Banner Gateway Medical Center Hospital

Dr. Chen is an amazing & wonderful doctor! He did my gastric sleeve procedure the day before Thanksgiving (ugh I know...) I was terrified of surgery he easily put me at ease by reassuring me that everything will be alright. He gave me his stats and percentages. He answers all of my questions . He will not leave you with any questions he is very thorough. If you were planning on getting bariatric surgery I would suggest Albert Chen

Great place.

From the start Dr.Podkameni put all my concers to rest. He is very knowledgable and I feel very confident in his abilities to help me with my fight with obesity.

I had surgery 3/2010 with Dr, Podkameni and have done wonderfully. It was sad went he left Banner Gateway to move back to the East Coast, But I am so excited to here that he is returning to Banner Gateway in the next few weeks, especially since I will be due to my yearly follow up soon.

Very caring DR. He knew I was scared and stuck with me!! Should have done this 20 yrs ago.

anyone have any remarks on my doc? let me know..

The nurses and staff was so nice and accomodating. they really cared about what they were doing.

My first impression of Dr Podkameni was that he was very knowledgable & experienced. Over time, I found him to be strict but communicated very welll with me, and I could even joke with him some. Some members of his staff have had bariatric surgery (nurses & the dietician, Donna) so they know what they are talking about because they have lived it.

I found it odd that he didn't care about taking labs since it was June when I had pre op labs but my surgery didn't happen until November. Also, I found him to be overly structured and strict at times, but I am a person who likes to test limits...lol

There is a lot of support with the Banner Gateway Bariatric program, ranging from pre op to post op support groups. They even have a clothing exchange program!

The thing that I am most impressed with Dr P is that he is thorough, methodical, and careful with his patients. During my surgery, he found a benign tumor on my liver, and repaired a hiatal hernia I didn't even know I had! Afterwards, when I had some nausea, dry heaves, and a bad rebound headache (probably from the pain meds), he gave a combination of meds thru the IV that took care of all three problems. That made the difference in me having to stay an extra day or not. (I got to go home as scheduled.)

I was told that there were bariatric trained nurses there, but I never experienced anyone who seemed to understand the bariatric program.

My first impression of Dr. Podkameni was that he was very knowledgeable and well read. He back his information up with current information from journals. I really like that becasue it says to me that he is continually evolving as a surgeon. Hes not stuck on one idea and not will to learn more as more and different information becomes available.