Rocky Mountain Associated Physicians (RMAP) Patients

Hi fellow RMAP patients.  This is Sean Joyce.  Carly, Dr. Smith's nurse, banned me from the RMAP message board because I related a true but not so flattering story of how she treated me back in October 2008. 

Please visit my blog: www.seanstransformation.blogspot.com for more information.  Feel free to contact me through facebook, my blog, or (if you have it), my email.

Thanks.
Sean

I received an email tonight from another RMAP patient.  I won't mention the name because that's not for me to divulge but I wanted to share her email because it pertains to the subject matter I hope you'll read about on my blog.

Sean,
  Sorry to hear about Carly. I have also had a few run ins with her and I think she is horribly rude. When they changed up the website and she announced that she was moderating, something inside me was like, "Oh No!!" I haven't posted anything since, and only been there to read a few times. I am using Obesity Help more now. But I have to say that your support was so important to me when I was preparing for my surgery adn soon after. Thanks so much!! sorry that Carly has to be so rude- if I treated people at work like she treats patients, I would be out of a job!! Thanks for sharing. Hope all is well.

Hi there Sean.

I was a lurker on the RMAP site and enjoyed reading your forum posts.  I am pre-op, but decided to pursue another facility/doctor for my surgery (if I can get the insurance approval, of course), because RMAP did not offer the same support and follow up of the other Utah Center of Excellence.

Anyway, I just want to say welcome and I'm happy to have you here.  Take care and best wishes for much continued success!!

Jessica

Jessica.
Thank you for your post.  My experience with Carly was not great and others have experienced the same problems.  The post that got me banned was basically saying that RMAP needs to improve their customer service and I think that's exactly the point you made.

You have my contact information in my blog.  Feel free to stay in touch and ask me any questions you might have.  I was thrilled with my surgeon (Dr. Sherman Smith) at RMAP but you can have the rest of the experience.  I wish you all the luck in the world.  I'm 250 lbs down and trying to figure out the plastic surgery portion (really the financing portion of it).  You really would think that RMAP would want to take advantage of one of their biggest success stories rather than banning him.  But hey!  I don't blame that on RMAP, I blame it on Carly.

Sean

I hope everyone from RMAP will visit my blog at www.seanstransformation.blogspot.com and read about what happened that got me banned from the support board over at RMAP.  Many patients have gotten in touch with me over this and seem to feel as I do that RMAP really needs to improve their customer service skills.  The surgeons are top notch but the support staff needs to improve their courtesy and professionalism.

Keep visiting my blog everyone and thanks for all the kind words.

Sean

So today I hit 223.8 lbs.  After starting at 474.1 lbs and setting a pre-surgery goal of 225 lbs and not having anyone believe I could make it, I'm pretty excited.  At this point I'm not trying to lose weight anymore but we'll see where it will stop.

Of course I really don't dump.  I don't know if that's a blessing or a curse.  If I eat too much sugar, I do get a bit of a rapid heart beat and depending on what I ate, I can feel icky but nothing major.  So of course what do I do to celebrate my milestone?  You guess it.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.  Oh well, can't do anything about it now... just have to reset my determination to not do that anymore.  And that's what it's all about.  Not beating yourself up when you make a mistake but learning and growing and doing better the next time.  I'm convinced that beating yourself up over making a mistake just makes you feel bad about yourself and perpetuates a cycle of self-defeating behavior.  You beat yourself up, then you feel bad about yourself, so you give up because you're going to fail anyway, and then you eat more crap.  Allow yourself to be human and make mistakes.  Don't justify making them but when you do, move on and determine to do better.

Anyway, that's the rant for today.  I'm going to try to add to this area from time to time so I hope you'll come back and read.  I'm also going to start adding all of this to my blog at www.seanstransformation.com.  There are pictures there showing my transformation.  There are a lot of huge success stories with gastric bypass.  We all feared in the beginning that this would be yet another weight loss attempt that we would fail at.  It doesn't have to be.  For me this journey was made possible by the surgery -- because it gave me the control over my life that I never had before.  Anyway, I hope this area and especially my blog might help you a little bit on your journey.  If you'd like to contact me with questions, you can find my contact information in my blog.

Sean

As I went through my emails tonight (yes, it was a moment of boredom), I found where I had copied and pasted some of the advice I've give over the past months to my fellow gastric bypass patients.  I have posted the advice on my blog at www.seanstransformation.blogspot.com

I hope you'll come and check it out.  You can also talk to me here.  As I get deeper into my emails (it'll have to wait for another moment of boredom), I'll put more of those types of posts on my blog.  I hope you'll join me and post your comments, etc.  I wish blogspot was a bit more flexible in how I can set it up for interaction between everyone.  But then I guess I could start my own site but for now I'll settle for a little blog.

Hope to talk to you soon.
Sean

I'm having fun writing on my blog.  I hope everyone will join me there.  www.seanstransformation.blogspot.com

If you'd like to post something on my blog, let me know and I'll add you as an author.  If you want to comment on any posts on the blog, just click on "comment" after the post.

Ultimately we may need to move it to a forum with a bit different structure but for now it's a fun way for us all to keep in contact and continue to share our journeys.  My contact information is there as well.  As many of you have experienced and all of you should know, I've dropped 250 lbs with the gastric bypass over the past 21 months.  Along the way I've gathered a wealth of knowledge and I am seeking merely to offer my support and experiences to help others.  In addition, I love the feeling of family that WLS patients can have together after sharing such personal hardships surrounding the obesity battle.  Come join in, you don't have to be a RMAP to share in the fun.

Sean

LOL.  So I heard from a friend that Carly (Dr. Smith's nurse over at Rocky Mountain Associated Physicians) address the uproar by her decision to ban me by quoting the terms and conditions of the message board over there.  She claims that I violated these by adding a post that was derogatory, mean, slanderous, etc.  I think she needs to look up the definitions of these terms.  First off, all I did was relay a TRUE story about how she treated me when I tried to call and see if Dr. Smith wanted to have me stop by to see my progress.  I suggested that RMAP could improve in the customer service area and I stated that there was no reason to hide behind a bunch of made up things to justify the $500 educational support fee.  Instead I stated that the fee was for the educational support you receive before and after surgery and if you make use of that it is well worth it.  Plus I stated RMAP requires it because they feel it helps with your long term success and that they are well within their rights to structure the program as they see fit.

I don't really mind that Carly banned me.  My weight loss journey is done and I'm doing exceptionally well.  But there were a lot of people on that message board who emailed me and persuaded me to go back and help support them through their journeys.  Banning someone for a personal vendetta as Carly has done, especially when it's someone who is one of your center's biggest success stories, has got to be the worst decision ever.  But.. Carly is in her 20s, she's good looking and thinks that her looks means she doesn't have to be nice.  I'm not the only one who has noticed this.

But I will say that despite Carly, I love RMAP and especially Dr. Sherman Smith.  If I had this to do all over again, there isn't another surgeon out there who I'd have do it.

Sean

Wow Sean, I will miss you on the RMAP forum!!   But 90% of the time, I come on here at oh.com and visit the Utah and RNY board for my support post op.   I very rarely go on RMAP anymore.  You had a lot of insightful things to say when I'd ask a question and were very informative on the RMAP site, they are stupid for banning you because of Carly.   on them!!