Catering Skin Care Treatments to Patients With Skin of Color: Eliot F. Battle, MD

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When treating patients with skin of color, it is important to recognize that a person’s DNA is more important to their treatment than their skin tone, said Eliot F. Battle, board-certified dermatologist and pioneer of energy-based devices and lasers in skin of color, in an interview with The American Journal of Managed Care^® (AJMC^®).

Battle, also co-chairman of the Skin of Color Conference, spoke at the 2025 conference, where he expanded on his 25 years of experience as a dermatologist and his innovations in skin care treatments for patients with skin of color on a panel titled, "The Art of Treating Skin of Color With Lasers & Energy-Based Devices."

“Choose the right laser based on your patient's demographics and procedures they want,” he said during the panel.

Choosing the right treatment for your patient is important, Battle told AJMC, and he suggests conservative treatments for all skin types, but especially for patients with skin of color. Darker skin tones are more susceptible to dark marks, scarring, pigmentary disorders, and heat-related thermal disorders from light and heat. Additionally, skin of color also doesn’t respond positively to harsh or aggressive treatments, even those intended to target dermal layer issues like energy-based devices and lasers, he said.

“Regardless of what approach we do [for skin of color], it needs to be conservative,” he said. “I'm not a believer in strong peels. I think that causes the irritation. I'm not a believer in strong products or prescriptions because I think that causes irritation.”

Although Battle’s approach to skin care is conservative, he says he must also balance patient expectations and satisfaction. During his panel discussion, he exemplified some of his own practices to ease patient concerns and make them feel comfortable and trust that their concerns are being addressed.

“Create a conversation that relates and connects to your patient and with the world we have right now,” he said. “They have to trust your recommendation. Patients need to believe in you and your company to trust this recommendation. [Provide] realistic expectations; if not, then by the third treatment, if they haven't seen smooth skin, they're going to say, 'I want my money back.'”

Not only is it important to communicate realistic expectations, but it is also important to explain the process; describe the treatments, the energy-based devices, the lasers, and how they work; and how their skin works, Battle said.

“For scars, we walk first and make sure they're on the right regimen, products, and prescriptions,” he said. “We introduce lasers to them very early in the intervention because most scars are deep, and again, lasers affect deep, but we walk very gently the entire time.”

He also encouraged physicians in the audience to maintain a positive work environment for their staff that reflects the patient care they strive to deliver. And for physicians who specialize in treating patients with skin of color, he emphasized to “make sure that your staff [are] people of color.”

“We can treat skin of color successfully,” Battle said. There are many current tools suited to safely and effectively treating skin of color, and more to come in the future. “The take-home is to be conservative, be compassionate, and make sure that your practice has a welcoming feeling for people of color. And that the posters on the walls and the staff make them feel welcomed."