More than 100 Nanaimo residents lined up for the opportunity to get checked for skin cancer without having to wait for months or even years.
Mole Mobile, a mobile skin cancer screening unit, visited the city's Country Club Centre on Wednesday, July 30, as part of a trip to several communities throughout B.C. There was no pre-registration, with patients given a preliminary screening first-come, first-serve.
Dermatologist Dr. Gabriele Weichert said that one in 10 people she examines at these pop-up clinics will have a form of skin cancer, but to see a dermatologist in the area through ordinary channels may take a two-year wait.
"One of our biggest concerns in Canada, as dermatologists, is that the Canadian government has not been in preparation well enough to know dermatology is at a crisis," she told Black Press Media. "We don't have enough dermatologists in Canada, the numbers are dwindling and the patient population are growing."
Weichert said she would like to see more dermatology training positions and getting the message out to provincial health ministers and other elected officials.
"It's very difficult to see a dermatologist. In Nanaimo area here, it's a two-year wait list pretty much to see a dermatologist because we just don't have enough dermatologists on the ground to offer that care, and that's why people are coming here to get the free screening."
At each stop, she said, the mobile clinic has seen an "overwhelming" number of patients, including 120 in Parksville. Those who show often have a concern about a change in skin, leading them to seek an expert opinion.
"Skin cancers are growing in the population of Canada, some of them are concerning skin cancers like melanoma, very serious, and other ones are more common but a little less serious like basal cell carcinoma [or] squamous cell carcinoma but also really common. One in three fair-skinned Canadians will have one of those skin cancers in their life."
Kelowna resident Lorraine Burns was one of the people in attendance, taking the opportunity while in Nanaimo to have a mole examined.
"My partner had melanoma three years ago and passed away from it. She was a redhead, which is more of a melanoma [risk]. So I'm just here to check it out. Once something like that happens, you're sort of like, 'I'd better check this out.'"
When it comes to skin cancer, one thing to look out for, the doctor said, is skin lesions that appear to be changing. With pigmented lesions, which are typically dark brown or almost black patches of skin, she said the biggest concern is melanoma.
"Things that I'm more worried about are very crusty, prone to bleeding, have certain features on my special instrumentation where I can magnify the skin and look for certain characteristics that indicate skin cancers."
The mobile clinics are being organized by Melanoma Canada in partnership with the Canadian Dermatology Association and sponsored by Neutrogena.
For more information, visit http://melanomanetwork.akaraisin.com/ui/molemobile.
