About the drama...

Sally:

I am sure if you want the names, Midwestern Girl will be able to accomodate you so that you will have the links and proof.

Regarding Mexico, I live in San Diego and not all Mexico is like some of the drug warring border towns.  I am only seven miles from the border of Tijuana and have numerous friends who are surgeons, attorneys, and doctors in Tijuana. These are all good people who have been caught in the crossfires of the drug war situation.  Additionally, one teacher (I teach at a San Diego college) I work with, their son was kidnapped and killed just 10 days ago.  That is the Tijuana danger.  HOWEVER, Mexicali is a TOTALLY different area and mind set.  I would NOT go to Tijuana, but I would go to Mexicali in a heartbeat! Mexicali is much cleaner, newer, and nicer than Tijuana.  Additionally, it is not as congested and the hospital is FAR superior than in Tijuana.  I have been in several hospitals in Tijuana from friends who had surgery and they are just okay.  I have been in many hospitals in the U.S., but the BEST hospital bar none is the Almater in Mexicali...it is truly like a spa and a wonderful place to be for surgery!

In saying all of this, Mexico is consists of a large area.....and Mexicali is totally safe and the staff and doctors are wonderful too!

I hope you find the answers you will need for verifying the questions you are asking.

Warmly,
Gail

I have to agree with you Sally. I am really concerned about the implications that someone is being paid to disseminate information and recruit for their Dr. I absolutely believe that is untrue. Show us the PROOF! What you folks are implying here is so very unethical and I have been assured and told personally that nothing is further from the truth. Not that they don't favor their Dr. and talk him up, or that some have even worked with him or close to him. I'm not saying that they don't do that. But what's wrong with that. Good Gosh, what's wrong with you all anyway. Is this America? Can't you speak freely and openly about your feelings? Or plug your Surgeon if your happy with the results. Yes you'll have bad days and complain, but we all know when weight is lost and we start looking better, the good outweigh the bad.

I'm sure I know who the folks on this thread are speaking about and they seem to have single handidly ran them off...I haven't even seen them on hear hardly at all anymore. Which is so sad. Because whatever they feel is correct or incorrect information. These people have had real surgeries, real experiences, real complications and real feelings. On a procedure that I for one have been investigating, along with many others. And, no wonder they might have chosen to run to another board and post their complications or complaints because if they were to post here, For goodness sake they would be thrown under the bus so bad it would be a massacre.

Who knows what drives people, but we all make decisions and we all love to speak about the outcomes. Too bad this board has come to the point that we can not do that anymore without feeling like we're being attacked. I for one have wanted to post many things. One being my decision on surgery but am fearful I would be attacked for my decision. So I have resorted to privately emailing my questions to those who have had the surgery for my answers. I don't want all the negative crap. Only facts and figures.

Just my 2cents for whatever it's worth. I'm sure I'll hear about. But really who gives a crap anyway!

I have to disagree with you.  I am sure you have been personally assured that this is not going on but I have been personally assured that one of the posters here is an "Office Advocate" by the MD office.  No doubts they'll quit talking about that one now. ;o)

I have seen PMs written to people by the same Office Advocate pushing pretty hard for people to go to Dr. S. regardless of where they live.  They could live across the country with very good surgeons locally but noooo, the Office Advocate PMs people suggesting that the only way they can get good medical care is to fly to Phx and go to Dr. S.  Saying you like your doc is one thing, PMing people telling them the doctor they want to go to is not great, scary, dangerous and they should all  go to Dr. S and only Dr. S. is a bit over the top especially when they have never heard of the doctor the person plans on seeing.

Do you honestly believe that being personally assured by those doing the unethical behaviors are going to admit what they are doing?  If someone starts out being unethical, isn't it a given they are unethical and less than honest?

I adore my surgeon too but I don't talk about him in every bloody post I write, I don't start threads about how wonderful he is, I don't discuss him until people know what my post says before they open it.  I don't PM people begging them to go to my surgeon.  If someone asks about surgeons I give them my opinions about several good doctors, not just mine.  That is not what was going on up until recently.

Now, if someone is going to MX for surgery and they live in AZ I do suggest him because he's the only well known surgeon in MX that is driving distance from this state and in a safe location.  It matters for aftercare and especially for banded folks.

Dear MWG:

I totally am fine with being disagreed with....I have no perfect knowledge about anyone, nor do you, unless you work with them or are family, surely your not a friend, because friends wouldn;t be so horrible...

But what I can do is agree to disagree...unlike you. Just so you and everyone on this site knows. I have been seeking a revision for a very long time....I could do DS and I could Band, but can't afford DS, or the risks and don't want the fill issue with the band. But in all the time I have been looking into this and it's pretty well known to most who are on this board often, I've been here for a while.

NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE has ever PM'd me or contacted me or tried to persuade me to see Dr. S. on the otherhand though I have heard from several through PM to persuade me not to go with him or have an ERNY. 

I personally have contacted through PM many of Dr S's patients with questions and more questions about their experiences, success or failures and honestly I believe they have been straight up with me....And more than willing to share.

