A Cancer Visible To The Naked Eye, But Doctors Aren’t Looking

“We were very, very surprised,” Geller recalls. “About three-quarters of them were never trained in the skin cancer exam, and more than half never once practiced the examination during their primary care residency.”

Geller, who’s a senior research scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health, says those high levels of inexperience are really worrisome. Many of those medical residents surveyed are going to become primary care doctors — and they should be able to identify a malignant melanoma when they see one.

If doctors don’t have that skill set, “patients of high risk in the United States are in big-time trouble,” Geller says.

Read full story (WBUR Public Radio)