Skin Checks and Healthy Skin Awareness

Allow your employees to Celebrate the Skin They Are In

You can do this by getting educated about skin care and inviting on-site skin checks with licensed dermatologists for your employees who want moles and skin spots looked at by a professional.

Health Skin Awareness Talk

An on-site dermatologist will expertly educates employees on the importance of skin checks and how the easiest cancer they can prevent is skin cancer. Your skin health lies in your hands. Employees are taught to take control of their health and to always self-examine first. You are your own best advocate and I found this particular Health fitTalk fundamentally crucial for employee health and wellness. I believe that skin health often takes the backseat in our overall wellness, and a speaker who can so wondrously advocate for employees' skin health is a speaker worth having. The dermatologist goes on to implore employees to monitor their own existing moles for possible melanomas while keeping a watchful eye on new developing moles.

Skin Checks

- A credentialed skin care expert meets one-on-one with employees to look at skin concerns, answer questions and provide valuable insight. Although samples are not taken on-site, if the employee has an area of concern, they will be advised to see their primary doctor.

Amazingly, our nationwide dermatologists offers 5-minute skin consultations to start employees on the right track! Using nevi as the technical name for moles, they recommend employees to follow the nevi scale, which determines those who are most susceptible to getting moles, i.e red-headed folks. Take note that moles can be found anywhere on your body, not just the face; if you notice anything on your skin that looks different to YOU, name it as an "ugly duckling," or a growth not normal to you. Naming it will help you remember to keep track of it. You don't have to obsessively monitor the growth or mole, but know that it's there and that you can schedule a skin consultation appointment if need be.

Here are a few more skin protective strategies for the employees in your office:

1. Don’t smoke! Smoking induces oxidative stress on the skin which breaks down collagen and causes wrinkles. Smoking and direct sunlight is a recipe for disaster on the skin – upping the chance of developing melanomas and weathered, wrinkled skin.

2. Wear protective clothing such as a cap or a wide-brimmed sun hat, sunglasses, and sun-protection clothing by REI. This kind of clothing has UPF (Ultraviolet Protection Factor) which protects you against UVA and UVB and if the UPF is 50 that means the clothing blocks out 98% of UV rays.

3. Use sunscreens with SPF 30 or above. The SPF (Sun Protection Factor) determines how long you can protected before your skin starts to redden and burn. The key is to reapply whether you have an SPF of 15 or 50. Reapplying your sunscreen is what matters the most. Also, don't forget the lips need protection too! Elta MD is a recommended sunscreen. A helpful rule of thumb for skincare is to use creams, not pumps. Pumps contain alcohol which is very drying to the skin.

4. Self-examination includes using the ABCDES of melanomas: asymmetry, border, color, diameter, evolving. Employees can memorize this simple acronym and HR can even post it in the office to ensure healthy skin awareness.

All in all, educate yourself about your own body: learn what is normal to you and what isn't. Make sure that you protect the entire skin surface by applying sunscreen to all exposed areas–not just the T-zone of your face, or your shoulders.

Employees who attend this much-needed, overlooked, and underemphasized category of wellness, will walk away with a newfound appreciation for skin health, and hopefully be reminded that you can still have fun in the sun with a conscientious attitude toward protection.