Thursday, September 20, 2012

Vasectomy

I know a lot of men are reluctant to undergo a vasectomy, but I always say that it's a much easier procedure than a woman having her tubes tied. This is how I explain that:

When I was a med student on my surgery rotation, there was one urologist in our department who had actually performed his own vasectomy.

He apparently used local anesthesia and did the procedure with a colleague present in the room "just in case." There were no complications.

I dare you to find a female ob/gyn who tied her own tubes.

16 comments:

  1. An excellent point...Can wives use that one now?

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  2. What about implants? Especially the hormone based ones. I know a few women who have had them without complaint.

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  3. That is incredible!!

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  4. What about the woman in Mexico who did her own C-Section...close enough?

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    1. No, a poor villager who recognized something was wrong and took a butcher's knife to do her own C-section.

      I can tell you this - NO WAY IN HELL would I be able to do that to myself!

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  5. It's like PM&R docs doing EMGs on themselves for demonstration. :)

    Ever done it, Fizz?

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    1. No. I've let people practice on me, but never did it myself. I think most people have a hard time sticking a needle into themselves unless they're a drug addict or a diabetic or something along those lines. I found it hard to even press the button to shock myself.

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  6. Whoa. That fairly freaks me out..

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  7. Did you know that in rural China vasectomies are performed incisionless? The patient undergoes local anaesthesia (or not), the Vas Deferens are palpated through the skin, and a hammer (!) is used to tamp them and thereby cause scarring, occluding the vas and thereby rendering the patient (victim) sterile. No incision = very low risk of infection, and very low cost as well. Ask your friendly neighborhood Urologist if he'd try that one.

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  8. ... that's really impressive. I just emailed this to my boyfriend (he's applying to urology residencies). I cannot imagine doing anything like that on myself...

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  9. There are stories of docs doing all sorts of things on themselves.

    There's a video of an anesthesiologist who intubates himself:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDRTzmuwMnQ

    and a bunch of references to a Russian surgeon who had to take out his own appendix:
    http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2011/03/18/soviet-surgeon-tops-list-of-greatest-things-a-persons-ever-done/


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  10. I don't know, I'd be more impressed with the neurosurgeon doing their own lobotomy.

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  11. Fizzy, you make me LAUGH OUT LOUD! :)

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  12. That's almost as baller as the soviet surgeon who took out his own appendix in Antarctica

    http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/03/antarctica-1961-a-soviet-surgeon-has-to-remove-his-own-appendix/72445/

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  13. I took care of a gastroenterologist who did his own EGD for GI pain. Oddly, it didn't go away. It took a cardiologist stenting t his 98% LAD blockage to get any relief.

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