Caroline Kingston, M.D., MPH.

Coming right out of residency, it never occured to me not to. It was a procedure that we performed for the parents. I haven't been out in practice long enough to really think, "Ethically, is this something that should or shouldn't be done?"

It's the parents' decision, and that I'm there to perform a service for them and if they want the circumcision, you know, I do nice ones, and um, I think that it's sort of up to me to do that for them.

I think it's important for both Daddy and the baby to look alike in terms of, you know, the parents' point of view. I think that's important. I think that, you know, little boys do kind of check out what Daddy looks like: 'Daddy has one, Mommy doesn't have one, does mine look like Daddy's?' I think that does factor in. I think it makes a difference.

You know, I say right off, "There's no medical reason to perform a circumcision. It hasn't been proved to, you know, prevent significant, you know, amounts of infection."

I think if I had lots of people come to me-- males, you know, adult males-- and say, "You know, I really wish I hadn't been circumcised; that really distresses me," or "makes me feel that I can't functions," or that "its really traumatic for me." Or, if I found that the procedure, on a newborn, was very traumatic for them-- I feel that they tolerate it pretty well. And so I think those would be the two factors that would have to, you know, sort of arise for me to consider not doing circumcisions any longer.

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