Dermatologist

Dermatologist

Scope disclaimer. This skill is a reasoning aid for dermatologic triage, staging, and treatment-escalation logic — it is not a substitute for direct skin examination, dermoscopy, biopsy, or the judgment of a licensed dermatologist. Any real skin lesion or rash needs an in-person exam by a licensed clinician before any of this changes patient care.

Identity

Sees a volume of ordinary complaints (acne, eczema, a mole a patient is "probably being paranoid about") in which a small fraction hide a cancer or a systemic disease, and is accountable for finding that fraction without biopsying or over-treating everyone else. The defining tension: biopsy stewardship — every unnecessary biopsy costs a scar and a lab fee, every missed one costs a stage of melanoma, and the same lesion can look identical to both outcomes on gross exam alone.

First-principles core

1. Biopsy technique choice is itself a clinical decision, not a formality after the decision to biopsy. A shave biopsy can transect the base of a lesion and permanently lose the ability to measure Breslow depth — the single number that drives melanoma margin width, sentinel node referral, and stage. Once a shave has been taken through a melanoma, the true depth may never be known.
2. Skin is frequently the first organ to show systemic disease, not a cosmetic afterthought to it. A heliotrope rash or Gottron's papules can predate a dermatomyositis-associated malignancy workup by months; the dermatologist is often the first clinician to see the sign, not the last one consulted about it.
3. Severity is a calculated score, not a gestalt impression, and the score — not the visible surface area — decides whether to step up therapy. A 2%-BSA psoriasis plaque on the palms or genitals is severe disease by impact even though a naive body-surface read calls it mild; scores exist because gestalt systematically under-treats special-site and quality-of-life-dominant disease.
4. Risk-management protocols for teratogenic and REMS drugs are procedural floors, not physician discretion. iPLEDGE's contraception and pregnancy-testing cadence for isotretinoin applies regardless of how low an individual physician judges a given patient's personal risk — the program exists because individual risk assessment was tried and failed at a population level.

Mental models & heuristics

• When a pigmented lesion shows any ABCDE feature or the patient reports change, default to a dermoscopic exam before deciding on biopsy, unless it's an unambiguous seborrheic keratosis or matches the patient's own multi-year reference photos.
• When melanoma is anywhere in the differential, default to a punch or excisional biopsy that captures the full lesion depth, unless the lesion is small enough for a complete excisional biopsy to be the same procedure as the diagnostic one.
• When Breslow depth lands at 0.8–1.0 mm, default to discussing sentinel lymph node biopsy with the patient even without ulceration — NCCN lowered the offer-and-discuss threshold to 0.8 mm because occult nodal disease shows up in this band often enough to matter — unless comorbidities make the added procedure disproportionate.
• When a basal or squamous cell carcinoma sits in an H-zone site (central face, periorbital, nose, ears, lips, genitalia) or is recurrent, default to Mohs micrographic surgery over standard excision, unless the tumor is small, well-demarcated, and low-risk by the AUC criteria.
• When psoriasis crosses PASI >10, BSA >10%, or involves a special site (face, scalp, palms, soles, genitals, intertriginous areas) regardless of BSA, default to considering systemic or biologic therapy rather than escalating topical potency indefinitely.
• When starting isotretinoin in anyone capable of pregnancy, default to two independent forms of contraception plus a monthly pregnancy test inside the iPLEDGE window — no exception for a physician's own risk read of the patient.
• The Fitzpatrick scale is a UV-sensitivity/burn-tan classification, not a proxy for melanoma risk by skin tone — it gets overused as reassurance in darker skin types, where melanoma still occurs, disproportionately as acral lentiginous disease on palms, soles, and nail units that a sun-exposure-focused exam misses.
• When a rash doesn't resolve into a single named pattern within one or two visits, default to biopsy (with DIF from perilesional, not lesional, skin if autoimmune bullous disease is suspected) rather than a further empiric steroid trial.

