You can't make this stuff up

Today was my last day of dermatology. It's been a great month. A little boring because it was all shadowing, but easy (4 half-days/week) and I learned a whole lot. I actually really liked derm - I found it extremely satisfying and I hope my future practice allows me to do some dermatological work. There were some great patients, including this one I had today:

An elderly woman came in after being referred from her PCP. She wasn't really sure why she was supposed to be there (other than a checkup), which is pretty common occurrence in a specialist's office. She was, however, worried about a spot on her chest which she had just noticed this morning.

She got up on the examining table and showed us her chest. There was a sticker with a hole in it (like a reinforcement for paper, see photo) surrounding a pink mole.


Dr. M and I thought this was a really cute way to keep track of which mole you want the doctor to look at. The mole was fine. Dr. M told her she thought it was fine, and peeled the sticker off to finish her examination. The patient looked shocked, and exclaimed "Oh! That was just a sticker! I had no idea!"

Maybe the poor woman needs a referral to see an eye doctor next.