He was a fast, skilled surgeon who believed in discipline and routine to achieve his ambitions.
Dr. Ronald Weiss lived an “extraordinarily active” life that included a career that established him as the “Wayne Gretzky of vasectomies,” as well as numerous sports and hobbies, not the least of which was a passion for music.
“He didn’t waste one minute of his time in any way,” Debbie Halton-Weiss, his wife of 45 years, said in an interview, listing swimming, biking, sewing, photography and learning languages as some of her late husband’s favourite activities. “His day was filled from 5:30 in the morning to 10 o’clock at night.”
Weiss died peacefully at home in Toronto on Oct. 29, four years after being diagnosed with brain cancer. Halton-Weiss, who he never failed to describe as the love of his life, was at his side, along with their three adult children. He was 68.
Weiss earned the Gretzky nickname due to his reputation as one of the world’s leading providers of vasectomies, with a career total of 58,789 men sterilized. He used a no-needle, no-scalpel technique and worked hard to make men less fearful of the dreaded snip.
One of the first two Canadians trained in that technique, Weiss refined and improved it, becoming well-known through word of mouth, said his former partner, Dr. Jean-Philippe Bercier, who took over the clinic that Weiss ran out of his home on Clemow Avenue in the Glebe. Bercier bought the house, too.
“Everyone is nervous before they come,” Bercier said. “Once they leave and see how easy and painless this is … they tell their buddies.”
Weiss was born in Montreal and grew up in Toronto, but dropped out of high school to play guitar, read poetry and make his way out west. Music was his first passion and he showed talent and dedication early.
Evening Update
In fact, Weiss was had his sights set on attending Berklee College of Music in Boston when he met Debbie at a mutual friend’s home in Montreal. A decision had to be made.
“I had to decide what my priorities were, and that was to have a family,” Weiss wrote in an online bio. “I didn’t think I could make a consistent and reliable living as a musician. So I put that on the back burner for 40 years and went to med school.”
Ron and Debbie settled in Ottawa, and Debbie supported the family while Ron finished his high-school credits and went on to university. He joined a multi-doctor family practice in Greenboro, South Keys, and learned a lot, including how to perform a traditional vasectomy.
One day a patient came in with an article about the no-scalpel vasectomy technique developed in China in the 1970s. It was quick, virtually painless and produced less bleeding and fewer complications.
Weiss recalled thinking it was too good to be true. “But I looked into it, and it was legitimate,” he told the Ottawa Citizen in 2009.
In that interview, published on the occasion of his 25,000th vasectomy, he described the technique. It starts with freezing the scrotum with anesthesia delivered through an air-injector device he adapted for that purpose, instead of using a needle.
It feels like a rubber band,” he said, “and the freezing literally takes three seconds.
“After that, I gently grasp the tube (vas deferens) under the skin and make a tiny opening with a special instrument. And I stretch that opening just enough to lift out the tube and block it. I cut it, cauterize one end, tuck it back in its sleeve — like your arm in a shirt sleeve — and then close the sleeve with a tiny titanium clip.”
The other end, which comes from the testicles, is left open. Over the course of weeks and months following the vasectomy, it seals itself. “So the testicles don’t have a sudden blockage,” Weiss explained. “Instead, it gradually closes, and the testicles can accommodate it.”
Weiss was a fast, skilled surgeon who believed in discipline and routine to achieve his ambitions. At the clinic on Clemow, which was managed by Debbie, his days followed a pattern: workout, breakfast and 14 vasectomies by lunch, then a nap before turning to music.
With help from musical friends like Commotions bandleader Brian Asselin, Weiss recorded his own breezy folk-rock songs and formed a band, gigging occasionally under the moniker the Doc Weiss Band. Many of his tunes were inspired by his wife. “I’m very in love with my wife,” Weiss said in a 2010 interview about his music. “We’ve been married for 30 years this year and a lot of my songs are love songs.“
Halton-Weiss felt the same way about him. Describing their marriage as an “awesome love story,” she said they always believed they were the “luckiest people on the planet.
“We worked 24/7 with each other and we figured out how to do it,” she said. “We had our separate passions, but we did it all with each other, and I would say what I’m most proud of is the synergy that was between us. We brought out the very best in each other and we couldn’t have it without each other. All of our success is because we really built on each other’s strengths.”
Weiss continued to work for about a year following his cancer diagnosis, but then decided to pass the torch to Bercier. After he performed his final vasectomy in 2021, Ron and Debbie moved to Toronto to be closer to their children, grandchildren and other family members.
With files from Elizabeth Payne and Bruce Deachman
Our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark our homepage and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed.
