My practice is in traditional medical dermatology, and I strive to provide the highest quality of care in this area.
First, let me explain the word traditional medicine. When you call the office, a real person answers the phone. When you have an appointment, you see the doctor. You will not be treated by a nurse practitioner or a physician assistant. I will look at you and your skin lesions, meaning I will not be staring at a computer. Indeed, I have opted to take any penalties given for not being computerized so that I can maintain eye contact with patients and practice in the traditional manner. Also, if you have to cancel an appointment for any reason, my office will not charge you a penny.
As in traditional medicine, if my office receives a biopsy report or a blood test result that is medically significant, then I personally call the patient myself to reveal and discuss those results. Also, I welcome patients calling my office to ask my staff for the results of any test, knowing that if I didn't call them, that the result would have been negative.
Medical dermatology is the branch of medicine dealing with disorders of the skin, nail, and hair and its diseases. This is what all dermatologists are trained for in their residencies. When you leave the office, you will have an informational sheet on your particular skin disease. If you have a rare skin entity, you will have the name of it written down for your knowledge. As Confucius said, "The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name." I welcome patients using the internet to learn more about their skin disease.
As a medical dermatologist, I am not an esthetician. I am not a cosmetic dermatologist. I will not be peddling any miracle creams that will make you avoid aging. I sell no products in my office. I take care of traditional diseases.
I do remove moles and skin growths and skin cancers. For example, the traditional method of removal for basal and squamous cell carcinomas of electrodessication and curettage works extremely well for 98% of such lesions, and is reasonably priced. However, I do not do all types of surgeries. Surgeries that require a surgical assistant are not performed in my outpatient office. If sedation is needed for a child, I will need that assistance of a surgeon. For example, I will have to send you off for nail removal, ganglion cyst correction, and the like. In terms of squamous cell cancer, if is extremely large, or involves the lip or eyelid, then I will work in consort with a plastic surgeon or a Moh's surgeon in those cases. My office staff will make any such needed appointments for you.
One of the tenets as a health care provider in the traditional sense, is to give health care in a fiscally responsible manner. For example, I will unlikely be suggesting a cream that costs $1000/tube, when a generic is less expensive at a different pharmacy. Indeed, I usually give patients a ball park figure of drug costs, and I do recommend calling back to my office for a substitute treatment IF their insurance charges seem outrageous. Unfortunately, a physician is not privy to all such pharmaceutical prices from all the various insurances, so in such case, my staff and I will work out a reasonably priced alternative with the pharmacist.
As a traditional dermatologist, I also am very hesitant to use oral prednisone and oral and intravenous anti-cancer drugs. Skin lesions have to be socially, mentally, or physically disabling to a major degree before considering these treatments.
