Doctor unable to locate vas deferens
Oct 17th 2009adminGeneral questions
My husband just called me and was very upset. Last week he had an appointment to schedule a Vasectomy and the DR had a hard time locating his vas deferens, telling him he was too small in the private area and thats why he (the DR) had a hard time finding the vas deferens. That of course made my husband very upset. He scheduled his vasectomy for a week later, which was today.
My husband took time off work and went in. Well the DR never did the vasectomy he told him he couldn’t locate his vas deferens (after prodding around) and that my husband would have to do it at a hospital and be put to sleep for the procedure. The Doctors reason this time was that my husband has to much fat in his private area to locate the vas deferens. Now my husband could lose a few, but is not that bad. The Doctor told him about 1 percent end up having to go through surgery in the hospital.
A simple procedure is turning into a huge hassle. Is this DR right in what he is saying to my husband? Is the vas deferens really that hard to locate?
The vas deferens can be difficult to palpate and the difficulty of palpation is related to the patient’s anatomy and the physician’s familiarity with anatomy in this region. In these difficult situations, you never want to force a physician to perform a surgery in a situation he/she is not comfortable in. My recommendation to any patient in this situation is to either go along with your surgeon’s preference for performing the vasectomy, or choose another surgeon.
Joe B on 26 Oct 2009 at 8:45 pm #
This is where your choice of surgeon makes all the difference. I had a similar situation (difficult to locate vas) but since I went to a urological specialist, he had no difficulties doing the procedure. During the surgery, there was a change of plans and I required two incisions instead of just one. He also had to vigorously pull on my anatomy to find what he was looking for, but ‘when it was all said and done’, the procedure was a success. Would a family physician or G.P. be as confident or competent? Possibly not.