Skin Cancer Examination Teaching in US Medical Education

Assessing students’ ability to detect melanomas using standardized patients and moulage

“…For students pursuing careers in primary care, the medical student educational experience may represent their only exposure to dermatology. The management of an atypical pigmented skin lesion by medical students in this study supports physicians' self report of poor skin cancer screening skills (3)(4)(5)(6), and help us to understand why the rates of skin cancer screening are low in the primary care setting. (11)(12)(13)(14)(15).…”

Dermatology undergraduate skin cancer training: a disconnect between recommendations, clinical exposure and competence

“…Whilst additional studies have subjectively shown that both medical students and primary care physicians feel dermatology training could be improved [44-46], there are only a few US studies that have objectively assessed students’ diagnostic acumen after undergraduate dermatology electives [47-49]. These studies are, however, unlikely to be transferable to UK undergraduate students, and are not directly comparable to our study because the difficulty of the questions was not controlled for.…”

Melanoma in Middle-aged and Older Men

“…Professional education should (1) emphasize the value and practice of the skin cancer examination for all levels of health care providers, including physicians-intraining, and (2) promote primary care physician screening and education of patients at high risk of developing melanoma, including those with clinically atypical nevi and white, middle-aged and older men. 23 It is hoped that the gap between primary care physician and specialist melanoma screening and detection is declining with heightened awareness and education in our study period, compared with earlier periods from previous reports. 14,18,19,21 Skin self-examination practices were only weakly associated with thinner tumors in our study, suggesting that requesting a physician examination may be more effective than performing a skin self-examination for early detection.…”