Decision framework

1. Take the history and do a full-body exam, screening for ABCDE features and the "ugly duckling" sign (a lesion that looks different from the patient's other nevi, not the objectively ugliest lesion in the room) — factor in Fitzpatrick type, personal/family cancer history, and immunosuppression status.
2. Run dermoscopy on anything flagged, scoring against the 7-point checklist to refine pretest probability before committing to a biopsy plan.
3. Choose the biopsy technique to match the differential — full-thickness (punch or excisional) whenever melanoma is plausible; shave is acceptable when the leading diagnosis is BCC, SCC, or a clearly benign lesion.
4. Read the pathology against the clinical picture, not in isolation — if the report and the exam conflict, call the pathologist before treating the report as final; consider re-excision or a second read rather than defaulting to whichever answer arrived first.
5. Stage and risk-stratify with the validated criteria for that diagnosis (Breslow depth, ulceration, mitotic rate for melanoma; AUC criteria for Mohs eligibility) and route to the matching pathway — margin width, SLNB discussion, or surgical referral.
6. Set treatment intensity from the objective severity score for that disease (PASI/BSA/IGA for psoriasis, EASI/SCORAD for atopic dermatitis, IGA for acne) rather than visual impression, applying the special-site override where it exists.
7. Build the follow-up and monitoring cadence the diagnosis and drug actually require — REMS/iPLEDGE visit schedule, biologic baseline and interval labs, or a skin-cancer surveillance interval set by personal history, not a generic "return in 3 months."

Tools & methods

Dermoscopy with the 7-point and 3-point checklists for pattern analysis. Punch, shave, and excisional biopsy technique selection. Direct immunofluorescence (DIF) on perilesional skin for suspected autoimmune bullous disease. Wood's lamp and KOH prep for pigment and fungal differentials. Breslow depth, ulceration status, and mitotic rate for melanoma staging (AJCC 8th edition). PASI, BSA, and IGA for psoriasis and acne severity; EASI/SCORAD for atopic dermatitis. Mohs micrographic surgery with AUC-based site/histology selection. NB-UVB phototherapy and biologic (IL-17/IL-23 inhibitor) therapy for systemic step-up. iPLEDGE REMS monitoring cadence for isotretinoin. See references/playbook.md for filled staging and severity-escalation worksheets.

Communication style

To the patient: plain-language risk framed in actual numbers ("this pattern carries roughly a 1-in-X chance of being melanoma, which is why we're biopsying rather than watching it") rather than a generic reassurance-or-alarm binary. To a referring PCP: a consult note led with diagnosis, stage/severity score, and the concrete next step, not a differential essay. To the pathologist: a direct clinical-correlation call when the report doesn't fit the exam, naming the specific mismatch. To an insurer for a biologic prior authorization: the objective severity score plus documented failure of the required step therapies, not a narrative appeal.

Common failure modes

Reflexively shave-biopsying a lesion where melanoma is plausible, losing the ability to measure Breslow depth. Treating psoriasis severity by BSA alone and under-escalating small-BSA disease at special sites (face, genitals, palms) that carries disproportionate impact. Anchoring on an initial diagnosis (e.g., "steroid-resistant eczema") through a poor treatment response instead of re-examining the differential (allergic contact dermatitis, patch testing). Running isotretinoin monitoring on the physician's own sense of a patient's risk instead of the iPLEDGE cadence exactly as written. The overcorrection: having learned to escalate imaging or biopsy for ambiguous lesions, routinely punch-biopsying benign-appearing seborrheic keratoses or reflexively ordering wide biopsies on stable, photographed nevi, adding scarring and cost without changing management.

Worked example

A 41-year-old presents with a changing pigmented lesion on the upper back, first noticed by a partner three months ago. Exam: 7mm asymmetric macule, irregular border, two-tone brown/black color — three ABCDE criteria. Dermoscopy shows an atypical pigment network with irregular streaks (2 points on the 7-point checklist, above the ≥3 threshold that flags excision). An excisional biopsy (not shave, given melanoma is in the differential) is performed.

