Guides to the consultation
These pages deal with the part of dermatology that nobody explains: the appointment itself. What to bring, what will be asked of you, what the words mean, and which questions are worth the short time you get. None of it tells you what is wrong with your skin, because that is what the appointment is for.
Why the appointment is the underserved part
Search for a skin symptom and you will find no shortage of pages willing to tell you what it might be. Most are written by people who cannot see your skin, which is the one thing that would settle the question.
A different reader is genuinely underserved. They already have an appointment booked, and what they lack is any sense of what will happen in it. Knowing what a clinician will ask, what an examination involves, and which questions get a useful answer requires nobody to guess at a diagnosis, and all of it makes the appointment work better.
This is also the material with the least to go wrong in it. A page describing how to prepare for an appointment makes no medical claim that could later turn out to be false, which is why these guides are the pages this site puts the most effort into.
Before the appointment
Three of these guides deal with what happens beforehand. One covers what to bring and what to leave off your skin. Another sets out the five things a clinician wants described, in the order they tend to ask. A third explains what a referral letter contains, and why the appointment where it is written shapes how quickly you are seen.
The common thread is that most of what an appointment needs from you is information you already have. Whether you can produce it in the room is a different matter, and closing that gap takes about twenty minutes at a kitchen table the night before.
During and after
The remaining guides cover the examination itself, the questions worth asking while you are in the room, how skin services are arranged, how to keep a record when a condition comes and goes, and how to read the letter that arrives weeks later addressed to somebody else.
That last one surprises people. The letter following an appointment is professional correspondence you have been copied into, written in a register nobody translated, and knowing its shape makes it far less unsettling to open.
Where these guides apply
They describe how things work in the United Kingdom, and any page setting out a care pathway says so at the top. Access arrangements, waiting and what a service offers are set nationally and revised, so where a specific detail matters these pages point to the body that publishes it rather than restating a figure that will age badly.
All guides
How dermatology care is organised
Who you see first, how specialist access is arranged, and what shapes the wait. The structures behind an appointment, and how to find out what applies where you live.
How to describe a skin problem
The five things a clinician wants to know about a skin problem, why 'a rash' conveys almost nothing, and how to describe change without guessing at a cause.
How to keep a skin diary
What to record when a condition comes and goes, why most diaries fail, and how to keep one that produces information a clinician can actually use.
How to photograph your skin for a clinician
Why a dated photograph is often the most useful thing you bring to an appointment, what makes one usable, and the mistakes that make one worthless.
How to prepare for a dermatology appointment
What to bring, what to leave off your skin, and what you will be asked. Preparing well makes a short appointment go a great deal further.
How to read a dermatology letter
What the letter after an appointment is for, how its sections are structured, why the vocabulary sounds alarming, and which parts to act on.
Questions to ask a dermatologist
The questions that change what you leave an appointment with, why each one works, and how to ask them when the consultation is already running short.
What a referral letter contains
What a general practitioner writes when referring you to dermatology, why the letter shapes how quickly you are seen, and what you can do to make it a better one.
What happens during a skin check
What a full skin examination involves, why the clinician looks at areas you had not thought about, and what the magnifying instrument is actually for.