Dermatologic Procedures

 Patients expect primary care clinicians to care for skin problems. New techniques allow rapid assessment and treatment with less scarring. Although often neglected in residency training, various skin procedures can and should be daily in your practice. Why refer the patients out when you can diagnose and treat most of them?

This CME medical conference includes a review of common skin procedures including skin anesthesia, skin biopsy techniques, cryosurgery, electrosurgery, radiofrequency skin tightening, nail procedures, dermoscopy, and coding. Over 1,000 actual clinical slides are used in addition to text to review treatment of lipomas, cysts, ingrown toenails, warts, skin tags, chalazions, abscesses, actinics, seborrheics, basal cell and squamous cell cancers, malignant melanomas, and much more. The first day of the conference is dedicated to the procedures themselves. Understand the approach to the patient with a skin lesion including providing safe and effective local anesthesia. Practice performing all types of skin biopsies including punch, shave, curette/cautery, and excision. Cryosurgery reviews the use of topical refrigerants, liquid nitrogen, and hand-held cryo units. Used every day in the office, these techniques enable treatment of common problems you never thought you would treat; skin lesions, benign nevi, telangiectasias of the face, epilation, ingrown toenails, pyogenic granulomas, and more. The second day of the conference reviews clinical surgical dermatologic problems in detail. A wealth of clinical slides of various skin lesions are used to reinforce the lecture.

During this session we also demonstrate and practice dermoscopy, as used in the primary care office. Additional useful sessions include a one-hour interactive workshop on procedural coding and at the end of the conference, we discuss developing an implementation plan.