Just moved need a Dr.

Hi, I just moved from Alabama to the St. Petersburg/Tampa area. I need to find a bariatric hospital/Dr. here locally. If anybody could recommend someone I would appreciate it. I had my surgery Nov. 21st 2005 and have lost 100 pounds to date. I feel really good except that my spleen got nicked during surgery and about 3 months after I started having some serious pain and went in for a scan and they found the hemotoma under the spleen that was full of blood and pressing on my diaphram creating the problem. It went away on it's own but now since my move it has started hurting again .. sigh. I think it was from moving way to heavy boxes and such. I am guessing I will need to find a Dr. here sooner than later to get this checked out. Ohh also for those of you that are considering surgery please don't let the spleen thing scare you it is very rare and as anybody who knows me knows that if it can happen it will happen to me! LOL

Kellie, there are several Surgeons in the area to recommend and Primary's too. Are you still using United Health Care? I would recommend my surgeon, Dr.Ernest Rehnke at the Palms of Pasadena Hospital in St.Petersburg but I'd also suggest Dr.Michael Murr at the Tampa General Hospital on Davis Island (Just south of downtown Tampa). Both of these Surgeon's and the Hospitals holdthe recent awards of a "Center of Excellence". But there are others that other may suggest. Look under Bariactric Surgeons at the top of this page. Good Luck & we'll pray yo turn up healthy & Lighter, Mike

Kellie- Michael gave you two good referrals but might I suggest you also go to the American Society of Bariatric Surgery (ASBS) member look-up and do a search on your city, or zip code. While there are some very good surgeons listed on this site, not all bariatric surgeons are listed on this site. However, just about any bariatric surgeon worth his salt is going to be an ASBS member and will be listed on the ASBS site, plus a surgeon has to meet certain standards to be granted regular membership and of course there are even tougher standards for those who display the COE designation. Red

The ASBS site will also tell you if the surgeon is willing to follow patients from other surgeons. I think the code is FL or something like that...it will explaing under all the letter codes.