A special message from Dr. DeSilva

COVID-19 has certainly changed our daily life, as I’m sure it has yours as well. At DeSilva Dermatology we are staying up-to-date with information and recommendations from the federal government, CDC, American Academy of Dermatology (AAD), Texas Medical Board, the recent Disaster Declaration from Governor Abbott and finally recommendations by our own Mayor of Boerne, Tim Handren.

All non-essential businesses have been asked to close down to minimize the spread of the coronavirus. There have been two travel-related cases in Boerne but no community acquired cases yet. This new recommendation is to try and prevent the community spread from happening. The AAD has recommended that we stay open to prevent patients with skin-related issues from having to go to urgent care and emergency rooms so that those facilities can focus on the pandemic crisis. As a dermatology office, we are to eliminate in-person non-essential visits but be available for essential cases  We have been implementing CDC guidelines for infection control at our office. We ask that if you have any infectious symptoms such as:

• fever
• runny nose
• cough
• feeling run down

that you call you primary care physician first to attend to those symptoms. To help the medical community serve the public in this time of social distancing, the federal government has relaxed the requirements for telemedicine.  Rather than rescheduling non-essential patients we are hoping to take care of those patients  via telemedicine. Anything we can evaluate by observation such as worrisome lesions, rashes, acne, etc. will not need to wait until this passes. We can observe, evaluate, diagnose and prescribe appropriate treatments. Unfortunately, in-office procedures for non-essential cases will need to wait until the disaster declaration is lifted by Governor Abbott. If considered essential such as a suspicious lesion or cancer, we can still see you as an in-person visit as long as there is no history of travel, contact with someone sick, or displaying the above symptoms.

We will be calling those on our schedule to either plan for virtual visit via telemedicine, reschedule, or verify no risk factors if we are still seeing patients as an essential office visit. We will continue to remain open within these operational boundaries.  If you are being seen in the office, please call us when you arrive and stay in your car until we are ready to see you. One of our staff members will escort you directly to a treatment room so that you do not have to wait in the waiting room. Please sanitize your hands on the way in and on the way out. Thank you for your cooperation as we make these changes to keep you safe.

Please help us help our community by taking the rights steps toward minimizing the spread of COVID-19 by practicing social distancing, proper hygiene, and listening to those recommendations given by our officials in government.