Changes

I look back on the only time I have ever performed any circumcisions with regret and resentment. I resent having had no opportunity to study [[circumcision]] in medical school or to consider whether I thought it a treatment for anything. I resent the resident commanding me to do it, while offering no further guidance or help. In fact, I was treated just as the medical profession treats innocent new parents today. Doctors tell them a circumcision needs to be done. Before the new parent has time to consider, it is all over. Then it is too late to say no, and everyone has to live with the consequences. I was a medical student, so a lot of the responsibility was mine. I clearly violated, all in one instant, the Golden Rule (I certainly would not have wanted that done to me), the major tenet of medical practice, ''First, Do No Harm'', and all seven principles of the American Medical Association's Code of Ethics. Mind you, I did not realize it then, just as unwary medical students do not realize it today. Now I know there are no valid medical indications for [[routine neonatal circumcision]]. I realize much harm can be done, evidenced by the thousands of men who have written their testimony and who have told me personally of the harm done to them. Now I also realize that I violated my patient's basic [[Human rights| human right]] to enjoy his entire body [[intact]], while all he could do was scream his tiny head off. That was some years ago, but it might just as well have been last year.