IU Health Center to offer free skin cancer tests

From 1 to 4 p.m. today on the third floor of the IU Health Center, free skin cancer screenings will be offered for the 10th year in a row.

Kathryn Brown, health educator at the health center, said she is happy they can provide this service to students.

Three doctors will administer the screenings.

The students have the choice to have a full body screening in which the skin is examined top to bottom, including the whole torso, hands and feet, Brown said.

Students also have the option to have the doctors examine a particular area of concern.

“The doctors are so good,” she said. “They have been doing this so long. They are really fast.”

Students also have the opportunity to discuss any questions with a doctor.
Participants must make an appointment and must fill out American Dermatologist Association paperwork.

Brown said the screenings usually take place this time of year.

“We try to pick a time when students are conscience of tanning,” Brown said.
She said melanoma is the most serious form of skin cancer and is the second most-common form in young adults ages 15-29.

According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, it is the most common form for adults age 25-29, and each year there are more new instances of skin cancer than cases of breast, lung, prostate and colon cancers combined.

“It startles people how common it is,” Brown said. “Students aren’t aware of how important this issue is.”

Every year, 2.3 million teenagers tan indoors. Those who tan indoors are 74 percent more likely to develop melanoma than those who do not.

Brown said last year, about 75 students made appointments, and so far this year there are about 85 scheduled. The center usually tests between 60 and 80 students on average each year, she said.

“We hope to have 90 to 100,” Brown said. “We can probably accommodate 100.”
Brown said the woman who first organized the screenings died of melanoma.

Freshman Eron Fledderman and junior Annie Miller both said they went tanning  on Monday.

Fledderman said she  normally goes two or three times a week.

“I usually go before vacation,” she said. “I don’t want to get burnt on the beach, so when I get down there, I still use sunscreen. I want to be outside.”

Fledderman said she first started tanning before her junior prom. Many of her friends tan mainly for vacation, she added.

Miller said she also tans as a preventative measure so she won’t get burnt but also because summer is approaching.

“I would rather not be super pale,” she said.

Miller said she usually tans two or three times a week for two months at a time, twice a year. She started tanning before her senior prom and said many of her friends tan, as well. She added that her best friend works at a tanning salon.

Brown said she wants students to realize that any type of tanning, whether indoors or outside, is not safe.

“I want to say to them that I wish they wouldn’t do that,” she said. “I want students to realize that it is a risk.”