann University. I was fascinated by the mechanics of the human body and of disease. Microbiology was my favorite subject in medical school. In 1984 I was proud to have been accepted into the Internal Medicine residency program at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. It was and still is a strong clinically based training program, assumed under the guidance of many brilliant and caring doctors and teachers. I had a desire to specialize to become more of an ""expert"" in a given field. I spent two years as an attending physician in Pennsylvania Hospital's emergency room and loved the challenges that walked through the doors. I continued to gain further insight and knowledge from my colleagues. Subsequent to my ER experience, I decided to attempt to secure a dermatology residency so that I could continue to care for infants, children, adults, and pregnant women, along with continuing to perform minor surgical procedures. I loved the mysteries that lay within where much of the evidence presents on the skin. Here I felt blessed to have a strong basis in medicine. I spent three years of Dermatology training at Hahnemann University and St. Christopher's Hospital for Children. The broad spectrum of diseases that I was privileged to discover in this population created my strong foundation for clinical dermatology. My training directors and instructors were exceedingly bright, positive, devoted individuals who made it their personal responsibility to make us/me one of the best. At present, I fully enjoy my solo private practice as a general dermatologist and my life as a mother of three incredible children. The challenges never stop, but the personal rewards are great. I hope to live each day discovering, teaching and learning both at work and at home.