Dr Anne

Dr Anne She also co-hosts The Medical Minute podcast. www.dranneconnell.com.au

Dr Anne Connell is a Melbourne-based GP with special interest in skin cancer and women's health (menopause; vulval conditions; Mirena and Implanon devices; shared maternity care).

08/03/2026

On International Women’s Day it is fitting to showcase a skin lesion bearing the name of a female pathologist - Sophie Spitz. Spitzoid lesions are fascinating. They are odd looking both to the naked eye and to the dermatoscope. And we absolutely need to enlist the pathologist’s help to arbitrate on benign versus malignant. Melanoma is a real possibility, and so all Spitzoid lesions (whether flat or raised) MUST be excised and submitted for histopathological diagnosis if the patient is aged 12 or older. Under the age of 12, all Spitzoid lesions with any degree of thickness/palpability must be excised.

Risk of a Spitzoid lesion being a melanoma increases sharply with age. At 30, the risk is 1 in 10. Over the age of 60, the risk is 4 in 5. This lady’s risk was 1 in 3, but luckily hers proved benign 🙌.

Want to see me? ➡️ Sherbourne Road Medical Clinic, Montmorency VIC 3094.
Email me at ask@dranneconnell.com.au if you need an urgent appointment.


06/03/2026

You may have noticed that a lot of my skin cancer reels feature EARS. This simply reflects clinical practice in Australia. Unfortunately, we see HEAPS of skin cancers on ears, which on average don’t seem to get a lot of SPF love.

Seborrhoeic keratoses are incredibly common and benign sun barnacles, but we always check them out as you can get cancer arising within them. The most common associated cancer is some version of squamous cell cancer. Which is not all that surprising when you come to realise that the cell of origin for seborrhoeic keratoses and squamous cell cancer is the same - the humble keratinocyte. In this case we have exactly that - early squamous cell cancer arising in a sebK.

A BENIGN proliferation of keratinocytes is a seborrhoeic keratosis. A MALIGNANT proliferation is a squamous cell cancer. Sometimes your body shows off and does both variations in the same location.

I like to tell patients that there is no future-proofing in a skin check. A spot that is benign today can grow a cancer in it in future. So, if a spot I have checked for you before subsequently changes, you are NOT entitled to assume it is fine. They didn’t give me a crystal ball along with the Masters degree🔮.

Want to see me? ➡️ Sherbourne Road Medical Clinic, Montmorency VIC 3094.
Email me at ask@dranneconnell.com.au if you need an urgent appointment.


03/03/2026

Every few months I see a young person who wants to get a ‘weird-ass’ mole on their scalp checked. (‘Weird-ass’ is a technical term 😇). They have often been sent by their mother, who is VERY sure it didn’t look like this when they were younger.

This striking two-tone mole is not at all uncommon in children and adolescents.
For fairly obvious reasons, it’s called an ECLIPSE nevus and, whilst visually striking, it is not at all concerning.
The two-tone appearance is usually transient.

Want to see me? ➡️ Sherbourne Road Medical Clinic, Montmorency VIC 3094.
Email me at ask@dranneconnell.com.au if you need an urgent appointment.


01/03/2026

Another day, another subtle early squamous cell cancer on the ear. These can be really really subtle. Wee bit of scale, wee bit of roughness, wee bit of tenderness to interrogation. Caught this early, we can treat with chemotherapy cream with about 80% success rate.

For the love of all things good, sunscreen your ears and wear a broad brimmed hat. And, if you have scaly rough spots on your ears, stop picking and come let me check ‘em!

Want to see me? ➡️ Sherbourne Road Medical Clinic, Montmorency VIC 3094.
Email me at ask@dranneconnell.com.au if you need an urgent appointment.


27/02/2026

There’s a bit of truth to the ‘no one takes you seriously if you have dimples’. Especially if you are a skin spot! A dermatofibroma is a skin spot which is acquired (so, ‘new’), often has more than one colour and which is usually thick or lumpy. So, from a first principles point of view, we ‘should’ be concerned. But, they do this really helpful dimpling thing when we press around them, and this more or less clinches the (benign) diagnosis.

They are thought to be a scar variant, and follow on from minor skin trauma such as a mozzie bite or thorn prick.

As you can see, they are really quite striking under the dermatoscope (skin magnifier).

Want to see me? ➡️ Sherbourne Road Medical Clinic, Montmorency VIC 3094.
Email me at ask@dranneconnell.com.au if you need an urgent appointment.


