Ira D. Sharlip, M.D., is Clinical Professor of Urology at the University of California at San Francisco. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned B.A. and M.D. degrees. He did his postgraduate medical training at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California at San Francisco, and at the Middlesex Hospital in London, England. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and in Urology. He practices clinical urology and urological surgery in San Francisco.
Dr. Sharlip is a urological surgeon and an internationally recognized authority on urological problems of the male sexual and reproductive systems. Author of over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and/or book chapters, he lectures extensively on these and other urological subjects. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Sexual Medicine. He serves as a reviewer for the Journal of Urology, Fertility and Sterility, Urology, European Urology and other medical journals. He belongs to more than 15 professional societies and serves as an officer and/or committee member in several of them.
He is Past President of the International Society for Sexual Medicine and founder and Past-President of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America. He has served the American Urological Association (AUA) as a member or chairman of several committees including the Practice Guidelines Committee and the Public Media Committee. Currently, he chairs the AUA’s Male Circumcision Task Force. This Task Force is developing a pool of qualified volunteer surgeons who will be available to perform and teach male circumcision in Africa. The Task force is working with the World Health Organization and other international health authorities to enhance HIV prevention services in areas where there is a high prevalence of HIV infection and a low prevalence of male circumcision.
In the field of male infertility, Dr. Sharlip is a leading authority on vasectomy, vasectomy reversal and other types of microsurgical reconstruction of the male reproductive system. He has been Co-Chairman of the Male Infertility Best Practice Policy Committee of the American Urological Association. Currently, he chairs the Vasectomy Guideline Committee of the American Urological Association. This committee is writing an evidence-based document which will identify optimum preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative practices in vasectomy. The document will be available in May 2012.
Dr. Sharlip served as Senior Flight Surgeon in the United States Army during the Vietnam conflict. He is a decorated veteran of dozens of combat missions there. He has consulted in hospitals throughout the world and he has worked as a volunteer physician and surgeon in Kenya, Thailand, and Vietnam. In February 2004, he served as the urologist on a team of 30 doctors from the United States which traveled to Baghdad to assess healthcare needs in Iraq.
