TYPES OF DOCTORS
General Practitioners
Your General Practitioner (GP) is your “local” or “family” doctor who you see for coughs and colds, back pain, a check up, or skin problems, including possible skin cancer. A GP is a doctor trained to deal with all medical problems, but one who is not necessarily an expert in any particular area.
Specialists
By contrast, Specialists are doctors trained to be experts in a specific area of medicine. A cardiologist treats only heart disease. An orthopaedic surgeon operates only on bones and joints. And a dermatologist is a specialist who only treats skin disease – including skin cancer.
Dermatologists
Dermatologists in Australia are exceptionally well-educated and trained, but there are only 500 or so of them in the entire country and Australia has around 434,000 new cases of skin cancer each year. Obviously there are far too many skin cancers in Australia for such a small group of doctors to deal with, so how do we approach this problem? The answer is skin cancer clinics.
DO YOU NEED A SKIN CANCER CHECK IN MELBOURNE? LEARN ABOUT THE TYPES OF SKIN CANCER
SKIN CANCER CLINICS EXPLAINED
Skin cancer clinics originated in Queensland in the 1990’s to address the massive difference between the amount of skin cancer and the amount of specialist dermatologists available to deal with it. Doctors at skin cancer clinics are almost always GPs who have an interest in skin cancer diagnoses and skin cancer treatment. Over time, the Skin Cancer College of Australasia (SCCA) was formed to represent doctors working in skin cancer.
But, in trying to fix one problem, skin cancer clinics have created another problem: regulation. Until very recently, any doctor could open a skin cancer clinic and call themselves a skin cancer doctor, with or without any specific skin cancer qualifications.
So the SCCA has now introduced the Accredited Skin Cancer Doctor system. Only doctors who have completed a significant amount of additional training in skin cancer, such as a Diploma or a Master of Medicine in skin cancer are able to be called Accredited Skin Cancer Doctors. This symbol is your guarantee of seeing a highly qualified skin cancer doctor.