Here at the Logan Skin Clinic patients have to answer a range of questions before you see one of the skin specialists.
The owner of the practice, Dr Damien Foong explains:
“Number one; have they ever had a skin cancer cut out before? Number two; have they had one of the nastiest skin cancers, which is called melanoma ? and similar, it goes asking have they got a family history?, because some cancers ,especially melanoma, can run in the family like genes and not just from the sun. We also ask other broad ranging questions like what colour hair they have? What’s the natural colour of their eyes? How much sun have they had now versus before? Other important things like what’s their job?, because, for example; some of them may have an outdoor job versus an indoor job.
Dr Foong believes those questions help his patients think about what they said in the forms.
“”Thereby, when they come in and see the doctor their mind is locked on to the whole skin cancer, sun cancer risk. How much sun. All that stuff ”.
And he believes it makes a diagnosis easier.
“ Yeah, it absolutely does, because the more we know about the background the more accurate we can be”.
Reflecting on my time in the sun made me think about the severe sunburn I suffered at the age of 12 when I went swimming in a dam with a friend without sunscreen and the days when I was constantly encouraged to get a suntan.
Those were the days when a deep, dark suntan was meant to be a sign of good health.
Little did I know what the effects of that time baking in the sun would mean.
Dr Foong found the outcome.
“Rod, surprisingly we found a spot on your skin which I’m nearly confident is this thing called a basal cell carcinoma. The basal cell carcinoma was on your left shoulder. Most likely basal cell carcinomas are caused by sunburn and also blistering sunburns. So, more typically by indoor office workers who go out on the weekend and then come back. So they grow basal cell carcinoma”’.
Fortunately this type of skin cancer is low grade according to Dr Foong.
“So, if we give the example of lung cancer; everyone knows of lung cancer being bad; we’ll call that a ten out of ten. For that matter, we’ll also call a brain cancer a ten out of ten., we’ll also call bowel cancer and breast cancer seven out of ten. So this cancer, BCC on your left shoulder should be three out of ten”.
I now have to wait for the result of the biopsy taken by Dr Foong.
“ So the results should hopefully confirm that it is or is not a skin cancer and if it is a skin cancer there are further details in the report that gives us a little bit of a road map about how the skin cancer is on your skin. The road map helps us when we cut it out so that we cut out the right amount and get the cancer out completely so that we don’t have to come back, round two”.
If the diagnosis is positive, Dr Foong believes I should be okay.
“Äbsolutely , if this one is a BCC of which I’m currently using a figure of 96 percent, it will be a cut but it will be a cut with no more than four to six stitches”.
If surgery is needed it will be undertaken in one of three state of the art operating theatres.
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