Doctor creates book documenting skin conditions to reduce 'racial bias in medical education'
Watch ITV Wales' report by Issa Farfour
A GP and skin specialist who studied at Cardiff University has created a book documenting conditions on black and brown skin.
According to Dr Haider, there is no significant teaching on ethnic skin and historically only white skin has been used as medical examples of skin conditions.
He believes that this has led to skin health inequality and racial bias in medical education.
"There aren't enough examples of so-called ethnic skin or skin of colour in a number of conditions, particularly dermatology", he said.
"What that means is by the time you spot condition A, B or C, it's usually at the latter end of that and the worst case scenario is you miss something serious like a cancer because it doesn't look like it should look or it doesn't look like you're accustomed to it looking.
"Comparing it to present day text books, even ones I use to teach medical students and juniors, I've not seen much of any dermatology conditions, other than sexually transmitted infections, that for some reason happen to be portrayed in African-Caribbean skin quite a lot. There's some bias in itself in that."
Based on his own experiences, Dr Haider spent a year creating a free educational book with 35 cases comparing white skin alongside darker skin in various different conditions.
He's also been given an award by the Prime Minister for his work, and his book has been approved for use in family medicine residency programmes in the UK.
"The way is came about essentially was based on my own experiences as a then medical student", Dr Haider added.
"I realised that a lot of these images don't fit with how I look and I was trying to think 'have I had this condition or that condition?' Conversations led from that to a need for reducing what some call racial bias in medical education.
"I think my experience in Wales, the Cardiff Medical School was instrumental to how I think now.
"Not to be dramatic, but it has changed the way I practice. That experience has led to me developing the book but more importantly, it's led to better clinical care."
Dr Haider said that some skin conditions are common in patients from ethnic minority groups and he believes that there is a need for a better understanding of the subject and more medical teaching examples of people with darker skin.