Published 6 January 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.a3138
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:a3138

Letters

Managing melanoma

Early detection of melanoma is key, so let’s teach it

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Thirlwell and Nathan note the difficulty in detecting melanoma early and the usefulness of dermoscopy in trained hands.¹ The obvious answer is to train all primary care health workers better in the early signs of melanoma, train a few in the skilled use of dermoscopy, and enable patients to readily and directly access such community dermoscopy services.

UK medical undergraduates typically cover the whole of dermatology in a week or so, with perhaps one session in a skin cancer clinic. The half of graduates who become general practitioners then tend to "do" dermatology in one afternoon on their day release course. Melanoma diagnosis is taught in the time left after covering common rashes such as eczema, acne, and psoriasis. So a typical general practitioner will have spent some 20 to 30 minutes being taught to recognise melanoma.

Early detection is possible through better training of all primary care workers and . . . [Full text of this article]

¹ Canute Surgery, Southampton SO19 9AL

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