PHOENIX, AZ — The last thing most people expect to deal with after surgery is damage control due to an embarrassing photo of their private parts – but that’s precisely what surgical patient and strip club owner Sean Dubowik discovered is part of his recovery process. Apparently 27-year-old Dubowik’s unique tattoo was far more interesting to Mayo Clinic Hospital chief resident of general surgery Dr. Adam Hansen than Dubowik’s gall bladder, which was successfully removed on December 11th, 2007.

On Monday, Dubowik received a phone call from the Mayo Clinic warning him that there had been some complications. Not so much with his surgery, but with something that had happened during it.

“I got a strange call after my surgery from a doctor who said there was a problem,” the man explained to local media. “He said Hansen was on the phone and would explain.”

What Hansen explained what that while he was inserting a catheter into Dubowik’s penis, he took the opportunity to snap a photo with his cell phone’s camera.

The object of his fascination was the tattoo his patient had gotten on a dare. Along the length of his member are the words “Hot Rod.”

“It was the most horrible thing I ever went through in my life,” Dubowik says of the tattoo process.

That was before the call from Hansen, of course. In addition to confessing that he had captured a Kodak moment in the surgical ward, the doctor – now facing disciplinary hearings – had even worse news to pass along.

“He told me he didn’t want me to read about it in the newspaper first,” Dubowik explains.

In addition to taking the photo, Hansen had shown it around to his fellow medical professionals – and one of them had decided to call The Arizona Republic to tell the tale.

While Dubowik, who says “The longer I sit here, the angrier I get,” simmers and looks for an attorney, the Mayo Clinic Arizona has gone on damage control alert, with education director Dr. Joseph Sirven assuring interestingly pierced or tattooed patients that “Patient privacy is a serious matter, and photographing someone in this manner without a good reason is something we will investigate down to the last detail.”

Alas for Dubowik, with today’s high quality photography, “the last detail” of his most intimate body decoration may already have been thoroughly investigated.