Doctors reconstruct youth's genitals

Not in the wildest of his dreams had a 28-year-old milkman from Meerut expected such a retaliation for refusing to have a homosexual relation with a dairy boy.

The spurned dairy boy dragged Javed to a field and cut off his penis in an act of vengeance. Doctors in Meerut referred him to Delhi where he was admitted to the department of burns and plastic surgery at Lok Nayak Hospital.

It was here that Dr Padam Singh Bhandari, a senior plastic surgeon, along with other doctors, performed a complex surgery to reconstruct Javed’s genitals. It was not an easy task since the severed organ was never recovered. Dr Bhandari had to reconstruct a new penis using his surgical skill and experience.

Bhandari first took the radial artery from Javed’s forearm flab that would work as the urethra (meant for passage of urine). He then rolled it under thick skin—also taken from his arm—to resemble a penis.

The surgery meant Javed would have a normal penis. He would be capable of urinating and semen flow would be normal. Nerves were also transferred from the arm to enable Javed to feel a sensation.

“Since his testicles were unharmed, production of semen was never a problem. But we needed to enable his penis to get rigid for him to be capable of sexual intercourse,” said Dr Bhandari.

One option was to perform inflatable prosthesis. Since this procedure is very expensive and entails problems of inflation and deflation, it was ruled out.

The plastic surgeon then decided to insert a semi-rigid silastic rod in Javed’s penis that would help in getting an erection with the inflow of blood during sexual excitement.

However, this stage of the surgery can be performed only after six to eight weeks of the first surgery. But Dr Bhandari is upbeat about providing him a normal reproductive organ. “He will be able to have orgasms, feel sexual pleasure and most importantly, he will be able to father a child after the final surgery,” the doctor said.