Would you like fries with that?

There is a massive billboard near my house advertising the no-scalpel vasectomy. This would not be that interesting, except that next to the photo of the doctor is this frightening statistic: Over 17,000 vasectomies performed! Yes, that's correct, that's seventeen thousand, for those of you driving quickly and doubting your reading skills. By the same guy. The picture shows a young-ish looking doctor, with very dark, thick shiny hair and equally dark eyebrows. Is this guy some kind of vasectomy machine or something? What exactly is a no-scalpel vasectomy and, more to the point, does it even work? I'm sure it's not too hard to do six million vasectomies if you don't do them correctly, right? I decided to look in to this bizarre phenomenon and got the scoop from his website. Apparently the guy isn't as young as his picture suggests, and he has been practicing locally for 25 years. That math is a bit more reasonable, but still. 17,025 vasectomies since 1983? That's 681 per year on average, although it probably increased over time as he became more successful. As it turns out, the procedure only takes...get ready...10-15 minutes (!!), so it's not that crazy to do 13 per week on average. In fact, now that I really look at the numbers, even if it takes 20 minutes, that's only about 4 hours of his time each week. Still, at over 17,000 procedures, it sure does give new meaning to the term "churn and burn". Eek!



image: SideSalad.net