The Skin Cancer Foundation Journal

MAY 2014

The 2012 edition of The Skin Cancer Foundation Journal features medically reviewed, reader-friendly articles such as tanning, the increasing incidence of skin cancer diagnoses among young women, & the prevalence of melanoma among white males over 50.

Issue link: https://skincancer.epubxp.com/i/319518

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 50 of 103

49 agreed reluctantly. Dr. Braun recommended that they also involve Dr. Parlette, a Mohs surgeon colleague who was Chairman of Dermatology at the Bethesda Naval Hospital. On October 10, Dr. Braun transported his sterile surgical instruments to the White House, where he was met by Col. John Hutton, the President's personal physician. Dr. Hutton's ofce, in the basement of the White House, was adjacent to a standard outpatient operating room with overhead lights, an electric operating room table, and resuscitation equipment. Shortly after Drs. Braun and Parlette arrived at Hutton's ofce, a stafer pushed a curtain aside, and through a window they saw the President's helicopter land on the White House lawn, surrounded by stafers on one side, reporters on the other. The President had the helicopter keep its rotors turn- ing noisily as he stooped low to disembark, so that he could point to his ears to let everyone know he couldn't hear their questions. Five minutes later, the President was in the OR with Drs. Braun and Parlette. He was remarkably friendly and chatty. He spoke about his friendship with Shirley Temple, America's grown-up little girl sweetheart, who was actually then married and pregnant. "The President was pleased to point out that he had actually been the frst to marry her. . . in the movies," says Dr. Braun. "There was nothing intimidating about him, nothing to make you ner- vous. No Secret Servicemen were in the room, and the con- versation was easy." In fact, the President seemed ready to talk for hours, so Drs. Braun and Parlette urged him to move forward with the surgery. He lay back on the table, and a 5-6 mm area on the bridge of the nose was anesthetized. "He stayed very still and was an excellent patient," notes Dr. Braun. "The only thing he didn't do that I asked was leave his hearing aids in. I wanted to be sure he heard our instruc- tions, but he was afraid the devices would squeal during the surgery, so he took them out. He heard us fne anyway." The Great Escape S o the Mohs procedure began. A thin layer of tissue was removed, about 1 cm in diameter. Dr. Braun gathered up the specimens in a Petri dish and prepared to drive quickly in Dr. Hutton's VW Rabbit to Dr. Braun's nearby lab to analyze the specimens under the microscope. To keep questions from being asked, Dr. Hutton had Braun hide the Petri dish under a sports coat folded over his arm. "He stayed with me so there would be no interference leaving, and as we walked down the long hallways of the White House and Executive Ofce building, every single Secret Service- man was staring at the coat on my arm. We were afraid that any minute they were going to knock the specimens onto the foor and step on them." Braun, Parlette, and Hutton climbed into the car, and a moment later, as they pulled out onto Pennsylvania Avenue, a car came fying at them. "We came within a hair of being broadsided," Braun remembers. "Dr. Hutton started laughing. 'Couldn't you just picture the news in the Washington Post tomorrow?' he said. 'President's nasal specimens crushed by cars on Pennsylvania Avenue.' " Clean Bill of Health W hile the excised tissue was being processed, the White House kept calling for the results. Finally they had their answer: the specimen's edges were clear. Only a single skin layer had been re- moved to achieve a cancer-free plane beyond the tumor. Drs. Braun and Parlette returned to the White House and concluded the procedure. They re-anesthetized the wound, elongated enough skin to cover the defect, closed the wound with sutures, and put a small bandage on the site. The wound was small enough so that no faps or grafts were required, but the President was concerned about what the First Lady would think when she saw the bandage. Fol- lowed by Dr. Braun, he went into the bathroom, leaned over the sink, and stared into the mirror. Dr. Braun, lightly touching the President's back to keep him steady, leaned with him, pointing out how small the bandage was and tell- ing him everything was going to be just fne. "I was only in my 30s, and standing there with my hand on the President's back, I couldn't help but think what an unusual moment this was in my life. It was an honor." So Much for Secrets T he plan was for the President to go to Camp David for a week to recover. If this had happened, the country might never have known about the skin cancer. But instead, the terrorist hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro required the President to go immediately on national television to comment on the international inci- dent. He had to explain the bandage on his nose, because the bandage was all anyone wanted to talk about. He spoke briefy about the basal cell carcinoma and explained that the margins were clear. He told the press that the bandage was a "billboard" that said "Stay out of the sun." Despite this public airing, the White House managed to keep the doctors largely incognito. "I wasn't asked a lot about it because people didn't know I did it," says Braun. "A Washington Post reporter called me afterwards and said, 'Did you operate on the President?' When I answered yes, he said, 'Sorry, we left you out of the article.'"

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of The Skin Cancer Foundation Journal - MAY 2014