Patients in Toronto are opting to stand in line for hours at a rapid-access dermatology clinic rather than wait months for an appointment. The increased demand for care, exacerbated by the pandemic, has led to extended wait times for dermatology referrals.
Roger Lang woke up at 3 a.m. on a September morning to drive 200 kilometres for a dermatology consultation.
Wait times for dermatology referrals — for conditions from hair loss to rashes to potentially cancerous moles — have risen to the point that some patients in Toronto and beyond would sooner stand in line at 5:30 a.m. to be seen that morning than wait months for an appointment. "Everybody that's in that line is there because they feel their problem is important, it's urgent, and there's often a lot of anxiety surrounding it," said Singh, who runs the clinic, in an interview with Goldman.
Singh, left, shows patient Adam Welton a pamphlet during a consultation for a suspicious mole. Welton visited the rapid-access clinic after being told it would be months before he received an appointment with a dermatologist. That small number of specialists are taking on a greater number of referrals as family doctors see more patients virtually, and diagnose and treat fewer conditions in their own offices, dermatologists say.Like many issues in the health-care system, Dr. Sam Hanna points to the pandemic as the starting point for the problems in dermatology.
The first three-year family medicine residency is slated to launch in 2027. Some are already sounding the alarm that an extra year of training could worsen Canada's doctor shortages. "So we've got an issue with supply, we've got an issue with demand, and we're getting squeezed in the middle."Hanna, whose clinic offers both medical and cosmetic treatments, is skeptical that offering cosmetic dermatology is creating a wait time problem. Most dermatologists, including himself, still see patients with potentially harmful skin conditions, he says.
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