--(BUSINESS WIRE)--“Starting as early as childhood, young men have had the notion ingrained into their minds that their manhood is more important than their overall health,” says Dicken Ko, MD, director of Massachusetts General Hospital's regional urology program, past director of the kidney transplant program and the urologist who led the first U.S. penis transplant. “What’s to blame? Often times it’s due to societal constructs and the over-emphasis of the penis in popular culture. Men’s health is simply not just about the penis and sexual functions. It’s postulated that this belief in physical dependability and focus put on the sexual organ that has led to a major lapse in the progression of ‘real’ men’s health awareness versus that of women’s health.”
- Another challenge in discussing men’s health is the conversation around erectile dysfunction, because it intrinsically links the entirety of men’s health to sex.
- Traditionally, men’s health has been focused on the penis – however what’s widely misunderstood is the fact that penile health issues or dysfunction may be a symptom of other serious problems including diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol, or cardiovascular disease. The Canadian Men’s Health Foundation reports that up to 70 percent of men’s health conditions or diseases are preventable and 24 percent of Canadian men are less likely to visit the doctor than Canadian women.
- Men account for 80 percent of suicides in Canada, which raises yet another critical issue which remains under discussed: men’s physical health and its relationship to mental health.
- Mental health is a critical part of overall health, yet depression, PTSD, and other mental health diseases are still under discussed especially among men.
Dicken S. C. Ko, BSc, MD, FRCSC, FACS, is Director of Regional Urology for Massachusetts General Hospital, overseeing affiliates sites, integrating clinical practices, sharing academic and community practices, developing lean practice programs, and exploring regional growth opportunities. Before joining Department of Urology full-time in 2012, Dr. Ko worked at Massachusetts General Hospital as a multi-organ transplant surgeon in the Departments of Surgery and Pediatric Surgery where he was Surgical Director of the Renal Transplant Program that oversaw the growth and quality outcomes of the center for eight years. Dr. Ko earned a Bachelor’s in Physiology/Biology from the University of British Columbia, a medical degree from Queen’s University, and received training in hospital leadership from Massachusetts General Hospital. He completed his residency in urology at the University of British Columbia and fellowship in transplantation at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. Dr. Ko served on national committees and boards including the UNOS kidney and pancreas committee and continued to serve on Harvard Medical School committees as well as American Board of Urology where he is an examiner. His scholarly activities focus on tolerance models of transplantation, urologic outcomes research, and economics of transplantation. Dr. Ko has over 75 publications in peer-reviewed journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Urology, Transplantation, and American Journal of Transplantation. He was the 28th President of the Urological Society for Transplantation and Renal Surgery.
About Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General
Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital
of Harvard Medical School. The Mass
General Research Institute conducts the largest hospital-based
research program in the United States, with an annual research budget of
more than $800 million and major research centers in HIV/AIDS,
cardiovascular research, cancer, computational and integrative biology,
cutaneous biology, genomic medicine, medical imaging, neurodegenerative
disorders, regenerative medicine, reproductive biology, systems biology,
photomedicine and transplantation biology. Mass General topped the 2015
Nature Index list of health care organizations publishing in leading
scientific journals and earned the prestigious 2015 Foster G. McGaw
Prize for Excellence in Community Service. In August 2016, Mass General
was once again named to the Honor Roll in the U.S. News & World Report
list of "America’s Best Hospitals."
