Dr. Nam on the increased interest in vasectomy amidst urologist shortages

In this video, Catherine S. Nam, MD, shares implications for urologists based on findings from the study, “Short-Term Changes in Vasectomy Consults and Procedures Following Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization.” Nam is a clinical andrology fellow at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, Illinois and a recent graduate of the University of Michigan residency program in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Video Transcript:

From the urologist perspective, I think in the immediate timeline, there's been a lot of discussion about how do we meet the current vasectomy demand from patients? There was a very sharp increase in both the consult demand as well as the procedure demand. Within our department at University of Michigan, there has been increased numbers of vasectomy procedure days to be able to meet the demand so that there's not a very long prolonged delay for our patients. The proportion of the new patient visits that were dedicated to vasectomy was definitely higher.

It'll be interesting to see how that plays out long-term, especially with the general increase in awareness and disputing of misconceptions that has taken place recently. It'll also be interesting to see how this plays out in the context of the urologic work force shortage. It's an AUA advocacy priority; we don't have enough urologists to be able to meet the demands of the population. Especially when vasectomy is one of the more commonly performed procedures across the country, how are we going to meet the demands of the patients that are potentially increasing with time to be able to make sure that we're able to provide timely care?

The other thing that's really interesting about the patient population that pertains specifically to vasectomy patients is a lot of them tend to be young. So, young men tend to pursue preventative care or have primary care doctors at a lower rate than our older patient population. It'll be really important for us to collaborate with primary care doctors, whether it's us referring our patients to primary care to make sure that they're able to participate in preventative health care throughout their lives, or for the primary care doctors to be able to provide some of the initial counseling before they come to the urologist's office to make sure that the patients are getting the care that they want.

This transcription has been edited for clarity.