Dr. Turek's Blog

men and contraception

A Story of Men, Sex and Babies

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

Who doesn’t like a story? Remember telling stories of each of your scars to your friends as a kid? Or listening to the classic, “remember when…” You also know that if they make no sense, it’s either because of sex or money. Stories are good; they shape the world. More than informational, they reliably tweak the […]

Take a Moment and Picture Your Fertility

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

How do you solve tough problems? Maybe you pick at them until they’re gone. Maybe you dance around them until they’re contained. One thing I like to do is to step away and examine them as an outsider, from a completely different perspective. In other words, get out of the trees and look at the whole […]

An Interesting Way to Conceive

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

The case of the month is an actual patient of The Turek Clinic The body has a whole bunch of really cool reflexes. These are things that the body does without conscious thought. It’s how the eye focuses. It’s why the knee jerks. It also explains blushing, sneezing, coughing, shivering and even yawning. And, believe it […]

Does the Good Wood Have Ears?

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

“You know, Doc, there are times when I lose my erection…just like that. It happens when I’m really stressed out. It’s like the penis has ears or something!” Say it aint so! Can the penis really “hear” stress and go flat because of it? The Good Wood This reminds me of another scenario in which the […]

Why Have Two in The Corner Pocket?

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

Growing up as a kid, you expect to find two jewels right where they belong down there. And about the size of small grapes. But did you know that 2% of boys at birth are missing a testicle? It’s just not there in the sac. Yup, undescended testicles  are the most common genital birth defect. […]

Is the Written Word Obsolete in Science?

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

Hard to believe, but I used to use Encyclopedia Britannica in grade school to research book reports. Imagine that, a 10 year old encyclopedia was the “latest and greatest” source of knowledge that you could get in a library. Back then, history was history, it’s in the past for Heaven’s sake, and science was evolving […]

Don’t Stop Asking Why

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

I’ve been called a “disruptor” before, but I’ve never considered myself a “visionary.” To my surprise, I was recently called just that, and by colleagues about whom I might use the same term. Quite flattering, really. Meeting of Minds We met just outside of Washington, at the invitation of the NIH and CDC, to discuss […]

Male “Prenatal” Vitamins: More Than Just a Pill

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

For how long have women been taking “prenatal” vitamins? Maybe a decade? Nope. A link between vitamin deficiency and pregnancy outcomes was postulated 70 years ago! And studies showing fewer neural tube defects in babies following maternal folic acid supplementation are now almost 40 years old. Indeed, prenatal vitamins have become a clutch player in the world of preventative medicine. […]

What Happens When Boys Become Men

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

Let’s talk for a moment about life cycles. Companies have them, markets have them, and products have them. The trajectories for many product life cycles generally progress through well-defined stages: Introduction, growth, maturity and decline. I dare say that as boys become men, their health care shows a remarkably similar curve. Men’s Health Lifecycle Don’t […]

What We Did When We Stood Up

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

We are flesh and blood like a million other animals. So what makes us human? The opposable thumb. Standing on two feet. Losing that tail. Inventing the wheel, and maybe even the iPhone. Speaking in tongues. Laughter. Altruism. And for men, add to this the varicocele. It’s Too Darn Hot That’s right, the var-i-ko-seal. A […]