SkinVision recommended you visit a doctor and here are some helpful tips to prepare for your appointment
SkinVision is with you throughout your skin health journey. When you receive an assessment from the SkinVision service recommending you to ‘visit a doctor soon’ or ‘visit a doctor if symptoms continue’, please note that this recommendation does not automatically mean you have skin cancer. It means that the service detected some warning signs in your skin spot and therefore an in-depth examination by a medical professional is the next step in your skin health journey.
Dermatologists recommend checking skin spots at least once every few months to be able to catch any worrisome moles in time and to get to know your own skin. Visiting your doctor for a skin examination is a step towards maintaining healthy skin for life.
How to prepare?
1. If possible, learn your family’s skin health history. For example, has your parent or sibling ever experienced suspicious or cancerous moles?
2. Complete and review your Risk Profile in the “My SkinVision” section of the app – it will provide you with a lot of information you can share with your doctor immediately.
3. Make a list of key topics you’d like to cover, such as any changes you’ve noticed in your skin spots including itching, change in color, bleeding, or growing.
4. You can share your SkinVision report with your doctor by downloading it from the “My SkinVision” section of the app.
What to expect?
The first appointment with your doctor takes about 10-20 minutes on average. This may vary, depending on your doctor’s practice.
During the visit, you can expect:
- General questions about your health history.
- An examination with a dermoscopy – a small hand-held device that allows a better visualization of your skin spots by magnifying and illuminating them.
- Your doctor may decide to do a full-body skin check to review any suspicious skin spots you might have missed. This may require you to change into a hospital gown for the examination.
- If your doctor finds a mole that they are concerned about, they might schedule an appointment to perform a biopsy. A biopsy includes cutting out a portion of the skin spot to test it. The procedure is usually performed under local anaesthetic which numbs a specific location of the body to reduce discomfort. Testing a physical skin cell sample after a biopsy is the only way to 100% confirm if skin cells are cancerous.
What to do afterwards?
- Follow your doctor’s advice.
- Update your SkinVision with your experience and diagnosis for a more personalized service and to keep logs of your skin spots in one place for future reference. We will send you a message to help you with that.
- Set Reminders for your next SkinVision Smart Check and the next doctor’s appointment if necessary.
Please remember that regularly performed skin checks are essential for the early detection of skin cancer and could save your life. We wish you the best of health and are proud of the steps you have taken in your skin health journey.
– Cristina Beiu, assistant professor of Dermatology at Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmac
