Impacts of Dermatology and Skin Surgery on Public Health
- gphscholars
- Jul 23
- 2 min read
Presenter: Zakir Shahzad, Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics & Economics, Global Public Health Scholars
For my practicum, I completed an internship at Damascus Dermatology and Skin Surgery Center in Damascus, MD. I interned under Dr. David A. Lee, who is a board certified dermatologist and dermatologic micrographic surgeon. During this internship, some of my responsibilities included prepping patients' charts, uploading pathology reports of their biopsy or excision results, calling back patients placing them in a room for complete skin checks, creating lidocaine solutions used for the surgeries, making the biopsy trays, and sterilizing the tools used to perform surgeries just to name a few. On top of that, I shadowed many of Dr. Lee's surgeries which included excisions and Mohs surgeries. Mohs surgeries are a specialized type of skin surgery that involves removing a part of a skin cancer site, looking at it through a microscope to see if the cancer cells are still present, and then removing more margins if there are until the margins are fully cancer free. This form of surgery is fairly new as it was first used in 1936, so it taught me about how using basic intuition in medicine can lead to novel discoveries. Another valuable thing I learned was general private clinic procedures when it comes to charging patients' insurances, getting referrals from primary care providers, and specific techniques used in a dermatology clinic. Lastly, I learned how to compartmentalize many tasks as every time I would finish something, there would always be another task at hand, and this has translated well over to school. The public health implication of this is that skin cancer is very prevalent amongst the baby boomer generation of America due to a lack of awareness of the importance of sunscreen. If we emphasize how sunscreen, even in the colder seasons, is essential to decreasing the risk of skin cancer, we can permanently reduce the rates in the United States and the world.
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