An emotional training day

We have regular clinical training sessions in the MediSpa and Last Friday we talked about moles and skin cancer. Our beauty therapists perform massages every day and thus they regularly see the skin of our customers; they should know when to ring the bell if they think there is something suspicious.

Through my MelanomaMobil mole check company I see the selected cases of roughly 600 mole checks a month so in the past 10 years I have built up a vast database of amazing cases: most of them are mind lifting early catches but there are some very sad stories as well.

I began the training by reviewing a recent case when a routine mole check performed before a botox treatment ended up saving a patient's life. Next, I presented a considerable number of images showing examples of melanomas that look like moles. These were nothing like the cases you see in textbooks that tend to focus on late stage melanomas. These melanomas are small and barely visible to the naked eye.

It is quite shocking to see images of a deadly cancer that tend to (in the early stages) look like a regular mole.

There were 6 of us on the training; I had found a non-melanoma skin cancer on one of us previously and I have now performed mole checks for all of them.

Having seen the images they immediately asked me when they can have their follow up mole checks. I decided to perform a live demonstration to help deepen the message of the training day and so, using my dermatoscipic camera, I took images of some of the asymmetrical moles of two of my colleagues. I then put the original images from roughly a year earlier on the screen and compared them to the recent ones on the screen of the camera.

Shockingly both of the therapists' moles had changed. Despite having seen almost a hundred images of melanomas previously, just viewing their own changing moles became very emotional very quickly and there were tears in our eyes.

Every day 6 people die in the UK because of skin cancer. Have peace of mind and have your moles checked.

PS: ... So I did my mole check the following week. I asked my beauty therapist wife to take the images of my moles. When I analysed the images – it is a weird feeling in the gut checking my own moles – I was aware of a new mole at the back of my left shoulder. A mole that is quite dark and asymmetrical in shape and fine structure. It has to be removed.

Note: a new mole appeared on the skin of a dermatologist specialising on mole screening and I haven’t been able to catch it. Only the comparative analysis could reveal the true nature of this mole.