Banner Good Samaritan

I have been rethinking about where I might have surgery done.  I have previously attended the Gateway seminar but it is so far away I had been thinking of changing over to Dr. Fang at Good Sam.  I was on their website several times this week trying to decide which seminar fit into my schedule, but when I logged in today it said that there is currently no seminars.  I thought that was odd and decided to call the office.  I was told that after the 31st they will no longer be operating at Good Sam. For some reason that the girl couldn't or wouldn't explain she simply said that they were closing their program down.  If I still wanted to use Dr. Juarez or Fang I could contact their office directly but their surgeries will no longer be done at  a Banner facility (a requirement for my surgery).  The only Banner location in Arizona is now Gateway.  I liked the doctor when he did the seminar and the facility is beautiful so no complaints there.  The only real negative is distance.  Oh well.  I called the Gateway office and have my 1st appointment on the 4th of February.

Anyways, this is mostly an FYI for anyone considering the Banner Good Sam program. 

Samantha

I had my surgery done there one year ago today.   Anyway, I got a phone call today that they were canceling the January support meeting and would no longer be offering support for the bariatric programs.  I asked her if that meant that they wouldn't be doing bariatric surgery there anymore,and she said it was up to the individual doctors, but that there would be no post surgical support programs if they did.
I'm sad to hear this as I thought that Nancee Vanderpluym, their bariatric coordinator, was a wealth of information.  She would always respond very quickly to any phone or e-mail questions that I had.

Nancy Vanderpluym is awesome.  My understanding is that she still works with Dr. Terry Simpson's lapband patient's so she's not completely out of the Bariatricf world.  In fact, Dr. DeBarros and Dr. Orris have moved over to Surgical Specialty (from Tempe St Luke's) and so perhaps she's working for all 3?  ....  Musical chairs with Bariataric surgeons as hospital shift gears and redirect their program funding perhaps? 

The doors of Bridges St Luke's as well as Bridges Mountain Vista and Banner Gateway continue to open their doors to everyone for support groups!  And....now that you're 1 year post-op, you can join the AZ Grads group which begins on Feb 3rd (if you have interest).

Good to know there are still options!

I used Dr . Steven Simon he was amazing and he works out of Good Sam. Give his office a call. My neighbor used Fang has had a number of complications.
Goood Luck.