So when you make statements that you know for a fact that people are working for a Dr. and making kickbacks or money or whatever you are referring to by gosh you had better show me in black and white because I am a visual person and all I see here so far....Is a bunch a B.S.

Most people can read through the bull, pull out the agendas and dissimenate the information and correlate to what is good or not, for them. Those that can't I guess will listen to you...To bad as it will most definately limit there options.

Please everyone don't lose sight of the point of this post!!!  No one  is saying that people don't have a right to post whatever they want to about their experiences...what I am saying is that I know of a case where someone had a revision and posted time after time how wonderful the revision was when  all the while they were posting on another forum of the complications and difficulties they've had.   That's all I'm asking!!!  Just be honest with your experiences as newbies look at what we post as truthful and rely on our truthfulness and integrity when making their surgery choice.

That was my ONLY point and it's grown a life of it's own.  Sally, read back posts and you will see what I am talking about.

I don't know about the proof that anyone is being paid to post what they do.   I've heard that there are "office advocates", but if, what and how they are paid is conjecture.   Maybe they are just trying to curry favor with their favorite doc?   Maybe they get preferential appointment times?  Maybe they get more attention or extra long appointment times?  Maybe it's just something they like to do for whatever reason?   These people do promote their doc to excess and they use the boards to do it - a woman as far away as Canada started a thread about it that got rather heated.   But, does actual cash $$$ change hands?  I've never seen proof of that.

However, the proof that some patients (interestingly all from the same doctor and who have had the same surgery) exaggerate the successes of their surgeries and downplay their side effects has been posted, both by me, MidwesternGirl and by Diana Cox, who actually found things on a Yahoo website and cut & pasted the actual words on here some time ago.    I have  found contradictory things which the patients themselves have written either on their own profiles or on other posts that they themselves had put up on the boards.    I put up links to it and direct quotes from people's profiles.  It was some time ago also.  So many on here who want to stick their heads in the sand and not deal with the truth have blocked what I said, that perhaps they did not read it and that is why they keep asking for the "proof".    It was not posted on this thread, but has been put up on many, many others, complete with links to the actual words, so the reader can see for themselves.   

There was proof posted that JRinAZ worked for the same company as Dr. Schlesinger, yet she kept insisting she only worked in the same building.   She was commenting on him almost daily at the time, appearing to be just another "happy patient" with easily controllable side effects and great health.   Of course, she was posting off of OH about all of her horrible problems and even said she feared he was more concerned with how he would look for making her common channel so short than with how she was feeling.   Then, several months later, it even came out by his patients themselves, that Schlesinger was actually a Gitt employee, when Schlesinger suddenly resigned and Gitt took a couple of weeks to send out a notification letter.  That is just one person and one example.   She appears to have been the "head" cheerleader, which is fine; but telling tales about her association with him is not.

Some of the rest of them have taken to changing their tickers at the bottom of their signature lines to include their recent limited weight loss from their revision lumped in with their former weight loss from their first RNY.   (And they do this around the same time that  their new revision weight loss slows down or stops.)  Not that there is anything wrong with that, but they had the actual weight loss from their revisions written on either their actual profiles or on other, off OH sites and there were discrepancies.    Personally, I commend anyone for any weight loss!   But, why not be consistent with the same amount lost everywhere, if not to mislead others into thinking they've lost more than they actually have?   Their purpose for doing this?   To pump up their doctor's rep?   To pump up their own rep?  Maybe it make them feel better to see a bigger number after having gone through major open surgery and only lost around 50 lbs from it when they were expecting more?

Memo to the above paragraph, yes we know about the ONE woman who has lost 120 lbs - she has made that very clear.   She also made it very clear that she was never bypassed at all with her original RNY, so the revision malabsorption is like a virgin surgery, which explains why she is going so much better than the others.   There, I have acknowledged your success -  you know who you are - don't flame me.    And, congratulations!

A few OH members have also posted that this same doctor attempted to do the "bait & not switch" on them by saying that he does the RNY to DS conversion surgery and then tried to manipulate them using scare tactics into getting his revision surgery of choice, the distal or ERNY.   You can find the proof of what they have said if you search for it.   They have also posted on various threads themselves.  I read their posts during the time that they wrote them.  If anyone has been following this, they would have seen the original posts by these various people.   One man called the doc an out-and-out liar about the information he was given.   None of these comments were made by ME, so please don't flame me for merely mentioning them.   I've only read about them and people who are recent visitors to this board don't know that this has been happening for over a year now.   

I really wish all of this would stop.   These people do promote their surgeon to excess and use free public message boards to do it.   They probably also use support groups and WLS events to do the same thing.    What they do is their business.   It is a type of "gorilla marketing", using unconventional means for PR purposes.   It's done every day by people in business.   The ONLY problems I have with it is with the one woman who misrepresented the nature of her employment with this doctor and the inconsistencies in the statements by the actual patients regarding the result  (weight lost, side effects, health condition) of the surgeries themselves.   If this is not being done to mislead and procure future patients into going to this doctor, then why?  FYI, that's a rhetorical question.   From what I have already been reading, with the flaming and nastiness,  I don't need nor do I expect any coherent answers.