- The Washington Times - Wednesday, March 19, 2014

March Madness is apparently the time favored by Ohio men to take a vasectomy vacation. With male sports fans knowing that they’ll be sitting around the couch for hours on end during the 68-team tournament, doctors are seeing an uptick in the procedure. 

“We do have [in March] typically about 50 percent more vasectomies than in other months,” Dr. Ed Sabanegh, chairman of the Department of Urology at the Cleveland Clinic, told CNN.

“A lot of patients come in and say, ’I have to have this during March Madness, you have to talk to my wife about it. Tell her what my limitations are and that I need to be on the couch,’” Dr. Sabanegh added.

Dr. Stephen Jones of the Cleveland Clinic concurred:

“At least half the guys that I’ve got scheduled for later in the week acknowledge that they are here specifically here for that reason. And in fact the guy this morning said ’absolutely, that’s why I’m on the schedule for Friday.’ This was my first consultation with him. But as soon as I asked him about it he was a little sheepish to recognize that’s why he’s off work that day.”

The American Urological Association does not believe it, saying in a statement to CNN: “The AUA does not have data showing any link between March Madness and an increase in the number of vasectomies performed.”

Regardless, CNN reported that Dr. Jones was so used to the increased business that he now must plan ahead for it.

“Thursday is actually normally a surgery day for me, and when we recognized that it wasn’t going to have the slots available when we started getting the calls I actually blocked part of that day out to add additional slots so we were able to open up some that we wouldn’t have been able to take care of otherwise,” he said.

• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.

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