Florida doctor to perform vasectomies in front of live audience and Internet viewers

A Florida doctor hopes that his plan to perform vasectomies before a live audience and also stream the procedures on the Internet will make the world a better place.

In an interview with Australia's ABC radio on Tuesday, Dr. Doug Stein told host Vicki Kerrigan that the live audience at Adelaide's Royal Institution of Australia for the inaugural World Vasectomy Day event on Oct. 18 would be able to see the procedures "magnified" on a television screen.

"It would be awkward to think that many people could watch it from close," he explained. "I can imagine it being filmed and being broadcast in a live way so that I could be communicating with the audience and the patience could be communicating with the audience and maybe the audience would see it over some sort of a TV screen where what's happening is magnified."

In his experience, Stein said that about one out of five patients would glance during the procedure, and about one out of ten would watch the entire thing.

Stein pointed out that he had traveled the world performing vasectomies "because I like the world, I like the planet, it's the only one we have."

"I like biodiversity. I think we're compromising biodiversity by our numbers," he said. "I like people. I think that problems between people are magnified by their density being too high. I like children, I like children to be nurtured by their parents. And I think it's easier to nurture two or three or four children than it is to nurture seven or eight or nine children."

A statement from World Vasectomy Day producer Gabriel Films on Monday said that the "live-streamed vasectomy-athon will feature Dr Stein performing vasectomies while fielding questions from both the live Adelaide audience and an international online audience."

Listen to the audio below from ABC Darwin 105.7, broadcast July 9, 2013.

[Photo: Doctor with scalpel via Shutterstock]