Michael Curtis MD is a Board-Certified urological surgeon who specializes in minimally invasive vasectomy. He attended Yale University (Undergraduate), Case Western Reserve University (Medical School) and performed his general surgical and urological surgery training at Dartmouth. He has worked for Doctors Without Borders in Bosnia and Bangladesh, with Global Response Medicine in Ukraine, and, independently, at hospitals in Zambia.
Dr Curtis started Twin River Urology in 2000 as an independent practice and worked in White River Junction until 2010 when his family relocated to Maine. In Maine, he continued work as a community urologist, but as an employed physician, at MidCoast Hospital (now MaineHealth), and then in the Veterans Hospital system in Maine, where he started a urology service at the Portland VA Clinic. He has performed well over 1000 vasectomies in an office setting using a modified version of the “No Scalpel Vasectomy.
In 2023 the Curtis family returned to Vermont and are reviving their farm which lies between the two villages of Strafford and South Strafford. Disappointed by the unmet promises of “bigger is better” healthcare, Dr Curtis is creating a new iteration of Twin River Urology as an independent practice. Reopening in Serptember 2024, the practice will initially perform only minimally invasive vasectomies, but looks forward to providing more general urology services, including “second opinions,” in 2025.
Dr Curtis (Mike, Michael, ‘Hey You’) is a perfectionist, and he freely admits while this is a good characteristic in your surgeon, it can be challenging for a spouse. Luckily for him, his pediatrician wife, Margaret Curtis MD, puts up with him, most of the time, though they both agree that he “married up.” Together they have three sons, and Michael will be happy to tell you what he learned as a vasectomy patient that has led him to advise NOT working in your vegetable garden the day after the procedure.
Dr .Curtis believes that complex medical decisions should be physician-led, and despairs of the "dumbing down" of medicine to alorithms. He thinks mutual respect is the basis of every human relationship, especially the patient-doctor relationship. He states, "There is a fundemental incompatability between the Hypocratic Oath and the responsibility of corporations to maximize profit for their investors."
Dr Curtis will be happy to barter for services from individuals who cannot afford to pay. For example, he suggests that four hours of carpentry work may be worth having a vasectomy? Dr Curtis is keeping overhead expenses low, and thus his charges for vasectomy will be less than 1/3 of that charged by the nearby "HealthSystem."
