The Referral Process

Step 1:  Skin Check, our Ballarat Clinic does not perform skin checks. Our Geelong Clinic does, if however you are located in Ballarat and don’t want to travel to Geelong then we recommend getting your skin checked by your doctor or a local clinic which specialises in skin checks.

Step 2:  After your skin check if anything looked suspicious then a referral to Western District Skin Cancer Service will be needed in order for us to provide a skin biopsy.

Step 3: In order to ascertain if the suspicious skin tissue is cancerous, a skin biopsy is performed. A skin cancer biopsy is a minor procedure that generally takes less than 10 minutes to perform. 

Prior to taking the skin biopsy the doctor will apply local anaesthetic to numb the area. The doctor will use the punch to take a sample of the lesion, usually a few millimetres deep and in diameter.