To clamp or not to clamp, thats the question.

Its that time of the year again. The year end school holidays, traffic flow in KL is relatively a breeze now, families go on holidays, wedding receptions are in full swing and then there is the circumcision demand.

The TV 9 commercial really rings true, "Buka dulu, tekan kuat-kuat, cari ...........". Fortunately most children don't end up screaming and jumping out nowadays. The procedure is simple and almost completely pain free. However that doesn't alleviate the fear and apprehension that children have. No matter what, it has to be done for every muslim male child, through hellfire or hale storm.

Personally I prefer the older method, guillotine method, as compared to using a clamp. There are some models of clamps nowadays but essentially they all apply the same principle. The claim that the clamp method is painless is not completely true. One still has to inject local anaesthesia to numb that area, thats the painful part, immaterial if one is using the clamp or the older method.

The advantage of using the clamp is that its fast, almost no bleeding, there is no need for suturing (stitching) and the cut is very even and nice. The downside of using the clamp is that the boys have to come back to remove the outer ring of the clamp and that may cause pain. The inner ring is suppose to drop of by itself. Unfortunately in my personal experience, many boys have come back a second time to remove the inner ring and that causes more pain.

Nowadays, more and more doctors are using a cautery (usually referred to as the laser by the layman, I wonder why) to cut in the guillotine method. There is also almost no bleeding using the cautery. But one still has to suture the skin edges together. And its fast, almost as fast as using a clamp.

To clamp or to 'laser', thats the question. I for one am definitely in favour of the 'laser'. And so it has been written. Now you all decide for yourselves.