MINOR SURGERY
Not all surgery requires a hospital visit
Today, with highly skilled Doctors and a fully equipped clinical space, you might be surprised at the variety of minor surgeries we can undertake at Gore Medical Centre. You may not need to be referred to outside medical professionals, or even have to wait for public hospital care.
We offer a wide range of minor surgery procedures at the practice, carried out by our doctors who have undertaken the relevant postgraduate training. This is available for both our registered patients and casual patients. We conduct regular surgical clinics, at least two days per week, thus ensuring waiting times are kept to a minimum.
The Gore Medical Centre is Southern Cross certified, so you can claim on your health insurance for any advanced procedure if you are covered for it. The procedures we offer are listed below.
SKIN CANCER SURGERY
We perform excisions and reconstructions for any local anaesthetic-amenable skin cancers (or non-cancerous skin lesions) offering a range of reconstructive options depending on the size and location of the lesion.
• Direct closure
This is where the wound is closed directly, side-to-side, with stitches.
• Skin flaps
A skin flap uses plastic surgery techniques to move skin from an adjacent area to fill the defect left when a lesion has been removed. For larger defects this often provides the best cosmetic result.
• Skin grafts
A skin graft involves taking skin from one area of the body and using it to fill a defect somewhere else.
Grafts can be full thickness (where the whole thickness of the skin is used) or split thickness (where only the top layer of the skin is used).
We also offer liquid nitrogen cryotherapy for some superficial skin lesions.
For some skin cancer removals, funding is available via the Primary Health Organisation minor surgery scheme.
We accept referrals from other practices/medical centres both under this scheme and also for private paying patients. Non-cancerous skin lesions are not routinely funded at this time.
SKIN CHECKS
In addition to the surgical treatment of skin lesions, we offer whole-body skin checks as a screening tool to pick up early skin cancers. These are carried out using dermoscopy (also known as epiluminescence microscopy) by our doctors who have undergone specialist training in this area.
Initial full skin checks typically take about 30 minutes (two standard appointments); follow up visits will vary depending on the number of lesions to be assessed.
HAND SURGERY (DR MAARSCHALK)
There are a number of hand surgery procedures we offer routinely at the practice.
• Carpal tunnel procedures
Carpal tunnel syndrome is a condition in which the median nerve (which supplies sensation to most of the hand) is compressed at the wrist. It can sometimes be treated with a steroid injection, but often it requires surgery. This is carried out under local anaesthetic and usually takes around 30 minutes. Before any treatment takes place, a full consultation is necessary, and the patient often undergoes nerve conduction testing to determine how severe the problem is.
• Trigger finger procedures
Trigger finger (or trigger thumb) is a condition in which a nodule on the tendon gets caught beneath one of the small pulleys that holds the tendon to the bone, causing the finger to “click” or “trigger”, sometimes painfully. It can often be treated with a steroid injection, but sometimes it requires surgery. This is a local anaesthetic procedure that usually takes around 30 minutes.
Depending on staffing availability, we can also treat a range of hand trauma presentations.
• Hand lacerations
• Nailbed injuries
• Foreign bodies
• Some extensor tendon injuries
TOENAIL PROCEDURES
Ingrown toenails are a common problem. If simple treatments have not been successful, we offer ingrown toenail surgery under local anaesthetic, with the ability to utilise a variety of techniques depending on the situation (Vandenbos or wedge resection).
VASECTOMY (DR CLEMENS)
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