"I like to see if we can make things better"

University of Saskatchewan (USask) graduate Dr. Ron Shore (MD’70) is a dermatologist and life-long innovator. Born in Saskatoon, Shore received 11 scholarships, won a Governor General’s Medal based on academic merit, and graduated with great distinction from USask’s College of Medicine.

He completed an internship in medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital and a residency in dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania. He was board certified in dermatology in Canada and the United States, practiced dermatology in both countries, and taught medical students and residents at Johns Hopkins Hospital for 35 years.

Shore has authored over 40 publications and has developed new products, treatments, tests, and methodologies. Today, he gave the 2025 Honoured Alumni Lecture at the college’s Highlights in Medicine Conference. His presentation focused on his highly successful skin cancer screening program — a program, which in its 33 years, has the distinction of having no fatalities from any new skin cancer.

“My hope is when I’m gone, that I’ve made life better for the people who are still around,” said Shore. “I think my best way of doing that would be to build awareness of this skin check program because it has been so effective. If it is widely used, it could save an awful lot of people.”

We recently talked to Shore about his education and experiences at USask, his innovations, and his advice for students looking to pursue medicine.

My parents were very much into education. My father was a pharmacist who went to the University of Saskatchewan. Shortly after my brother and I were born, we moved a block and a half from the university because he wanted us to be close so we could go there. I also never realized it until six months ago, but growing up I had five best friends and every one of them was the son of a university professor.

By the time I was ready to go to medical school, I'd already won several USask scholarships. So, I was planning on going there for years, even when I was in elementary school — my family went there and so I went there. I'm happy I did.

I was in my final year of medical school and it was time for my rotation in obstetrics. Even though you do a lot of reading, you understand a lot, when you have the opportunity to deliver your first baby, it’s… I wouldn’t say nerve-wracking, but you are excited and you want everything to go well.

On my very first day I had my first delivery at 7:00 pm and everything went very smoothly. That night I was on call. At about 2:00 or 3:00 o'clock in the morning, a woman came in to deliver her child, except it was not smooth. From the information provided by the patient, there was no underlying reason why she should not be doing well.

All three of us — the attending, the resident and I — were trying everything to save the mother and baby. Although I am not able to speak for them, I think it would have been a shocker for anyone. It was quite something.

We could not initially understand the problems, but it turns out she had a very rare type of muscular dystrophy (i.e., myotonic dystrophy) and is a condition that gets worse with pregnancy. I did a lot of reading on this subject and wrote two separate journal articles during my internship. Along with Dr. MacLachlan, the head of the department, we put in the literature steps to take if a patient has this condition. I thought publishing was important to help others that might be in the same situation. If you are aware there could be a problem, it's always easier to deal with it.

I have always been interested in medical things — I like to help people, and I like to solve problems. Back in grade school I planned on being a doctor, I didn't even consider other possibilities. I was not sure where I would eventually end up in the field of medicine. I had thought about psychiatry and then became very interested in endocrinology. It was not until my internship that I decided to go into dermatology.

I am happy I went on that route because there were so many opportunities to use my skills and to help make advances in the field.

There are conferences which doctors and dermatologists can go to that talk about advances in melanoma research. And there have been some amazing advances.
The interesting thing is almost the entire focus of conferences is late-stage melanoma and saving those people. This is important, but it's not the only issue. There is usually nothing about doing skin cancer screenings to detect melanomas in the early stages. That has been my area of inquiry.

What would you guess would be the outcome if a melanoma is caught in the very early stages; what do you think the survival rate is? The answer in our office is 100% for over 30 years.

It turns out that the earliest stage of melanoma is incapable of metastasis. I say early melanoma is much like a newborn child — it cannot walk out of the room — a new melanoma cannot spread through the body. If you catch melanoma in its earliest stage, you don't have to do scans, you don't have to do lymph node biopsies because it cannot spread. If you do a wide excision (to remove the melanoma), you are done.

We developed a very thorough exam and we have gotten very good at detecting melanoma. Over time we have learned to recognize not just the typical cases, but the atypical cases. The literature shows typical melanomas, but maybe 15-20% do not look anything like this. If you're only aware of the typical cases, you might miss some.

Once we have done our (first) thorough exam, we have a baseline where it appears the person has no melanomas or other skin cancers. We tell them to come back once a year or every six months, for higher risk patients, for a thorough examination. By doing the skin check program in this timely manner, we have been able to pick up melanomas, and other types of skin cancers, in the early stages when they all appear curable.

We are now in year 33 of our screening program and we have not lost anyone to, or even had a close call to, a cutaneous melanoma skin cancer. You only have to do skin checks once or twice a year, and if done well, it can be extraordinarily lifesaving.

I enjoyed playing golf. Years ago, I joined a group, and they were hitting the ball way beyond what I was. I decided if I wanted to get better, I had to learn to hit the ball further. I like to fiddle around and try things and thought I could take two approaches — one was to improve my strength and physical abilities, and the other was to develop golf clubs.

I looked into all kinds of designs for golf clubs. My concept was if I used a longer golf club, I would get more leverage and should be able to hit the ball further. I probably had over 100 golf clubs designed with different features.

I decided with my long golf club, which was legal at the time, to enter long driving contests and I won several with drives well over 300 yards. Around that time, there was an article in Golf Magazine that showed pictures of my long clubs. This article got some attention and shortly thereafter they made long clubs like mine illegal — which temporarily ended my long drive success. However, I concentrated on exercise and tried again. I was able to qualify for the Re/Max World Long Drive Championship. I was far from winning it, but it was a lot of fun.

Work hard. It is not easy — there are going to be all kinds of blockades, things that you have to overcome, and sometimes it gets very frustrating. Don’t give up and pursue your goals.

I am also going to make a suggestion. Many drugs have multiple properties — for example, Rogaine started off as a blood pressure drug and antibiotics can be anti-inflammatory. Listening to your patients' experiences might lead to new knowledge about some drugs' additional properties. This is an area that would be very valuable and productive.

There are a lot of fascinating things (in medicine). There are opportunities to make advances and much safer ways of doing things that may come up in the future. I think I'd like to see more creativity.

I consider it an extreme honour. There are numerous graduates from the University of Saskatchewan that have excelled academically and provided enormous service around the world. I know for my own class there were many who provided great service when needed.

It is very much appreciated by me, and I feel very thankful that I was chosen to provide the Alumni Lecture. I hope I can share some of our advances (in skin cancer screening) that will lead to other lives being saved as well as reduced morbidity.