Edgar Schoen

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Edgar J. Schoen (Brooklyn, NY, August 10, 1925 – August 23, 2016) [1] was an American physician who worked as a pediatric endocrinologist at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland, California until 2003, and Clinical Professor in Pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco until 2004. He held the position of Chair of the 1988 American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on Circumcision. [2]

Physician professional who practices medicine

A physician, medical practitioner, medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a professional who practises medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining, or restoring health through the study, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of disease, injury, and other physical and mental impairments. Physicians may focus their practice on certain disease categories, types of patients, and methods of treatment—known as specialities—or they may assume responsibility for the provision of continuing and comprehensive medical care to individuals, families, and communities—known as general practice. Medical practice properly requires both a detailed knowledge of the academic disciplines, such as anatomy and physiology, underlying diseases and their treatment—the science of medicine—and also a decent competence in its applied practice—the art or craft of medicine.

Kaiser Permanente is an American integrated managed care consortium, based in Oakland, California, United States, founded in 1945 by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser and physician Sidney Garfield. Kaiser Permanente is made up of three distinct but interdependent groups of entities: the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. (KFHP) and its regional operating subsidiaries; Kaiser Foundation Hospitals; and the regional Permanente Medical Groups. As of 2017, Kaiser Permanente operates in eight states and the District of Columbia, and is the largest managed care organization in the United States.

University of California, San Francisco university

The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and it is dedicated entirely to health science. It is a major center of medical and biological research and teaching.

Contents

Career

Schoen held positions at Children's Hospital of the East Bay in Oakland, CA, and the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco, CA and was Board-certified in Pediatrics and Pediatric Endocrinology. He practiced Pediatrics and Pediatric Endocrinology in Oakland, CA for 46 years. Schoen was Chief of Pediatrics at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland for 24 years.[ citation needed ]

Oakland, California City in California, United States

Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port city, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the San Francisco Bay Area, the eighth most populated city in California, and the 45th largest city in the United States. With a population of 425,195 as of 2017, it serves as a trade center for the San Francisco Bay Area; its Port of Oakland is the busiest port in the San Francisco Bay, the entirety of Northern California, and the fifth busiest in the United States of America. An act to incorporate the city was passed on May 4, 1852, and incorporation was later approved on March 25, 1854, which officially made Oakland a city. Oakland is a charter city.

Circumcision

Schoen maintained Medicirc.org, an online resource in which he discussed what he perceived as the benefits of circumcision. It went offline at the end of 2012. Interviewed in the Eastbay Express (2000), he stated, "Circumcision is one of the best health insurance policies you can give a son. A circumcised boy has a lifetime advantage over an uncircumcised one." [3]

Circumcision surgical removal of the foreskin from the human penis

Male circumcision is the removal of the foreskin from the human penis. In the most common procedure, the foreskin is opened, adhesions are removed, and the foreskin is separated from the glans. After that, a circumcision device may be placed and then the foreskin is cut off. Topical or locally injected anesthesia is sometimes used to reduce pain and physiologic stress. For adults and children, general anesthesia is an option, and the procedure may be performed without a specialized circumcision device. The procedure is most often an elective surgery performed on babies and children for religious or cultural reasons. In other cases it may be done as a treatment for certain medical conditions or for preventative reasons. Medically it is a treatment option for problematic cases of phimosis, balanoposthitis that does not resolve with other treatments, and chronic urinary tract infections (UTIs). It is contraindicated in cases of certain genital structure abnormalities or poor general health.

Schoen has written about circumcision in the books Ed Schoen, MD on Circumcision ( ISBN   1571431233) and Circumcision, Sex, God, and Science: Modern Health Benefits of an Ancient Ritual ( ISBN   978-1-4392-1910-2) as well as poetry on the topic in the American Journal of Diseases in Children. [4]

International Standard Book Number Unique numeric book identifier

The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier which is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency.

In a Boston Globe article, Schoen said, concerning the AAP's decision to not advocate circumcision, "It's highly biased". The 1989 report he oversaw stated that circumcision reduced the risks of urinary tract infections and sexually transmitted diseases. [5]

Related Research Articles

Pediatrics field of medicine dealing with the care of children

Pediatrics is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, and adolescents. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends people be under pediatric care up to the age of 21. A medical doctor who specializes in this area is known as a pediatrician, or paediatrician. The word pediatrics and its cognates mean "healer of children"; they derive from two Greek words: παῖς and ἰατρός. Pediatricians work both in hospitals, particularly those working in its subspecialties such as neonatology, and as primary care physicians.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is an American professional association of pediatricians, headquartered in Itasca, Illinois. It maintains its Department of Federal Affairs office in Washington, D.C.

Male circumcision has often been, and remains, the subject of controversy on a number of grounds—religious, ethical, sexual, and medical.

