American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery | Archive

Introduction: The Purpose of the ASMBS BSCOE Program

Part 1 - The original goals of the ASMBS BSCOE program are stated in an article authored by Ken Champion, MD, and Walter Pories, MD, published in Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases (SOARD) in 2005: “The purpose of a COE program is to provide the means for the public and interested parties to identify programs in bariatric surgery that provide a comprehensive and standardized program of surgical care and long-term follow-up and management of the morbidly obese patients. The routine reporting and compiling of outcomes from bariatric surgical patients will provide an opportunity to assess and verify risks and...

The “Shrinkage” Debate

"The Hospital Compare model [standard shrinkage] underestimates the typically poorer performance of lowvolume hospitals"...

Presentation by Robin Blackstone, MD, FACS, FASMBS, ASMBS President...

Dr. Blackstone met with the Surgical Review Corporation (SRC) in late March 2011. At that meeting it was decided that the responsibility for management of the data would be transferred to the ASMBS under the leadership of the Research Committee. This transfer is now complete. This is the organizational document regarding this transfer, led by Ranjan Sudan, MD, and Debbie Winegar, PhD....

Presentation by Bruce M. Wolfe, M.D. Professor of Surgery Oregon Health and Science University...

Over a week in October, I was engaged in teaching the first ever “obesity week” to 2nd year medical students in the University of Arizona School of Medicine – Phoenix program. 50 students were led through a complex curriculum that culminated with a session with five medical and surgical weight loss patients in a question and answer session. The next week students came to our clinic to see patient OR cases or see patients in the clinic in a “Capstone” project. