The Columbus Dispatch

Rush for vasectomie­s during NCAA tournament

- By Cindy Boren

Every March, away from the basketball court, a different kind of madness begins. Whether it’s called U Vas Madness or carries a cool ad slogan like “it’s hip to get snipped,” it’s urologists’ one shining moment: vasectomy season.

And you thought only the nets got cut this time of year.

It’s a combinatio­n of things, really, that brings this about: For most men, personal timing and the sports calendar happen to coincide perfectly. And then there are the deals. A D.C. area man with four daughters won a free vasectomy in a contest sponsored by 106.7 The Fan’s Junkies. “We had Vasectomy Madness, so to speak,” Dr. Kelly Chiles, an assistant professor of urology at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, told The Post.

“If you’re a guy, no one wants to do it. We’re lazy,” Eric Bickel of the Junkies added. “. . . But any excuse to sit around and watch TV works for most guys.”

At Obsidian Men’s Health in McLean, Virginia, you’d be a fool not to schedule a snipsnip the first week of the tournament. A concierge practice, Obsidian offers a spa-like experience, with patients awake and watching the games on big-screen TVs. The recovery room, its website says, is “equipped with comfortabl­e robes and slippers, flat-screen TVs with Netflix, cappuccino and top-shelf liquor. We’ll do everything we can to keep you comfortabl­e after the procedure.”

At the University of Utah, March means all-hands-on with U Vas Madness running from March 16-31. Patients get a free recovery kit that includes a basketball-shaped ice pack and specialist­s adding extra appointmen­ts.

At NYU, Dr. Joseph Alukal, the director of male reproducti­ve health and clinical associate professor of urology at NYU’s Langone Medical Center, told The Post that he prefers more of an outpatient surgical experience. “If a patient wants to bring an iPad or a phone to help him relax, that’s fine,” he said, “but I don’t want to have the distractio­n of having a TV on.”

That would be the absolute worst time for a buzzer beater.

Although the American Urological Associatio­n has no official stats on the matter, the Cleveland Clinic says it saw a 10 percent rise in the procedure during March Madness from 2014 through 2016, the Daily Mail reports, Alukal says about 500,000 vasectomie­s are performed annually in the U.S. and generally he has found that men start thinking about them around the first of each year and decide, convenient­ly, to get the procedure done just after Selection Sunday.

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