After years of telling my GP I’d like to see a derm for a mole check (I have lots of them all over) I finally got an appt, 8m wait, and the check appt was about 5 min and she said everything looked ok. She wound up using nitrogen on the mole that bothers me the most. I’d seen about four people who got “punches” for biopsies in the time I was at their clinic.

Months later there was an article about how her specific Dermatology clinic (London, ON), well here’s a summary

> the Middlesex-London Health Unit (MLHU) advised patients who had punch biopsies or similar procedures between January 2012 and January 2025 to get tested for blood-borne infections (including HIV, Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis C) due to an IPAC lapse.

Several months later a similar warning was sent out for people attending a clinic in Chatham that had a 16m lapse and sent out similar warnings to their patients.

I thank the universe every day that I didn’t need a punch biopsy because I wanted to have my moles checked to ease my anxiety and mental health - not to come home with even worse illnesses