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DR. WILLIAM HEIMER: Mohs surgery is a very specific skin cancer surgery and one that we're very proud to offer as a part of our services here at Surfside Dermatology. Our training in Mohs surgery goes all the way back to Army days when I was trained by Stacy McFarland and Alan Harrington in the procedure itself, and I've continued to practice it since that time. The exciting thing about Mohs surgery is you can be very selective about how much tissue is removed and have a high degree of confidence of your cure rate, approaching up to 98 or 99%. My current quality assurance for Mohs surgery is through the American Society for Mohs Surgery which is national organization which I have fellowship in, and it oversees and does quality assurance on the work we do here in the clinic. We're also monitored by OSHA and by CLEO and we adhere to the highest standards of quality for our patients that receive Mohs surgery for their skin cancer.

The gist of the procedure is that at the time we remove the skin cancer, we're able to examine the margins completely, and by being able to examine them both in width and depth, we can determine where we need to go if the cancer is still present in the patient without removing tissue that doesn't need to be removed. By doing it this way, we have the smallest possible defect with the highest cure, and it allows us to do the very best cosmetic procedure with either a flat or an advancement of tissue, or just simply allowing the wound to heal in, depending on the location.

If I've recommended surgery for you, it's important that you remember a couple of things. Number one, if you're on medications, discuss it with me. And for the most part, stay on the medicines you've been prescribed. There are a few that you would need to stop and I'll go with that right now. The first one would be aspirin or aspirin-like products, anything that might make you bleed. That should be stopped seven days prior to the procedure and in most cases continue to refrain from those medicines for about another seven days. The other area that we get into trouble with bleeding is things like alcohol and vitamin E, ginger, Ginseng, Gingkobiloba, other nutritional supplements, so you definitely want to go over those things, if you're on them, with me prior to the procedure. The biggest challenge we have with any surgery is if someone's on a medicine that makes them bleed. The most important thing I can tell you is to stop aspirin, alcohol, vitamin E, all those other things we mentioned, one week prior to the procedure. If that's a problem, or your doctor has recommended you don't stop aspirin, we should definitely discuss that ahead of time.