With spring here, a timely reminder about skin cancer prevention

Growing up in Canberra, Dr Chi So (right) decided at a young age to be a doctor after witnessing a friend’s mother succumb to cancer.

He says, “I saw how it affected my friend and I realised I wanted to make a difference. I was always good at the sciences, so it was a natural progression from there.”

He completed his medical degree in Armidale and returned to Canberra to do his internship and residency. “At that stage I couldn’t decide on a specialty, so decided to go down the GP route.”

Dr So continued his training, taking up positions in Wagga Wagga and Cooma, where he gained valuable experience in general medicine before being admitted as a Fellow to the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners in 2017. During this time, he found that that he had a natural ability to perform surgical procedures. “I was good with my hands and other doctors started referring patients to me whenever some kind of minor procedure was required.”

“I was constantly dealing with skin lesions, so I decided to focus on skin cancer medicine.”

This decision led to Dr So completing the Master of Medicine (Skin Cancer) program at the University of Queensland, followed by five years working with a plastic surgeon back in Canberra. He has gone on to become an expert in the field, with several of his research papers published in international journals.

Dr So is passionate about prevention, especially in Australia which has one of the highest skin cancer rates in the world. “I see a lot of skin cancers that do not actually look like cancers. They are not brown or black, but pink and quite benign looking.”

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Dr Chi So is accepting patients at Ochre Medical Centre Bruce.