Henry J. Kaiser American industrialist

Henry John Kaiser was an American industrialist who became known as the father of modern American shipbuilding. He established the Kaiser Shipyards, which built Liberty ships during World War II, after which he formed Kaiser Aluminum and Kaiser Steel. Kaiser organized Kaiser Permanente health care for his workers and their families. He led Kaiser-Frazer followed by Kaiser Motors, automobile companies known for the safety of their designs. Kaiser was involved in large construction projects such as civic centers and dams, and invested in real estate. With his wealth, he established the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit, non-partisan, charitable organization.

Pediatric endocrinology is a medical subspecialty dealing with disorders of the endocrine glands, such as variations of physical growth and sexual development in childhood, diabetes and many more.

Genital Autonomy America, formerly NOCIRC, is an educational nonprofit organization headquartered in California and with centers in other US states and countries. In 2016 the organization changed its name from NOCIRC to Genital Autonomy America.

The Vaccine Safety Datalink Project (VSD) was established in 1990 by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to study the adverse effects of vaccines.

Adolescent medicine or hebiatrics is a medical subspecialty that focuses on care of patients who are in the adolescent period of development. This period begins at puberty and lasts until growth has stopped. Typically, patients in this age range will be in the last years of elementary school up until high school. In developed nations, the psychosocial period of adolescence is extended both by an earlier start, as the onset of puberty begins earlier, and a later end, as patients require more years of education or training before they reach economic independence from their parents.

Richmond Medical Center Hospital in California, United States

Richmond Medical Center also known as Kaiser Richmond, Kaiser Foundation Hospital Richmond and RMC is a large Kaiser Permanente hospital in downtown Richmond, California which serves 77,000 members registered under its medical plans. It opened in 1995 replacing the historic 1942 Richmond Field Hospital that serviced Liberty shipyard workers and thus gave birth to the HMO. However it was deemed seismically unsafe and this new campus was built.

UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, is a children's hospital in Oakland, California. It is affiliated with UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital San Francisco and is an American College of Surgeons or ACS designated a Level I pediatric trauma center. It has an affiliated research organization, the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute, or CHORI, and is involved in research and treatment for a variety of children's health issues, such as pediatric obesity, cancers, sickle cell disease, AIDS/HIV, hemophilia and cystic fibrosis.

Danat Al Emarat Hospital (DAE) or Mother of Pearl is a hospital dedicated to women and children in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Santa Clara Valley Medical Center Hospital in California, United States

Santa Clara Valley Medical Center is a 741-bed tertiary medical center, owned and operated by the County of Santa Clara. The Medical Center is part of the Santa Clara Valley Health and Hospital System. Locally it is also known as Valley Medical Center, Valley Medical, VMC, or simply 'Valley'. SCVMC is both a research hospital and teaching hospital. It is the county hospital and primary trauma center in Santa Clara County.

Melvin M. Grumbach American academic

Melvin Malcolm Grumbach was an American pediatrician and academic who specialized in pediatric endocrinology. Called Edward B. Shaw Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics, Emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, Grumbach was noted for his research and writing on the effect of hormones and the central nervous system on growth and puberty and their disorders; the function of the human sex chromosomes; and disorders of sexual development.

Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Fontana Hospital in California, United States

Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Fontana is a large Kaiser Permanente medical facility and 420-bed hospital in Fontana, California. Built in 1955 to replace the smaller hospital at the Kaiser Steel Mill, the facility now serves over 400,000 members of Kaiser Permanente's health care plans in the area. The hospital is accredited by the Joint Commission. According to U.S. News & World Report, the hospital performs highly in diabetes & endocrinology, ear, nose & throat, geriatrics, pulmonology, and urology.

Robert Lustig Endocrinologist, professor

Robert H. Lustig is an American pediatric endocrinologist. He is Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he specializes in neuroendocrinology and childhood obesity. He is also director of UCSF's WATCH program, and president and co-founder of the non-profit Institute for Responsible Nutrition.

Julien I.E. Hoffman, FRCP is a pediatric cardiologist and professor emeritus of pediatrics and a senior member of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of California, San Francisco. He has also worked at the Moffitt-Long Hospital at the UCSF Medical Center, and served on the medical advisory committee for the SIDS Alliance.

Oakland Medical Center, also known as Kaiser Oakland, is a hospital located in Oakland, California, United States, at the intersection of MacArthur Boulevard and Broadway, immediately above downtown Oakland. It is the flagship hospital of Kaiser Permanente, the largest managed care organization in the United States, through its Kaiser Foundation Hospitals division.

References

  1. "Edgar J. Schoen - Obituary". Legacy.com. Archived from the original on 29 August 2016. Retrieved 29 August 2016.
  2. Pine, Dan. "Both sides of the debate: Two Jewish doctors offer opinions on circumcision". Jewish news weekly of Northern California.
  3. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2005-08-01. Retrieved 2005-06-23.CS1 maint: Archived copy as title (link)
  4. American Journal of Diseases in Children, Vol 141: 128. February 1987
  5. "Controversy over circumcision heightened in US after report". Boston Globe. 25 July 1999. Archived from the original on 11 September 2016.