24/02/2026

This gent first noticed this spot about 6 months ago. It was a scab that didn’t heal.
He had had a previous aggressive basal cell cancer lower down his face in 2018. If you rewatch the video, you’ll probably spot the old scar.

This scab is a worrying scab because it is starting to pucker the surrounding skin. Can you see the skin folds radiating out from the edge of the scab? This has been described as a ‘stellate’ pattern, and is a clue to infiltrative basal cell cancer. It has a reported specificity of 94% for infiltrative BCC 🤓.

The fact that more than 50% of the lesion surface is ulcerated (the scab or crust overlies an ulcer and is our clue to ulceration) is also a clue to aggression in a basal cell cancer.

For professional followers, it is important to take your biopsy from the ulcerated area as, if you only biopsy the intact periphery of the lesion, you may only see nodular basal cell cancer and so underestimate the clearance required by your definitive excision.

Want to see me? ➡️ Sherbourne Road Medical Clinic, Montmorency VIC 3094.
Email me at ask@dranneconnell.com.au if you need an urgent appointment.


22/02/2026

This lady likes to have her nails painted at all times, whereas I want to see them bare at the time of skin checks because melanoma can (rarely) present in the nails 🤔. She knows this because she is a regular patient.

Her workaround is to have her nail technician expressly check for dark lines before revarnishing her nails. Love it 😻.

This time, her tech noticed a dark spot that hadn’t been there before and so she hotfooted it in to see me.

Fortunately, on this occasion, it was just bleeding under the nail due to minor trauma.
But round of applause for her diligent workaround 👏👏👏.

Noting that the area of bruising may take many months to grow out of her toenail.
Can you see too where her acrylic nail had been sitting previously? They do damage nails 🫠.

Want to see me? ➡️ Sherbourne Road Medical Clinic, Montmorency VIC 3094.
Email me at ask@dranneconnell.com.au if you need an urgent appointment.

20/02/2026

If it’s pink, bleeding and on the nose, chances are it’s a basal cell cancer. This little spot bucked the trend and is a squamous cell cancer. Squamous cell cancers can bleed, and bleeding is often a sign of a more aggressive variant. Or more enthusiastic picking by the patient 🤭.

Want to see me? ➡️ Sherbourne Road Medical Clinic, Montmorency VIC 3094.
Email me at ask@dranneconnell.com.au if you need an urgent appointment.

17/02/2026

Did someone cast a furnunculus spell on this poor lady🧙‍♀️? That is one ugly spot 😆.

Most seborrhoeic keratoses hang out with some friends, but, just like human beings, some of them are not at all sociable. This one was hanging out on its own, and seemed to be thriving on the solitude!

In general, rapid growth of a skin lesion is worrying for malignancy, but this one looks like a sebK and was confirmed to be so by the pathologist. How big it would have grown left to its own devices is anyone’s guess 🤷🏻‍♀️

Want to see me? ➡️ Sherbourne Road Medical Clinic, Montmorency VIC 3094.
Email me at ask@dranneconnell.com.au if you need an urgent appointment.


🚨Dearest gentle reader (particularly those of the masculine persuasion),The ever-vigilant Therapeutic Goods Administrati...
16/02/2026

🚨Dearest gentle reader (particularly those of the masculine persuasion),

The ever-vigilant Therapeutic Goods Administration has issued an advisory regarding Natures Valley Collagen Builder.

Alas, this “collagen” supplement contains undeclared sildenafil — known to many as vi**ra — and at approximately twice the recommended maximum dose.

Such surprises may result not in vitality, but in dizziness, heart complications, sudden vision loss, painful prolonged erections, and dangerous (even life-threatening) interactions with nitrate heart medications.

The advice is simple:
DO NOT USE Natures Valley Collagen Builder.

No other similarly named products or manufacturers are known to be affected.

One must be cautious where one seeks enhancement.

Yours in good health,
Dr Anne 💌

15/02/2026

On the nose, we are more likely to see basal cell cancers than squamous cell cancers, though nothing is off the table. Like ears, noses are ‘high risk’ locations for skin cancer.

‘High risk’ doesn’t only mean that skin cancers are more likely to grow at these particular locations, but also that the cancers which do grow tend to be more aggressive (growing faster, spreading deeper and sometimes distantly) and are more likely to recur after treatment.

Protect your schnoz. You’ve only got one. And it’s nice to be able to breathe and to have somewhere to park your glasses.
Dress code is SPF.

Want to see me? ➡️ Sherbourne Road Medical Clinic, Montmorency VIC 3094.
Email me at ask@dranneconnell.com.au if you need an urgent appointment.


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