Dr. Mario Almanza and Jerusalem Hospital

I have made initial contact with this clinic, and before I put down any money, I would love to hear some experiences from people who have been. His name is not the ones I frequently see listed on the forums. Is this good or bad?

Hello-

Use the search function at the top and type in Dr. Almanza to get more accounts of what happened with other people. My experience was that Dr. Almanza is a good surgeon, but the clinic is very tiny where surgeries are performed and  I think sometimes they book too many surgeries. I guess maybe I was just lucky because there weren't any issues when I went, and I am very pleased with the sleeve surgery that I received. He uses a 32 French bougie, which means you get a small sleeve. He has a lot of experience doing the surgery. If you use Dr. Almanza, try to book a date where they don't do more than 6 surgeries. I've heard that they do 10 surgeries or more sometimes. I would have been worried if I had that many on the day I went. Not everyone is happy with their experience there. Mine was okay but I wouldn't say it was great either. I would say so/so. If I could go back in time and do it all over again, I would probably use Dr. Ramos-Kelly or Dr. Fernando Garcia because they use hospitals and they have really good reputations. Their prices are also only  about 500$ more than Dr. Almanza and for that I would have been able to have the operation in a hospital. I honestly think Dr. Almanza would be better off going to a hospital and doing surgeries on his own because the clinic has problems with overbooking and they used to have problems with infections but I haven't heard any more problems about infections in quite a while so that may not be an issue anymore.  I also didn't like removing my stitches when I got home and would have preferred a surgeon who used dissolving stitches.

So overall I would say it's a crap shoot whether or not you will be happy with your experience. My experience was fine with the doctor, but the facility and the aftercare were not great. I would say the facility and aftercare was just so/so. Other people have had excellent experiences and others have had bad experiences. I think you have to decide what you feel comfortable with doing. I will say this - I have been very happy with my sleeve. I have excellent restriction! I have to give props to my surgeon for that.