A Public Health Journey: My Quest to Provide Permanent Contraception (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781500883836)

Betty Gonzales has spent most of her life working to expand reproductive choices as an activist for voluntary sterilization. Together with an organization now called EngenderHealth, she helped make social and surgical changes in the United States, and overseas. A registered nurse and working in public health, Gonzales became a spokesperson for the association, speaking at community meetings and professional conferences. She was also the guest on over one hundred radio and television programs, to discuss the choice of permanent birth control (vasectomy and tubal ligation). After ten years of volunteer work for the association, Gonzales was prepared to join the staff and assume a leadership position in the national office. During those years, voluntary sterilization became, and remains today, the most widely used method of contraception in developing regions of the world as well as many developed countries. Once a high level of national public information had been achieved, the next step was to foster professional education. She edited The Bio-Medical Bulletin, to help educate professionals about new techniques and surgical standards. She introduced the need for counseling clients requesting permanent contraception and fought against any form of coercion. She was instrumental in the development of the Federal Regulations for Voluntary Sterilization that were introduced in 1978. When the new technique of laparoscopy was introduced, Gonzales took instructions along with gynecologists and surgeons. When the technique of performing vasectomy without the use of a scalpel was first brought to the United States, she suggested a training manual. No-Scalpel Vasectomy: An Illustrated Guide for Surgeons was published with Gonzales as the primary author. It has since helped teach the surgical technique to thousands of doctors around the world, and has resulted in the no-scalpel vasectomy becoming the "gold standard" for vasectomy. The organization she worked with was reorganized in 1981. A Medical Division was formed and Gonzales was named the Deputy Director. Efforts from that time until her retirement focused on assuring safe medical and surgical practices across the globe. She worked in over fifty countries, assuring high medical standards, and developing curricula for training doctors, nurses, and counselors. Her book, A Public Health Journey: My quest to provide permanent contraception covers thirty years of her work and travels.