Gastric Bypass at Madigan Army Medical Center

Does anyone know the process for having gastric bypass surgery at Madigan Army Medical Center?  How do you get started?  Where do you sign up?  How long from once you start the process until you can have surgery?  Where can I get more info? I'm not sure if I really want to do this yet but not much else has worked so it's time to find out what I have to do. TIA

There are lots of ladies on this board who have recently had gastric bypass at Madigan.  I'm sure some of them will fill you in on the process.  I'm not military so can't help you there, but do want to welcome you to the Washington board!!  I'm sure Shelley, Annie, Jill or one of the others will respond to you soon.  I wish you all the best on this journey - it's definitely worth the hassles and red tape!  :)

Hiya, I had my surgery at Madigan in December.  If you call Meg Voelker, she is the coordinator for WLS there.  Her phone number is 253-968-3640 Once you get your PCM to refer you to have weight loss surgery, you can call her and set up to attend a class with a whole bunch of other people.  After that, you will attend a few nutrition classes, and meet with a surgeon.  She will meet with you again and then put in a referral for a psych eval.  After you have done all that, they will send your results back to Meg and she will enter you in the system to meet with the surgeons again and schedule a date.  The whole process took about 3-4 months when I went through it, but we had 2 more classes to take than they have now.  Dr Stone (psychologist)  was the woman teaching the classes and they didn't renew her contract, so now there are 2 classes that you take with the nutrition center.  It can seem like it will take forever, but the information is all really good, and by the time surgery rolls around, you will most likely feel like the time flew by. You can PM me if you want to talk about it more.  If you get your choice of surgeons, I would TOTALLY recommend Dr Rush.  He is profoundly good at what he does and he is NOW the Chief of surgery, so he doesn't have a lot of time to do surgeries... but he is totally worth it!  Dr Carter also is good from what I hear, and has the most experience at doing open RNY.  Dr Sebesta also is supposed to be pretty good and has done a few people I know.  Eggebroten was going to do my surgery, but he "chickened out" cause I wanted to do mine lap and he wasn't comfortable doing that on someone with a BMI as high as mine.  He can do lap though, just thought I would have better results with Dr Rush.  He was 100% right and I am SO glad Dr Rush was my surgeon.

Hi there! I had my surgery at Madigan in March and it was the best decision I ever made, and only regret so far is that I didn't do it much sooner. As mentioned, your first step is through your PCM to get the referral to general surgery.  From there it's pretty much laid out for you, however it's still on you to make the appointments of course.  On my blog I have the exact classes I needed when I went through the pathway and what each class pretty much entailed.  You can see it here Madigan offers a few options now that tricare covers, but your best bet is to just research your heart out and you can go through the classes and if you change your mind that's ok too. Hope this helps some

Hi there and welcome to the board.  The first thing you need to do to get started is get a referral from your PCM, and stick to your guns its not their decision on weather or not you qualify for the surgery, that would be the surgeons.  Some of them can be stinkers about referrals.  The others have walked you through the rest of the process.  The only other thing I can offer is come to some of the support group meetings on thurs evenings from 5-7 on the lower level in the cosio room at madigan.  You will get the good and the bad there. Hang out here and on the RNY board you will learn alot!!

It helps a lot.  You guys are great.  Thanks!

Hi. It seems like everyone has beaten me to responding. They have basically laid it out for you. You first need to get a referral from your PCM and then I met with the surgeon during a group surgery information class.  After the class we were given Meg's number and the Pathway info.  From there Meg schedules you to attend one of the Pathway orientation classes.  You can always get a head start and self refer yourself to the nutrition clinic. (Its the only required classes you can actually self refer yourself too, and it is a 2 part class.) After that I attended an occupational therapy class, another nutrition class, and a mandatory support group.  From the date I met with the surgeon for the information group meeting to my surgery date was exactly 3 months!  I have never been happier and don't regret having gastric bypass at all.  I had Dr. Martin, and absolutely love love love him!!!! He is wonderful. Best of luck to you. We are all here to support you in anyway we can so just ask us anything! Brandy

Brandy where you been??  You need to call me girl so we can go out. Miss you and I hope you are doing ok!!