Desiree Ratner

Dr. Désirée Ratner graduated magna cum laude from Brown University in 1984. She then spent a year doing research at the Institut de Recherches Scientifiques sur le Cancer in Villejuif, France before matriculating at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, from which she graduated in 1989. She completed her dermatology residency at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and then did a two-year fellowship in Mohs micrographic surgery, first at the New England Medical Center in Boston and then the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, MA.

Dr. Ratner has been a practicing dermatologic surgeon, focusing on cutaneous oncology and reconstruction, since 1995. She spent over 15 years at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital’s Columbia University Medical Center as Director of Dermatologic Surgery, achieving the rank of Professor of Clinical Dermatology in 2008. She then became Director of the Comprehensive Skin Cancer Center at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, St. Luke’s and Roosevelt Hospitals, and spent over five years at that institution. She left in July 2018 to start her own private practice in New York City and is now Clinical Professor of Dermatology at NYU Langone Health.  

Dr. Ratner has been Co-Editor of the Dermatologic Surgery Journal since 2007 and an Editorial Board member of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology since 2008, currently serving as its Associate Editor. She has served on the Boards of Directors of the American Dermatological Association, the American College of Mohs Surgery, and the International Transplant Skin Cancer Collaborative. She also served as Chair of the Procedural Dermatology section of the Association of Professors of Dermatology and of the Sulzberger Institute of the American Academy of Dermatology.  She currently serves on the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s Residency Review Committee for Dermatology. 

Dr. Ratner has given hundreds of dermatologic surgical presentations at national and international meetings and is Co-Editor of two textbooks, Procedural Dermatology and Reconstructive Conundrums in Dermatologic Surgery. She has authored or co-authored over 120 peer reviewed articles and abstracts as well as invited articles and book chapters, largely concerning cutaneous oncology and reconstruction.