Hi lovelies! I'm new here and looking into the VSG. I started the process a few years ago but I was having such success with the weight loss that they wanted me to lose, I decided to keep going, kinda like a last ditch effort. I did great, but as history repeats itself I gained it all back! Boo! The facility where I started, I chose based on proximity and a few friends had success there. Is that enough to go on? I don't want to make a bad decision. I never got far enough in the process to meet the actual surgeon. I'm wondering what tools I can use to make sure I'm choosing the right man/woman for the job! I've looked for bariatric centers of excellence and there's a number of them close to me. Any ideas or suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Your decision might be based on whether you are paying out of pocket or through your insurance. Since mine was paid by my insurance I had to go with the office that my insurance had approved. There was only one office in the area under their plan, but three different physicians there. Honestly I ended up going with the doctor that spoke at my seminar. He had opening and I liked the fact that he was very blunt in his Q&A session during the (mandatory) free seminar. I thought that he was a good physician. Easy to talk to, as were the nurses in the office. I have friends who had their surgeries after mine that selected the other physicians in the office and were happy with their choices. I did do some research on him while awaiting my appointment to reassure myself of my decision.

I think that the best thing that you can do is read up ahead of time and ask anyone others for their recommendations and why their give them?

Honestly the surgeon was a smaller part of the interaction that I received. I interacted more with the DNP (Dr. Nurse Practitioners) and dietitians at the practice than I did with him. The only one that I did not like was the dietitian as he was clearly not thrilled to be working there.

In addition to insurance (which is super important) ľ would look at the surgeons volume and how recently they did their cases. I would absolutely not go to a bariatric surgeon who isn't doing a substantial amount of cases, specifically the case I'm going to them for.