Ira Lawrence Skolnik, MD, PhD, FAAD

I have pink-pale skin and a tendency to develop dark moles, so I go in for a skin cancer check of all my moles every few years. I went to see a new dermatologist this year and he identified one small dark mole on my right calf that needed to be removed. I've had 12 moles removed since my teens (I'm 33 now) so I'm quite familiar with the surgical procedure involved. However, in the past, my old dermatologist (in a city I no longer live in) would automatically refer me to the plastic surgeon for the removal. In this case, the office indicated they would do the procedure in-office, instead of referring to the plastic surgeon, due to insurance not covering the mole removal otherwise. What a mistake. I should have just scraped together the money to cover the plastic surgeon. The mole removal itself was painless (as it should be), it was done under a local anesthetic and closed with a few surficial, non-removable stitches. I was sent home with an aftercare instruction sheet and told to come back for a follow-up in two weeks to get the stitches out. I followed the aftercare directions carefully, washing when I was directed to, using aquaphor on the stitches, and being careful to follow the covering/not covering directions. I was told not to exercise for two weeks, which I followed. My first complaint was that the stitches were done in an ugly manner, and the doctor left the ends of the thread very long, so they kept catching in the band-aid. I eventually had to trim them myself. The wound seemed to heal well, it stopped oozing when it was supposed to, and I had no infection, and very minimal discomfort, just soreness around the wound. When he took the stitches out, the doctor said that everything looked good, put a band-aid on it, told me to expect a small scab that I shouldn't pick at, and to continue to take it easy. Well..a day later when I went to take the band-aid off, I was shocked at the size of the scab. It was about the size of dime, and I could clearly see the stitch-marks on either side of it. I did a lot of googling and decided to let it heal on its own, rather than going back to have it opened up again. It didn't hurt, and it wasn't infected. I kept a close eye on it and while it never got infected, the scab came off and re-formed about four times, each time the pit getting shallower and smaller. After about a month the last scab came off, leaving a small circle of new, pink skin, and stitch marks on either side. When compared to all my other mole removal scars, this one is quite different. I am very disappointed with the overall healing, and disappointed with the quality of the surgery done, as well as was was apparently inadequate aftercare instructions. I got the stitches in on February 19th, and out on March 5th, and the last scab came off by itself on April 6th. It took a long time to heal and left a big flat scar, both of which could be have been avoided, in my opinion if I'd had it done at the plastic surgeon's.