I have had several skin cancers removed over the years, due to 25 years of competitive swimming and water polo in an era when Coppertone was the style, and nobody had ever heard of SPF.

Most of mine were basal cell that were removed from my upper chest and back by my Internist. I used to joke that he was dismembering me 1 cm at a time. Had 2 SCC removed as well, the latest one popping up just after radiation completed. It was a keratoacanthoma that was square in the middle of my upper chest at the collarbone level, right in the middle of the extended radiation field. These are ugly little critters that grow fast, but are generally considered low grade. I had a dermatological surgeon remove that one. Clean margins, no follow up treatment.

For most skin cancers short of melanoma, removal is the sole treatment. Like others, they can recur, but can also be removed then. Except for melanoma, metastasis is very rare, usually only in cases that have been allowed to progress to significantly sized lesions.

So your doc is not steering you wrong.