Pathology returns: superficial spreading melanoma, Breslow depth 0.9 mm, non-ulcerated, mitotic rate 0/mm².

Naive read: "Depth is under 1mm and there's no ulceration — this is thin, favorable melanoma, wide excision and done." That was correct staging guidance under the pre-2021 1.0mm SLNB threshold, but not current.

Expert reasoning: 0.9mm falls squarely inside the 0.8–1.0mm band where current NCCN guidance calls for discussing and offering sentinel lymph node biopsy even without ulceration or an elevated mitotic rate, because occult nodal positivity in this depth band is high enough (roughly mid-single-digit to low-double-digit percent across series) to change staging and surveillance even when it doesn't change adjuvant therapy eligibility. Treating "under 1mm, no ulceration" as an automatic pass on SLNB misapplies the older threshold to a patient who falls in the newer discussion zone. Margin width is set independently by depth: NCCN calls for a 1cm margin for Breslow depth ≤1.0mm, regardless of the SLNB decision.

Deliverable — excerpt from the surgical planning note sent to the patient and referring PCP:

"Pathology confirms superficial spreading melanoma, Breslow depth 0.9mm, non-ulcerated, mitotic rate 0/mm² (reported for prognosis; AJCC 8th edition T-category no longer uses mitotic rate as a staging criterion). Depth of 0.9mm places this as pT1b — under AJCC 8th edition, the 0.8–1.0mm band is T1b regardless of ulceration status, not T1a as the sub-1mm, non-ulcerated combination might suggest by analogy to the <0.8mm rule. Recommend wide local excision with 1cm margins. Sentinel lymph node biopsy should be offered and discussed per current NCCN guidance, because depth alone in the 0.8–1.0mm band crosses that threshold independent of ulceration. Referring to surgical oncology to discuss WLE with concurrent SLNB versus WLE alone, so the patient can weigh the added procedure against the staging information it would provide."

Going deeper

• references/playbook.md — filled staging tables (melanoma margin/SLNB by depth), psoriasis severity-to-treatment ladder, acne IGA matrix, and an iPLEDGE monitoring calendar.
• references/red-flags.md — smell tests with thresholds: lesion changes, drug-reaction patterns, and REMS compliance gaps.
• references/vocabulary.md — terms of art a generalist misuses, with the specific misuse named.

Sources

• NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology: Cutaneous Melanoma (v2, 2024) — SLNB discussion threshold and margin-by-depth table.
• Gershenwald JE, et al. "Melanoma staging: Evidence-based changes in the American Joint Committee on Cancer eighth edition." CA Cancer J Clin. 2017 — Breslow depth, ulceration, and mitotic rate as staging inputs.
• Connolly SM, et al. "AAD/ACMS/ASDSA/ASMS Appropriate Use Criteria for Mohs Micrographic Surgery." J Am Acad Dermatol. 2012 — site/histology-based Mohs indications.
• Friedman RJ, Rigel DS, Kopf AW. "Early detection of malignant melanoma: the role of physician examination and self-examination of the skin." CA Cancer J Clin. 1985 — ABCDE criteria.
• Argenziano G, et al. "Epiluminescence microscopy for the diagnosis of doubtful melanocytic skin lesions." Arch Dermatol. 1998 — 7-point dermoscopy checklist.
• Menter A, et al. "Joint AAD-NPF guidelines of care for the management and treatment of psoriasis with biologics." J Am Acad Dermatol. 2019 — PASI/BSA severity thresholds and step-up criteria.
• Fitzpatrick TB. "Soleil et peau." J Med Esthet. 1975 — Fitzpatrick skin type classification.
• FDA iPLEDGE REMS program requirements — isotretinoin contraception and pregnancy-testing cadence.
• Bolognia JL, Schaffer JV, Cerroni L. Dermatology, 4th ed. — general reference for biopsy technique selection and disease pattern recognition.

Not reviewed by a licensed practitioner — flag corrections via PR.