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**Holly Frye** (0:17)
Our guest today, Dr. Anna Chacon, is a board certified dermatologist who runs her own practice. She writes extensively about skin health and access to care, and has built a social media platform dedicated to reaching patients who are underserved in the dermatologic system.
She shows up where they are and in the language they speak, because that's right, she is available to provide care in multiple languages. What does it actually take to make the most of a dermatology appointment? What do you need to know going in? What do you as a patient need to say? And how do we get past the fact that saying what we need to say to a doctor can sometimes feel really embarrassing or vulnerable?
Dr. Chacon has thought long and hard about all of this, and I am so excited to talk to her today.
Dr. Anna Chacon, welcome to Our Skin. We are so glad you're here.

**Dr. Anna Chacon** (1:12)
Thank you so much. I'm really honored to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

**Holly Frye** (1:16)
And you mentioned before the show that you sometimes go by Dr. Anna. Is it okay if I call you that?

**Dr. Anna Chacon** (1:22)
Yeah, of course.

**Holly Frye** (1:23)
Terrific.
Dr. Anna, I want to start with your own story. What drew you to medicine in the first place, and then what made you choose dermatology as your specialty? Yeah.

**Dr. Anna Chacon** (1:35)
I was always drawn to medicine. My dad is a physician, he's a doctor and was pretty immersed in it. He does critical care, so intensive care, very critically ill patients, life or death cases. And so we lived actually within walking distance from one of the major hospitals here in South Florida. It was just a big part of my life. So it was just something I grew up with. He's not a dermatologist and I'm the only dermatologist in my family. I really enjoyed it. It's very visual.
I liked reading atlases and it just kind of came naturally to me. And so it was actually a big point of contention with my family. And it was actually really hard for me to get into dermatology. I didn't match for the first year. I did a whole year of unpaid research to be able to get in, which is common, because it's a very hard field to get into, I think, worldwide. It's common for people to struggle to get in for a while. And so I definitely did struggle and my family was not happy about that. They were like, well, you went to Brown. You kind of invested a lot in you. You invested a lot in yourself. Why are you not kind of making it, you know? And so I continued to just persist and try and finally made it.

**Holly Frye** (2:48)
We're certainly glad you did because that benefits a lot of people.
And speaking of the people you benefit, I want to talk today about patients advocating for ourselves in doctor's appointments, which is not easy. You know, patients often leave without asking what they wanted to ask. I know that's happened to me. Or they don't know how to describe what they're experiencing. And they maybe feel foolish not knowing the right terms or they're afraid to push back when they get an answer that they don't understand. What do you wish that patients knew before they walked into a dermatology appointment?

**Dr. Anna Chacon** (3:20)
I would say definitely that it's confidential, and at least for me and a lot of the doctors I work with and that I know, that we're just trying our best and also when you choose a doctor, not everyone is the same. So you might have had a bad experience with one doctor, but although we have standards of care, your experience is going to be always different. So when you choose a doctor, you're choosing that individual based on their background, their specialty, what they focus on, what they train in, maybe if you have common interest, maybe if a friend or a family member had a good experience with them, or if they were involved in clinical trials. So everyone is actually different and to not let just one experience steer you in a positive or negative direction.

**Holly Frye** (4:11)
Then what prep work do you just love to see a patient do before they see you? What are questions that you wish every patient would ask?

**Dr. Anna Chacon** (4:20)
One thing I've actually started to do myself, which I find very helpful, is writing a to-do list. Though I do have patients that outline a body on piece of paper and put Xs or dots and little offshoots of, okay, well, there's a pimple here and this is not going away on the back. I actually have started to appreciate those notes more because it streamlines the visit and I like to go over those notes first and then see if there's any questions. It's hard when there's sometimes no focus in the visit or someone may not know why they're there. Let's say they were referred by the primary and then they get there and like, what am I doing here?