Ok, Sell Us Your Non-Vetted Surgeon

I am aware that there are surgeons who have successfully done the DS, but are not on the vetted list. Why? Probably due to inexperience, maybe they are just so shy we haven't heard of them.

I think it would be great if we could add some more to the list. Sell us on yours...

If he has done fewer than 25, what DS surgeon did he train under?

Other than geographical convenience, why would someone choose him?

Have you met or can you speak with his past DS patients? What do they say?

Dr. Pomp in NYC.  He has done over 25, he was on the list but was removed b/c some people got the surgery in 2 stages b/c he does not like keeping people under for more than 4 hours, but he tells this to his patients up front, so really i dont see why this alone would cause him to be removed. People do not have to use him if they feel uncomfortable with his 4 hour rule, it worried me a lot but at the end of the day i was willing to have 2 stages if that is what happened b/c he is a doctor i felt comfortable with. Aside from being skilled he is someone i feel comfortable talking with and someone i can foresee myself doing follow up without dreading it. He is a great surgeon and a great person and that was important for me.

Janine can probably answer the other questions regarding who he trained with etc, i think it is Garger(sp?) but i am not certain.

How does the billing work for a "two part DS"? Does he wait to bill until AFTER he's completed the switch? Does the second part require a second insurance approval? What if your insurance stipulates only ONE lifetime WLS? Does he finish your DS for free? Even if your insurance will approve the second part, what if you lose too much with the sleeve to qualify?

He can't be relied upon as a DS surgeon if there's a chance that people wanting the DS will wind up with just the VSG and no further recourse besides paying thousands out of pocket.

Perhaps he just needs to work with better anesthesiologists.

When i was looking for a DS surgeon , i was looking for someone that was skilled. The other issues you bring about are case by case. For example bedside manner or insurance acceptance should not be  reason to eliminate someone from the list, it should be a question of skill.

Pomp doesnt trick anyone into getting a VSG, which is sort of the vibe i get on to how he is viewed. He told me that i do not have a lot of central obesity and most likely he would be able to do it in one stage but he would not know until he gets in there. He also said that i am 26 and he would not risk having me under excessively, he made it very clear that his number 1 priority was me waking up and walking out of that hospital with no comlications- i would rather have that be my surgeons priority than him completing the DS at any cost.

Operative complications DO increase as someone spends more time under anasthesia, if the hospitals  reasoning for keeping someone under for no longer than 4-5 hour range was unfounded garbage then i could understand the negative view but alas it is not.

Janine I think was also well aware that she had  a good likely hood of having a 2 stage procedure, but because she believes in his SKILL she still chose to go with him.

In terms of the insurance stuff, he never billed my insurance, there is only one hospital bill for about 24k and Aetna paid around 17k, i assume he will get paid by the hospital directly.

If you have an insurance plan that stipulates 1 lifetime surgery  then maybe you should not go to him, but for every person that has a policy like that, there is another person that does NOT have a policy with such a stipulation .  

And in terms of payings thousands out of pocket, I dont see the California doctors being eliminated because they have thousand dollar program fees, clearly there are people who will not go to them simply because of those program fees , yet because they are skilled surgeons they are still on that list as an option for those poeple to consider.

Also, from what I have deduced regarding the general anasthesia limits, this is not his policy, it is hospital policy..  I was under for around 5 hours in total, including prep, and waking up etc, so it took him around 3.5-4 hours total for surgery.

I guess i feel that he is skilled, someone can go consult with him, they dont like what he says they can go elsewhere.

Insurance and bed side manner are NOT factors in vetting DS surgeons.

Expertise, experience, and a track record of sucessful DS ---NOT VSG--surgeries are factors. Pomp can not be relied upon to provide a DS. If you go in for a DS and you wake up with a VSG that is a FAILURE. Barring a mid-surgery emergency, there is just no excuse for it.

I submit that there is no such thing as a "two-part DS".  The DS is ONE surgery. If you wake up with the VSG and require the risk of a second surgery to have a DS, that is a REVISION.

It would be unethical to recommend Pomp to anyone desiring the DS.

 Sure.

Gary Belzberg MD. He's out of Kaiser Harbor City, but he's the guy So Cal Kaisers call when something is wrong with someone's guts and they can't figure it out.

Dr. Crookes vouched for him personally, and said he has done about half a dozen to a dozen DS surgeries and was trained by a DS surgeon on the east coast but I don't recall the name.

I know one of his DS's personally (aside from me) and she raved about him. I also personally know a DS'er that had to follow up with him and she had nothing but wonderful things to say about him as well.

He's an intestinal surgeon of 20+ years, he's got a few studies co-authored on the VSG and he does a bunch of bariatric surgeries. My "Sense" of him however is that he enjoys the tough stuff that he has to "figure out" more than he enjoys helping fat people lose weight.

My personal experience? He took exceptionally good care of me. When he could have given me a pouch (my old gall bladder removal resulted in scar tissue that was attached to the duodenum everywhere... it was touch and go to give me a sleeve) he figured it out and then went back in a few days later to make sure the connections were all working wonderfully.  On top of that I have almost no food intolerances, my guts work like a charm and I'm incredibly happy with my innards and lack of food or GI issues. (Which may or may not have anything to do with the surgeon but I'm posting it anyway.)
My ONLY complaint about him is that he isn't a fan of the DS so getting one out of him isn't a walk in the park. 

With the plethora of highly renowned DS surgeons in CA, why did you choose Belzberg? What made him stand out in your mind?

"My ONLY complaint about him is that he isn't a fan of the DS so getting one out of him isn't a walk in the park. "

If he doesn't want to do the DS, should we really refer people to him as a "DS surgeon"?

 I have Kaiser. He was the surgeon Kaiser offered. I went and met with Crookes. Then I did research on Rabkin and Keshishian. ALL of them had things I liked about them. ALL of them had issues I didn't like. After much research I decided I liked Belzberg's credentials, the respect of his peers, and his extensive background. Quite frankly, weird stuff happens to me a lot medically (I often have experiences of things that are not "supposed" to be possible, such as my body rejecting glucose absorbable stitches, etc). I wanted a surgeon who knows MORE than the DS... I wanted the surgeon who yes, has to give pancreatic cancer patients a functional gut configuration. I also liked that he worked for Kaiser and had regular hours rather than a busy private practice. I liked that he doesn't believe in the lapband. I liked what Crookes had to say about him. Many things came into play. If you have Kaiser he's a viable option. JMO

Sounds good. Now if only he'd embrace the DS...

How did YOU convince him?

Do you think he would refuse if more patients were referred to him demanding the DS?

I convinced him to do the DS (with a little help from a faerie).  We don't have a date yet since I'm with Kaiser and have to finish classes before getting the DS. But I can tell you that what I found was that I was confident, knew exactly what I was getting myself into, and said that I KNEW this surgery wasn't for everyone. I also deferred to him a lot and asked his opinion quite a bit.  I liked him a lot and feel really confident in his skills. As Bookfaerie said, he's the guy you want to go to if you are having any problems with your guts--he'll put ya right back together again.

Sher-
p.s. I don't think he embraces the DS because I think he's worried that the patient doesn't really get what they're going into. He knows that Kaiser doesn't have any support for a DS patient and therfore, is of no help to those of us getting surgery. This may be why he doesn't "embrace" it as you said. Seriously, there seems to be no one in Kaiser to give ANY sort of advice about this procedure or the aftercare. So Belzberg wanted to know where I was getting my help.