New on Board

 I'm just simply horrified at some of the surgeons out there & how they treat their patients based on what I'm reading on the boards & my own personal experiences with what friends & family went thru.
I'm just curious, how many were not given a psychological evaluation pre op?

I'm quite sure my surgeon wouldn't have passed a psychological evaluation at all.

 Hahaha!!!!! That was a good laugh!
No seriously, my surgeon required all his patients to undergo an hour long psych evaluation with a psychiatrist to see if we were emotionally prepared to undergo the stress of being banded

I'm glad you got a chuckle!  But, seriously, my surgeon wouldn't have passed.   He was a monkey I'm pretty sure. Shaved... but still a monkey! 

You had a WLS in 1969??????

 LOLZ I dont know if the Band was even a gleam in iits inventors eye & I was too young to be approved for it Hahaha!!!
I was banden in dec 2005 the first time then re banded in 2008

OMGosh, I had to jump through hoops before I was approved!

In fact, after my psych eval, I almost changed my mind about the band.  She was so blunt and cold about  the band!!

I also had to meet with a nutritionist.

I also had to have a chest x-ray and fluoroscope (barium swallow) assessment, in addition to other labs.

It took 3 months (longer, if you include the required seminar) from the time I submitted my application (which was the size of a catalog****il I actually had the surgery.

I had a psych eval, about 300 questions asking if I felt like hurting myself, if I loved my dad, if I wanted to be a florist sort of stuff, met with the psych, told him I was tired of being fat, he declared me sane enough for surgery. Went through another psych eval for my revision to VSG with a different surgeon because he wanted to make sure I was "ok" with my husband being deployed during my revision, I passed that one too. Most people are smart enough to not answer the questions in a way to NOT get them screwed out of having surgery. The personality portion of the psych eval was my favorite, and most informative. My band surgeon was an asshat. Luckily, I was able to change surgeons and get the band out.

@USAFWife, my psych eval was specific to the band.  The first question to me was "What is your understanding on the adjustable gastric band and how it works?"  Then there were a lot of follow up questions & statements from everything from about how much I could expect to lose, to the importance of protein, to the risks involved, etc.

There wasn't much in the way of questioning if I was sane--perhaps she knew I was too far gone, so why ask? 

Yeah that information was reviewed as well. It wasn't rocket science. It was a lot expectations vs. reality.