Recognizing Skin Cancer - Melanoma. Saving Lives

I wanted to share a little gem with you all, where you can obtain some extra knowledge - for all Specialists dealing with the human SKIN.

As SMP/ PMU professionals, we deal daily with evaluating client skin suitability for the procedures we are about to perform.

What if we can be of even more help and possibly even save lives while just doing what we normally do without any extra effort or time lost?

How often do you notice a lesion, mole, bump, or lump on a clients' skin. Do you perhaps question the client about it?

And if so what do you ask?

And what do you say once they answered your question about it?

Do you perhaps feel uncomfortable mentioning it at all?

Skin cancer is the fastest growing of all cancers in number each year and the most affected group being 15 - 34 year old - that would be a lot of our clients’ age group ( minus the minors). Melanoma is the nastiest out of all of them and responsible for majority of deaths.

Many people won’t even notice or consider checking their skin or lesions or growths. How often do you check yours, your family or partners’?

... its just a weird bump or spot that doesn't heal for ages... right? It will go on its own, it’s just the skin... right? WRONG!

The numbers show those little buggers cause thousands of deaths each year when action was taken too late; huge numbers are in harsh therapy because it was allowed to spread; many suffer a disfigurement from the removal of a growth/ mole that was left alone for too long to rummage inside us.

That's actually why skin cancer related disfigurement and death numbers are so high. It’s the "unusual suspect!" Because by the time it takes to actually notice something that might not be right and check the mole/growth out - it can turn out to be the "late time in the game" .

If you can recognise if a bump or mole doesn't look right..

And then..

If you could say something comfortably to the client... would you?

By a colleague referral I came across this educational and CPD points contributing training.

It provides you with an understanding on what to keep an eye for when you’re dealing with clients skin, how to communicate it to the client and how to offer preventative measures advice if you wish to provide those to your clients as well.

This training takes 1 hour to complete the reading material + assessment and provides you with a certificate, which you can display at your clinic/salon. You can also mention this CPD accredited training to the client when you wish to suggest they get something checked out. It gives some "weight" behind your words.

1h of your time is no time at all; and while in lock-down we have plenty of that to spare!

The information is provided in such an easy to absorb format + images are really in depth and everything just makes sense.

It costs £20 which includes your certificate + online material ( + posted guide).

And ... the money goes to cancer charity! The Masced training programme ( https://masced.uk/ )

was created by https://www.skcin.org charity.

I have completed mine now and feel pretty good about it.

I always mentioned suspicious looking growths to my clients but I now have an even better understanding of what to keep an eye out for plus a bit of credibility when I suggest they go to see the dermatologist.

Thanks for reading and I hope you find this helpful!

Here is a little video about the course:

https://youtu.be/OOh8iDmFCek