Palo Alto Medical Foundation Hospital

I found Dr. Wetter on the Internet! I really did quite a bit of research. Money/time were not issues for me, but expertise in doing the lapraoscip surgery, a kind bedside manner and giving adequate pain med's were critical to me. I spent countless hours reading about different surgeons, and Dr. Wetter beat them alllll out by a huge percentage.

Consistently, everyone spoke very highly of his expertise AND beside manner.

I met Dr. Wetter 1x. He was extremely curteous, polite and professional. I've dealt with quite a few doctors in my life. Although quite a few people have posted that they found Dr. Wetter direct, straightforward, non-nonsesne and somewhat abrupt...I didn't. I found him informative, open and caring!

His office staff was kind, worked on and got me an almost immediate approval (I love Terry)and scheduled date.

Dr. Wetter informed me about the risks, the after-care and the impact the surgery would have on my life.

Is there a rating higher than excellent?? I can't say enough about Dr. Wetter, and his staff.

And.......yes I would reccomend him.

By-the-way....My surgery is one week from today! July 30th!

Love, Alexandra


Follow Up Remarks:

Pre-Op

My husband and I met with Dr. Wetter for my pre-op appt. He was soooo polite, answered my husbands questions, and allayed some of my fears. Evidently, he has a zero fatality rate, and that is comforting.

2 more days to go...Gosh I'm scared.

Post Op

What a difference a week can make.

I'm home now. My opinion of Dr. Wetter has somewhat changed. He was brisk in the hospital. I was in a lot of pain for the 1st 2 days, and on a scale of 1-10, on a level of 10+ the 1st 2 days, and 7-8, the rest of the week. Alllllll he cared about was walking! Walk! Walk! Walk! He adequately controled the pain, was more than willing to keep you comfortable, but alllll that mttered was walking. On day 2, I had walked 4 times down the lenght of the hall, and the nurses only wrote down 1x, and said I only walked out of my door. He was very irrited about this.

I had a fever of 100.1 to 101.5 all week. When I was advanced to level 2, I became ill when I ate the cereal of soup.

When I brought all of this up, his answer was....walk! Over and over. By day 5, I'd had enough.

The nurse who runs the program, was just a tad patronizing. When I voiced my concerns to her, her eyes just glazed over ( a la "Stepford Wife's" ) and told me it was my responsibility to walk...! :O

And then a small light was going on....I asked her what happnes if anyones gets pneumonia...ill,...vomits....wahtever, then she remarked "We have a wonderful track record here, and typically it is because the patient wasn't following our program correctly."

And all the little comments I heard throughout the week gelled...."we're having our 100th by-pass surgery party"...."Dr. Wetter has a perfect record"...."Our patients do soooo well, that they leave in 3-4 days"...."This surgery has put the hospital on the map"....

And then it occutred to me. If someone did get sick, whateverrr.....

this enourmous armour could act as a sheild for the doctor and the hsopital.

Why if you got pneumonia, or couldn't handle food, or your pain was not typical, or you vomited to much....it would never be anyone's fault but your own.

When I left, my fever was still 101. something...and I had aquired Thrush in my mouth. I was still having quite a bit of pain, and feeling "tight" in my chest.

It didn't matter.

I'm home now. My fever is 101.8, and I could not hold down my teensy dinner of cereal or applesauce. I've been taking sips of ice tea and juice...but my mouth is burning so that's not helping.

I left the hospital feeling very angry and not feeling taken care of.

I just need to remind everyone, that this is my opinion, and other people that have had the surgery don't share my experience.

Dr. Wetter is an excellent surgeon. I'm alive, and from what many nurses said my sticthes looked great.

My biggest fear was not surviving tyhe surgery, and I did.

At no time did I question Dr. Wetter's skills as a surgeion, and I would only reccomend him for this surgery.

However, I would have my own doctor invoved in Post Op Care.

I have concerns that the reputation of the hsopital and the doctor's has become more important that the care of the patient.

At least is was in my case.

I was so nervous before my consult visti but once I met with Dr. Wetter - a complete feeling of calmness came over me. My imprssion of him didnt change - other than it got better.

He explained the entire procedure to me on more than 1 occasion. He told me about his website that he has & about the support group that hospital has for its patients. He emphasized that once the surgery is over the importance of eating right & exercising. The biggest struggle for me will be the eating right - the exercise I can deal with!

I have had surgeries before - so we didnt go over to much of the risks of surgey but he did tell me the risks with this particular surgery.

The only thing was that I didnt see him ( or least dont remember seeing him on the day of my surgey. It was on a friday - so I saw his partner over the weekend!

Dr. Foster was extremely nice. Takes a lot of time to explain everything and just makes you feel very comfortable.
Office staff is really nice too. Lorna who scheduled my first appointment was wonderful. Got me in to see Dr. Foster within a week and a half from first call.
Surgery scheduled tomorrow July 16th. I will update after that.

I met with Dr. Wetter on June 19th. I really liked him. He was very open and seemd to be honest about possible complications, especially, since I'm 50. I would recommend him. The only disappointment is that he's booked so far out. Surgery could be Oct/Nov/Dec. I guess it depends upon the insurance approval.

