Skin is In!

MANILA, Philippines - Whether by sight or by touch, your skin is the icing on the cake a person has the first pleasure of partaking. So by golly, it better be good icing! Before you dash off to the nearest skin clinic, be wary. Don’t fall into the trap of catchy ad placements that grab your fancy. You are entrusting how you look, which in turn affects how you feel, to a doctor’s group, and if this doctor’s credentials are something amiss, you don’t want it to reflect on your precious body.

The Philippine Dermatological Society (PDS) is like a watchdog for dermatologists. It is the specialty society for Dermatology accredited by the Philippine Medical Association and the Philippine College of Physicians. These doctors envision, “The attainment of healthy skin for all,” states PDS president Dr. Georgina Pastorfide.

With that said, the Skin Safety Campaign (SSC) was spearheaded by former PDS president Dr. Arnelfa Paliza in 2006. Also, Proclamation No. 110 in 2001 declares the second week of November as the National Skin Disease Detection and Prevention Week under the auspices of the PDS during which there are “dermatologists, PDS members, residents and consultants who volunteer and give free consultation and medications,” adds Pastorfide. “Since PDS has been around for (over) 57 years, we’ve been giving free medical missions ever since. It’s only now in the last 10 years that they proclaimed that it’s National Skin Week that we conjoined all our efforts at the same time,” says Dr. Loverne Suratos, PDS committee chairperson for public relations and external affairs. Going all out, brochures on basic information on the skin, hair and nails were prepared by the SSC Task Force through an educational grant from Unilever. The brochures were distributed to one million public high school students as part of information dissemination in 2009 while this year, two million copies were disseminated. Next year, PDS intends to create brochures to address adult skin. Suratos continues, “The basic objective of the SSC is to educate the general public...not to go after the pseudo-dermatologists directly. It is more of public awareness. So that the public will know that there are specialists you can go to for the skin and it is PDS.”

From radio and print, TV to the Internet, this quad-media campaign is an ongoing effort that tackles heavy issues and concerns. “If you claim you’re a dermatologist you should know everything about the skin!” Dr. Teresita Gabriel, PDS vice president exclaims. “The common misconception of dermatology is that it is just for beauty and the face. But it goes beyond, health is part of it. We deal with leprosy and all those dirty stuff... We handle both pathologic and cosmetic. You can’t separate the pathologic and cosmetic. Unfortunately, here’s where the pseudo-dermatologists come in. They advertise just for the cosmetic part of dermatology,” Suratos frustratingly explains as Pastorfide elaborates, “And also to correct the notion that dermatologists like us are not just for treating pathologic cases. That is wrong because we do both. For instance, it’s common that women go to parlors and salons and these cosmeticians, estheticians look at the face and say ‘Ay ma’am, may mga warts ka.’ Not knowing that sometimes they may be cauterizing a malignancy, a tumor. It could already be a beginning atypical mole or a basal cell which is a skin cancer they are cauterizing and doing more harm.” To make matters worse, “those are the complications we get when cauterizing malignancies. The patient ends up with a scar and with new malignancies,” Gabriel warns. Pastorfide chimes in, saying that when a malignancy is not properly addressed, it can spread and can metastasize.

Sending quivers running down this writer’s spine, the good doctors nod their heads and one of them, Dr. Gabriel eerily shares “You can do peeling, although rarely, you can die of peeling and that has happened in the past.” Seen from PDS’ TV commercial that was released in 2008, a Filipina named Esther goes into a parlor for whitening right before her American boyfriend arrives to marry her. There is a close-up of Esther’s hands, arms and face as the screen pans out to show that she is indeed fair as snow, but lying in a coffin. The TV spot was based on an actual incident some years ago and the culprits have not been found. Suratos tells of an anecdote, “One of my patients asked me ‘Aren’t you affected by all these beauty dermatologists? You might not have enough patients anymore?’ My answer was that I’m affected. I have more patients now but I have more headaches. We’re trying to treat the side effects of what was done outside.” 

“(That’s one of) the reasons why PDS is embarking on this Skin Safety Campaign. These cases don’t come out in the open unless someone complains. We can’t complain against them ‘cause it’s also unethical. Just because you finish training it doesn’t end there. We have certain guidelines for you to be in good standing with the PDS. (If) you don’t attend a number of continuing medical education (sessions), the annual convention, the business meeting, you’re not updated. You can’t become an active member. It doesn’t stop when you pass and graduate,” Gabriel firmly puts it and all doctors acquiesce that continuous learning is essential to being a competent physician. After all, ignorance isn’t bliss. To understand more, visit www.pds.org.ph. In this case, what you don’t know will hurt you and can hurt you...terribly.