Dr Anne

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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 and perimenopause; vulval conditions; Mirena and Implanon devices).

18/10/2026

I wish more people knew that a never healing patch of irritated skin is high risk for being a cancer. Get peace of mind by getting it checked out.

Oh - and this isn’t one to take to a Dr who relies on the AI in their fancy skin imaging system to make the diagnosis for them.
AI is pretty good at diagnosing pigmented skin lesions, but comes a poor second to a well-trained human when it comes to recognising non pigmented skin cancers. You need a master rather than a dilettante.

How will you know? If your doc is an Australian dermatologist, no worries. If they are a GP who does skin, good plan is to check that they are an Accredited Skin Cancer Doctor with Skin Cancer College Australasia. Accreditation means the Dr has completed a comprehensive program of structured education in skin cancer. The bar is not low.

21/09/2026

Over the moon to be joining Dr Moz at his amazing new clinic Olive Grove Medical Centre in Lower Plenty. I’ll be consulting from there on Mondays starting 28/9/26. What a great way to start my week 😃.

https://olivegrovemedical.com.au/book-now/

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 [email protected] 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 [email protected] 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 [email protected] 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 [email protected] 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 [email protected] if you need an urgent appointment.


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Melbourne, VIC
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