kittyboxers

My reaction to this subject is both personal and professional. Nearly 40 years ago when I gave birth to a son in the US, I was up in the air and really nervous about having him circumcised. I was shocked to find out that the OB did the circumcision. Having grown up in a European country, male circumcision was to me not the norm (neither was a doctor rather than a midwife at the delivery, bottle feeding, or weaning after a few months). In the early 2000's I did a short stint in L&D and got to "help" with a circumcision, which entailed me feeding this infant strapped to a molded tub of sorts and feeding him sweet milk from a dropper to "distract" him. The peds doc assured me the infant was in no pain. But when the instrument clamped down on his member, this little guy screamed bloody murder. I can't believe he wasn't in pain and I was horrified. I could only reflect on the fact that this was probably my own son's experience. I discussed it with him and apologized if it was a traumatic event for him, even though it happened when he was a newborn. His response was that he thought I made the right decision as he would not have liked to look different from his father or the other guys in school. Mid-2000s, I worked in hospice for several years. More than once, I saw the downside of males not having been circumcised. Usually, problems would occur when they had a circulatory condition, such as congestive heart failure, among others, which would cause swelling below the waist. If the foreskin had been pulled back behind the corona, the swelling went unchecked, the prepuce would strangle the glans, only reversible with surgical intervention (which rarely happened). The other scenario that was a big problem was if the uncircumcised male had his foreskin pulled up over the end of his member and the meatus became extremely edematous, it became trapped inside the foreskin. Urine would collect in the pouch around the glans. Trying to cath a man in either situation was usually unsuccessful. As barbaric as the practice still seems to me, I can see it does have some advantages. My own father had kidney stones and infections in the late 1960s and the doctor's wisdom at that time was to perform a circumcision although my father was in his 40s. I remember he was in a lot of pain and it took some time to heal. Probably longer than it would have if it had been performed when he was a newborn. BTW, his kidney stones and infections seemed to diminish afterwards but I suspect it had more to do with increased intake of fluids. The sexual component of decreased/increased sensitivity has been reported to me by both men and women who had multiple partners that "uncut" was better, the only downside being if the male wasn't educated in how to keep that special area clean. Smegma could build up, making it most unpleasant to his partner.

Although I've often wondered about certain colleagues' education (as to how in the world they passed the NCLEX-RN), I never considered that they hadn't actually attended nursing school. I assumed that every BON, regardless of the state, had similar requirements to that of Ohio. Here in Buckeye country, 6 months before graduation, the student nurse must pay for an FBI background check. Then, a comprehensive exit exam is given by the school where the student gets 3 bites of the apple (can retake the test twice if unsuccessful the first time). Upon graduation, the school's DON must submit a letter to the Ohio BON, certifying that the student has completed and graduated from the school's accredited program. Without any of these steps, the graduate can not sit for the NCLEX-RN. I've heard recently graduated students complaining about their school's DON being slow-pokey about not getting the letters to the BON promptly and they couldn't sit for the exam until the letters were received. Because the NCLEX-RN is a national exam, I thought all BON requirements were the same. Am I wrong? With all the hurdles the Ohio BON has before allowing a graduate to take the exam, I have a hard time understanding how something like that can happen (here, at least).