Chic Wilson, recently retired from his role as Dr. Snip at The Vasectomy Clinic, which he started in Seattle, and expanded to other cities based on the same successful model, began his career as a family doctor after completing a residency at Providence Hospital in Seattle. This hospital has robust residency opportunities, and Dr. Wilson found that the mix of both providers wanting to teach and study there, along with the clientele, which due to the nuns charity work included people from all walks of life, gave him an unequaled experience in broad areas of general medicine. He’s delivered a thousand babies and helped his patients through every stage of life.
Under his mentor, George Denniston, he began practicing vasectomy, which in the 1980’s was not even a word that would be said out loud. When he opened his first practice, he decided to use the word so men who knew what they were looking for could find him.
He was inspired to start doing vasectomies because at the time, he was also performing abortions. The nuns allowed this because it helped the doctors to become so much more familiar with fetal stages, ectopic pregnancies, and other gynecologic care for the women who came to the hospital. What he noticed was that after a man’s partner had an abortion, the man was more likely to want a vasectomy. Instead of doing abortion/vasectomy over and over, he thought, “Why not do the vasectomy first, and avoid the abortion altogether?”
Meanwhile, advances in the techniques for vasectomy were getting better. Stan Schmidt began performing midline cuts, proving that incisions of the septum did not bleed or hurt nerve bundles, and offering the advantage of a single incision. Dr. Wilson also realized that simply cauterizing the vas deferens would not be sufficient, and that the interposition of the fascia had much better outcomes.
After a long career, Chic has retired from practice, but stays current in the field. His advice to other doctors has been influential in everything that has to do with the procedure, as well as some of the counseling skills necessary to deliver care. He’s invented instruments, written guidance, and contributed to many conversations on technique. Above all, he has three key recommendations for vasectomy doctors:
- Answer the phone
- Answer the phone
- Answer the phone!
He believes in listening to patients, respecting them enough to talk to them when they call, and helping them address their individual situations. He views his role as a provider as one of service and helping each patient in the best way possible.
