A child is dead.

For those of you who can read German:
http://tinyurl.com/mjxec

For those of you who can not that is a story about a child who had a "Routine Operation" (almost certainly a circumcision) for phimosis performed upon him, then died as a consequence during the aftermath.

Having already made a post earlier today about the shocking level of ignorance displayed by doctors I was pretty shocked to discover this. That boy was FOUR. A four year old can not even have phimosis, they do not need any form of treatment for non-retraction at that age.

Even if they did the Beauge Method or a simple steroid cream could have cleared it up, and now a superfluous piece of surgery has been performed and a boy is dead.

For what?

For nothing. There was no reason for it at all.

If it had not been for a medical professional, a man trained and taught for years and paid specifically for his expertise on medical matters then that child would still be alive and fine today. So an institution and profession designed to save and enhance quality of life was solely responsible for the death of someone not even half a decade into existance.

To say that this sickens me would be an immense understatement. I could rant on for thousands of words about this but I am having trouble finding the words.

This must end.

Right, that is quite enough about my balls for the moment.

Back to phimosis. Things seem to have stayed roughly the same in terms of ease, I noticed that if left unretracted for a while when you finally do attempt to it can be a little stiff.

I have been thinking about this condition quite a lot lately, inspired by a comment left in my last post in which a man posted to tell us of a doctor who had informed him that the best way to cure his case was to rip his foreskin around the glans manually until he had teared it enough so that it would slip back.

Now take your mind off of how much agony that would inspire and consider the doctor. This is a man who is a medical professional, it is his job to diagnose conditions from symptoms and propose cures, he trained for at least seven years to do precisely that and was taught thoroughly and yet despite all this when confronted with a fairly common problem his reaction was to suggest a rememdy which not only highlighted his ignorance and incompetance starkly but also displayed a shocking lack of common sense.

In fact this absurd state of affairs has reached the level where I, a mere layman, am better informed than the specialist urologist I visited when it comes to non-surgical cures for a common penile condition.

So how do they get away with it? I can understand that the majority of the populace could be ignorant about these things, they have never been told or trained, they are in no position of responsibility. But a doctor? Someone who is paid solely to ease ills? How can so very many of them know so very little?

It seems a mystery to me. I doubt that incompetance of this leauge with any other body part would be tolerable and yet it is somehow reasonable to see the male prepuce through wholly uninformed eyes.

Presumably this is some form of flash-back to the time when most would have had theirs removed without their consent soon after birth?

I have no certain knowledge of the reasoning but whatever it is the reality bothers me. I am more thankful now than ever for the wonderful data resource that is the internet. I find it somewhat bemusing that something that tends to be seen as such a dubious source of information excels many doctors, professionals viewed as the very peak of sound advice.

Things are going very well!

Healing up nicely, no rupturing and now things are looking a less scabby down there. It seems less likely that I am going to get scarring now, which is quite a relief. No pain any longer and walking is an act of ease again rather than a wary shuffle.