When I went in to see Dr. Cooper here in Chico, he was very upfront and straight forward. He was a little older than I thought he'd be for some reason... His office is quite outdated, but the staff is nice. I was dissapointed because they mailed me a packet of information about 2 months before my appt, basically at the consultation (that cost me $50 cash) he read the booklet to me... I had already read it about 3 times by then... and I was practically finishing his sentences for him because I already knew what he was going to say. I have decided to check out a few surgeons in the bay area because I am interested in laparoscopic surgery, and Cooper only does open. Dr. Wetter in Burlingame seems to be a good one to research, so I'm going to check him out, and make an appt. for a consultation.

She was very nice.
Her staff is very caring and just as nice.
The first visit she was about 1.5 hours late.
She is a very serious person.
No aftercare program that I know of.

My first inpression of Dr. Foster was that she is very caring and patient she answers all your questions and is very informative. Her nurse Michelle is very nice and also caring and is is very supportive and guides you along the way. Dr. Foster does make you lose weight before the surgery, I didn't think I could do it but I have and its been hard but I know it is for the best.

Dr. Foster see you 2 weeks after surgery and I think 6 weeks after surgery. One of my best friends had surgery by Dr. Foster 5-23-01 and Dr. Foster spent a great deal of time with her after surgery and we can't say enough about both Dr. Foster and MIchelle

6/7/01--Dr. Wetter did the surgery, some nurses there have had him do rny's for them, so you know he's good. But I still really do like Dr. Baggs, who checked up on my and got me ready to go home.

5/29/01--Met Dr. Wetter, he's very nice and answered all my questions. Since he's the Sr. surgeon he made a big deal about Dr. Baggs finally giving him a patient after all the patients he's given to Dr. Baggs.

4/13/01--In the waiting room I met another patient who was post op and had only good things to say about the surgery. The office staff was nice.

My first impression of Dr. Baggs was neutral, I was expecting to meet with Dr. Wetter. Dr. Baggs explained the procedure and asked questions. He's very straight forward and honest. I felt that he was hearing everything I said and was not distracted.

By the end of the appt. he was very interested in helping me solve this health problem (obesity) I got the impression that he is very concerned that this is the right choice for me as an individual, he's not in a hurry to just do another sugery.

They have a comprehensive program at Mills, which is why I chose them over the "local guy" They stress that I must attend support groups and may want to have some personal counseling as well. Also, Dr. Baggs stresses working with a nutrionist. His attitude is that this is a comprehensive change that must be addressed from all areas of my life.

Terry (surgical coordinator) did an excellent job of keeping on top of things and getting my approval quickly.

Some information on my doctor for anyone who is considering using him.

*****
I had my surgery with Dr. Wetter on 7/25/00, lap RNY. I started at about 300 pounds (with clothes) and had severe sleep apnea. I am convinced he is a master surgeon. He was very patient in each of my visits with him and answered my long lists of questions very thoroughly. I did find him more rushed at the hospital after the surgery but he did stop in each day and if I had any questions he took the time to answer them. My recovery has been going well. My new stomach certainly tells me when I eat too much or too fast! (That feedback loop was completely missing prior to the surgery).

*****
One person that is part of Dr. Wetter's support staff is Anne Timberlake who works at Peninsula Hospital. She is on Email "[email protected]", and will answer all your questions promptly and completely. She is much easier to get ahold of than going through Dr. Wetter's office staff. And she doesn't stop after the surgery ... she told me as long as I had questions about the surgery or any post op issues to feel free to contact her.

*****
The only negative for me was that I did find the interactions with the insurance company and the hospital scheduling to challenging. I could never tell how much was attributable to Dr. Wetter's office staff and how much was caused by the insurance company and hospital schedulers.

*****
When my insurance was initially denied, Dr. Wetter called me personally, made recommendations about what I needed to do, and he wrote another letter as well addressing the issues that were raised by the insurance company. I was later approved.

*****
I don't know if Dr. Wetter is responsible for the hire of Ann Timberlake or the training and protocol for the staff at Peninsula, but they all do a terrific job. He has a wonderful support team at the hospital. The nurses often praised my efforts to get up and walk around, and my courage in getting the operation. I had the medicine pump with the pain killers when I woke up. Most all the nurses were extremely well educated about the surgery. I felt that the hospital stay was the best hospital stay yet (and I have been in several times).

*****
When I found out that one of my medications could not be stopped for the 3 days that one usually can't have food, and that it couldn't be delivered by IV, Dr. Wetter worked with my other doctor to find something that would work. He left in the NG tube from my nose to my stomach after the operation so that the pills could be crushed and given to me that way. (The tube isn't as bad as it sounds and many doctors leave them in for all patients after the surgery).

*****
There is a Northern California Support Group that meets the 3rd Saturday of every month at Peninsula Hospital. You are likely to meet many other patients of Dr. Wetter there. The web site is: http://www.obesitysurgerysupport.org/

*****
This reflects my own personal experience and your mileage may vary.

Welllll I finally met Dr. Wetter and he is great! I feel very comfortable with him and I'm confident everything will go well.