In over 30 years of practice, Dr. Errol Billinkoff rarely saw a man without kids come into his Winnipeg clinic to get a vasectomy. But since the pandemic began, he says it's become an almost daily occurrence.
And he's not alone.
"At first, I thought I was the only one who was noticing this," Billinkoff, who brought a no-scalpel vasectomy procedure to Winnipeg in the early 1990s, told CBC News in a November interview.
"But I am part of an international chat group where doctors who do vasectomies participate and the topic came up, and it's like everybody notices it."
Iβm sorry, there is an international chat group where a bunch of doctors that perform vasectomies congregate and talk about vasectomies?
Probably. I can imagine doctors being like "Hey y'all check out my favorite vasectomizin' wrench. You should get one of these, it's a true 0 degree, tightens down them nuts in hard to reach spaces."
Is that weird? I'm in HVAC and I talk with fellow HVAC people all over the world. This is a thing with most fields. It doesn't seem at all weird that there would be groups of urologists online.
I'm imagining a lads' group where they post the gnarliest botched vasectomies
People join chatrooms to talk about their favorite TV shows or their jobs. This is no different.
Vasectomies without Borders
Welcome to the Internet - you're new here, I take it?
Probably slightly more generalized like a urologist chat.
I mean, yeah, why not? There are international whatevers for almost anything, specially professional practices. It's less cumbersome and cheaper than relying on regulatory bodies to organize and run conventions or seminars. Most of these chats are informal and born from that kind of events as well.
Something I also learned from working with the health sector is that there are really very few 100% dedicated to their niche specialists in every area. Sure, there are many heart surgeons, but very few experts on ventricular septal defect surgery on children. And some of that stuff can be so complex as to be a sole area of dedicated study. It allows these kind of informal forums and encourages a strong mentor-apprentice dynamics. So it is not rare they hit the group chat every once in a while. I also learned there are over a dozen different ways to make a vasectomy procedure and some doctors know how to do a few but not all of them and there are reasons to prefer some over the others depending on the patient.
Gotta share the best practices, its like the postmarket os matrix chat where tech enthusiasts support each other improving builds ;)
lol all about that postmarket
Too specific analogy.