DermWorld Academy Insider: Firefighter skin check pilots show the way

Feb. 29, 2024

The American Academy of Dermatology is launching a new, targeted skin check program in 2024 that encourages members to check firefighters, who are at higher risk due to their occupation, for skin cancer. The program will launch with an event on March 9 in San Diego during the AAD Annual Meeting. If you’ll be at the meeting, don’t be surprised to see fire trucks parked outside the convention center!

In this exclusive DermWorld Academy Insider interview, Ann F. Haas, MD, FAAD, who will participate in the San Diego skin check and has led CalDerm in launching a statewide skin check program, explains why her fellow dermatologists should consider offering skin checks to firefighters in their communities. 

DermWorld: How did the program in California get started? 

Dr. Haas: I was part of the AAD State Society Relationship Committee when Dr. Christine Kannler came to present her firefighter experience to the State Society Executive Directors at the AAD Annual Meeting in Boston. She gave an impassioned presentation on the value and rewards of skin checks for firefighters and was accompanied by members of firefighter community leadership that she had been working with in Massachusetts.

One of the leadership firefighters who represented the Firefighter Cancer Support Network (the “FCSN”—a national organization) was from California. My state had been traumatized by several significant wildfires, both in the north and the south. I live close to the town of Paradise, which had burned completely to the ground. I had several patients who lost everything (including family members) in the Paradise fire, so in some respects this became meaningful for me on a personal level. I reached out to the California branch of the FCSN and to our CalDerm Board of Directors, who endorsed the attempt to take project on. As we started working with the FCSN to roll this project out, they put us in contact with Caylie Valenta, a young widow of a firefighter who had died of melanoma. She had just established a non-profit entity, the Andy Valenta Melanoma Foundation, based in southern California and was more than eager to help develop an organized program to check California firefighters for skin cancer.

Following the success of our pilot rollout in northern California, we started offering skin checks in southern California as well. We have had such overwhelming interest from the firefighter community that we have organized ourselves into the California Firefighter Skin Cancer Coalition (composed of CalDerm, the FCSN, and the AV Melanoma Foundation) to be better able to provide these skin checks. We have thus far checked approximately 1,200 California firefighters, with many more skin checks being scheduled for the remainder of 2024. Honestly, we could do this full time! We are so excited to be able to partner with the AAD with their first “occupationally related” skin check of firefighters at this year’s AAD Annual Meeting in San Diego.

DermWorld: What have you learned that other members can apply in their own communities? 

Dr. Haas: Once we figured out the mechanics of how to run one of these events (usually, but not always done at the firehouse), this became very straightforward. Our Coalition works well in our bigger state, but this certainly could be done easily in smaller states or even in a local community. There are electronic “signup” programs that are easily adaptable, and once there is an established relationship with the local FCSN representative (who can work with the individual fire chiefs) or even with a patient who has firefighter connections in a local fire station, and a relationship with a willing group of dermatologists, doing a skin check using the readily available AAD forms is easy to do.

We were surprised and delighted to see just how enthusiastically our resident volunteers embraced this project (and returned to help do skin checks on multiple weekends) as well as our medical students who also returned for several events as “volunteers.” Everyone who has been involved in either skin checks or volunteering has commented on “how fun” the experience was, how “appreciative and grateful” the firefighters were, and how “worthwhile” they found the experience. Our dermatologists discovered that firefighters rarely seek medical care (and in many cases, we found that they did not even know how to access their medical care). We picked up not only BCCs and the occasional melanoma, but also referred our firefighters to dermatology for other skin issues that we encountered (folliculitis, psoriasis) as needed. We took care of them because they take care of us.

DermWorld: What benefits will members see when they participate in a skin check for firefighters?

Dr. Haas: There are many benefits that dermatologists receive as part of offering skin checks to firefighters. It is not only personally rewarding, but it allows us to be recognized as a specialty that is willing to “give back” to the community. As it turns out, the media is very interested in covering this type of community outreach and we have had multiple opportunities to interact with both television and print media at our events. This is a great opportunity to “advertise the specialty.” Finally, firefighters are a high-risk group of individuals, and it is truly rewarding when we do identify a melanoma and are able to get someone into treatment quickly.