The 67th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology took place in San Francisco on 6-10 March 2009. The flavour of this busy but well-organized convention was a mixture of practical, hands-on teaching sessions, led and delivered by experts, with breakthrough cutting-edge scientific sessions. Aesthetic dermatology comprised a significant part of the meeting. It is impossible to encompass all the important presentations made at the meeting and satellite symposiums, but we highlight here a few medical pearls on dermoscopy, melanoma and oncology, inflammatory dermatoses and community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Our report is not intended as a substitute for reading the conference proceedings, educational session handouts, online updates and related references quoted in this article.