Pierre Crouse

Pierre Crouse

Colleagues & Benefactors:

Neil Pollock Murray Katz

Pierre Crouse is a Canadian physician centered in Calgary, Alberta. One of his main practices is infant circumcision, he has a website and he advertises in parents' magazines and even on city busses.

Crouse and Pollock websites are nearly identical

Crouse's website is a near mirror-image of that of Neil Pollock's. Some of the diagram images he uses are exactly the same, and some of the statements are repeated verbatim. Like Pollock, Crouse espouses the Mogen technique, and he advertises it as "new, safe, and virtually painless", as well being "quick, [with] minimal discomfort, and virtually bloodless."

Except for a few changes in wording, Pollock and Crouse's "Parents' Guide to Circumcision" pages are nearly identical, advertizing the Mogen technique as taking less than a minute, and advertizing identical pain control methods of Tylenol, sugar, and a local anaesthetic injection.

Pollock and Crouse's "Parents' Guide to Circumcision" pages can be compared here and here. (Pages last viewed on May 4th, 2011)

Misleading Information

Like Neil Pollock, the information that Pierre Crouse dispenses is misleading, it conflicts with information provided on his own website, or it is simply not true.

"Virtually Bloodless"

"Virtually Bloodless" appears in Pierre Crouse's website exactly as it does on Neil Pollock's, and just the same, information on blood control can be found on other parts of Crouse's website.

"Virtually Painless"

Like Neil Pollock, Pierre Crouse promises the Mogen technique, along with his pain control methods to be "painless," affirming his customers with his surgical and anaesthesia background. As Pollock, Pierre Crouse announces that the pain control methods used are Tylenol, sugar, a topical cream, and a local anaesthetic injection. The topical anaesthetic only serves to numb the area to lessen the pain of the injection, but studies have shown that a dorsal penile ring block is not always effective in stopping the pain of circumcision. During the circumcision, the child is given sugar to "reduce his pain perceptions", but in at least one study, data shows that giving sugar to a child doesn't help to reduce the perception of pain in the child. Post-operative pain and the pain the child must endure during recovery is hardly, if ever, addressed.

"Under one minute"

In a manner similar to Neil Pollock, Pierre Crouse promises a circumcision procedure that takes "under one minute," but this doesn't take into account the fact that the child must first have topical anaesthetic applied, and then be given the dorsal penile ring block for which there is a 10 minute waiting period for the injection to take effect.

"A New Technique"

As Neil Pollock, Pierre Crouse sells the Mogen circumcision technique as a new and recent development. Strangely enough, Pollock's website uses language that suggests that he uses state-of-the-art techniques and equipment that no other surgeon possesses, by warning against others who try to "emulate" him. Closer inspection reveals that neither Pollock nor Crouse is doing anything "new." The Mogen clamp was invented in 1954, but it is actually one of many successors to the much older, traditional barzel device.

What Crouse may not tell parents about Mogen

Pollock and Crouse peddle the Mogen technique, but what they may not tell parents is that the Mogen clamp has been notorious for glans amputations, even among experienced conductors of circumcision. Mogen went out of business after losing a 10.8 million dollar law suit, after a mohel severed the end of a baby's glans using one of their clamps. Mogen claimed that injury was impossible with its use. The injury behind a prior lawsuit in Fulton County Superior Court had already put Mogen on notice about the danger of the device. In a different case, at South Fulton Medical Center, another law suit was won in 2009. In that case, a child lost a third of his glans, and the plaintiffs were awarded 2.3 million dollars.