Opinions about HFH and Dr. Genaw

Hi all Michiganers! I am from Ontario and am looking to HFH and Dr. Jeffrey Genaw for my RNY surgery. If anyone has feedback or stories to share about their own experience I would be grateful to hear them (good or bad....) Thanks a lot! Deborah

Hi Deborah, I researched and tried to have this surgery done for many years (on and off) before I was finally approved to have it done a year ago. Most people say the only regret they have is not having it done sooner. I am happy that I didn't have it done sooner because then I wouldn't have gone to the best hospital in the state of Michigan (top 20 across the nation as well). I had Dr. Carlin, but have met Dr. Genaw a couple of times. Let me assure you he is one of the most skilled surgeons you will ever meet. I understand he has a bit of a sarcastic/dry type of humor. Dr. Carlin is very compassionate, both are easy to talk with. They truly care about their patients and it shows. They take care of us before, during, and after surgery. Henry Ford has an excellent after care program. At HFH we have a team of professionals that take care of us. There are the surgeons Dr. Genaw and Dr. Carlin. Wanda who takes care of the insurance. If Wanda can't get you approved ~no one can. There's Annette our nutritionist. She also heads up one of our support groups on nutrition. There is Dr. Eshelman our Psych. who heads ups two of our support group. She also specialises in obesity and weight related issues. Some of us had our psych. eval. with her. Then there are our exercise specialists, our medical clearance Dr. (Dr. Valhakis), all of our nurse's. who take exellent care of us. We have our anesthesiologists, Who are very skilled and make you feel nice and relaxed before surgery, then after surgery they make you feel like you didn't just have major surgery : ) Any how there are a whole lot of people that take very good care of us an make each of us feel like we are their top and only priority ~because we are. I think I went way off base here, but they make an excellent team and let us know by their actions that they do care. In all honesty I have only heard one person ever complain about HFH bariatric center, But I also noticed that she complains about most everything. Best wishes to you Deborah. God bless you, Annette

Hi Deborah: I just happened to stop in the Michigan board today to see what is going on and I couldn't just let this opportunity to endorse my surgeon get by me. I had Dr. Genaw two years ago. He did a revision on me from a vbg that failed to an RNY which has been very successful. I live in Ontario Canada and feel very Privileged to have had him as my surgeon. Dr. Genaw is very straight forward and will not candy coat anything he is very direct. He will probably say one or more things that will give you pause to think things through and you might even get angry with him as I did. If you go to my profile you can read my thoughts on Dr. Genaw. In my book he is the best. I believe it was his caring and concern that saved my life after I developed a leak. I was in the hospital for 18 days and he was there every day and spent hours just talking with my husband an myself. You never feel rushed when you have Dr. Genaw because you are the most important person in the world to him. You can't go wrong with this man in my opinion. He is great. Melanie PS Because mine was a revision I had a 1 in 75 chance of not making it through surgery. A leak is common after a revision like I had and he saved my life by letting my body heal its self instead of going back in which is what most surgeons want to do.