Local healthcare focus: New Tuggeranong Square skin cancer clinic

For Dr Mugunthan Jeganathan, the new doctor at Ochre Medical Centre Tuggeranong Square, skin cancer medicine combines a number of passions into one fascinating career.

Originally from Sri Lanka, Dr Jeganathan’s varied background included experience in both surgery and anaesthetics before he worked as a GP in the UK. “I did my GP training in the Midlands, in a small town near Birmingham,” he says. “Then the practice took me on as a partner, so I stayed there until I decided to move to Australia in 2013.”

Arriving in this country, Dr Jeganathan soon developed a strong interest in skin cancer medicine and completed his diploma in skin cancer surgery. “I loved it straight away!” he says. “I’m very interested in photography and looking at patterns is thrilling. I think I took to skin cancer medicine because it’s an opportunity to combine my surgical skills with patternrecognition to make a diagnosis. It’s also very rewarding when you can completely remove a dangerous lesion and any risk to the patient associated with it.” He tells of one particularly satisfying case – a patient in their 70s who had come in for their first skin check. “I didn’t ask what prompted their visit, but I could clearly see that there were developing cancers everywhere on their face. Somebody must have said, ‘You need to see the doctor!’ ”

The patient’s biopsies revealed several skin cancers including basal cell cancers, squamous cell cancers and a melanoma. In all, the patient needed to have over ten skin cancers removed – and, when given the choice, they asked Dr Jeganathan to take care of them all rather than being referred to a hospital.

“So we did procedures weekly or fortnightly, under local anaesthesia, over the next couple of months. Some of the procedures on exposed facial areas were more delicate. Some needed flaps, where we move the skin around to close the wound. Others required grafts, where we graft skin from another part of the body onto the wound. These procedures are tricky and can take over an hour each to complete.”

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Fortunately, all of the lesions were removed successfully, including the melanoma. “Melanomas can be very aggressive - once a melanoma moves into other parts of the body, it can be deadly. Luckily it was in its very early stages, so we were able to remove it completely.”

Satisfying cases like this one have led Dr Jeganathan to make skin cancer work a strong focus, and now to establish a new skin clinic at the Ochre Tuggeranong Square practice. He also continues to develop his skills and knowledge, currently completing a Masters in Skin Cancer.

Awareness of skin damage may still a hesitancy to seek medical advice. “It is so important to get even the most harmless-looking mole checked by a doctor,” he says. “Ongoing campaigns like the Cancer Council’s ‘Slip-slopslap’ advertising do help, but we all have a responsibility to spread the message. It is also important to have a regular fullbody skin check, rather than just a mole check, because they can often detect dangerous cancers that people may not have been aware of at all.”

Dr Jeganathan is accepting new patients at Ochre Medical Centre Tuggeranong Square. Bookings can be made via ochrehealth.com.au or by calling the practice on 6175 0400.