I’ve been trying to encourage more Family Planning specialists to become trained in providing vasectomies. I’ve gotten some training and am working hard to establish a way to provide vasectomies through our Family Planning clinics.

Through this process, I trained with an amazing urologist in Florida who is an advocate for male contraception. He runs a number of vasectomy missions a year to Kenya, Philippines, Haiti, and now Mexico. After training with him last March, my eyes are open to contraceptive needs of men that I had never considered.

Men have contraceptive needs that are simply not being met. Medicaid nor the Affordable Care Act cover the cost of vasectomies or condoms. As a physician, I had no idea. Men also have difficulty finding providers of vasectomies, I know that is the case in my area and they often don’t know who performs them. Men also often receive incorrect information about vasectomies.

I do feel that by helping men, we are not only helping them, but helping women and families because vasectomies are often the least expensive and risky of many forms of birth control.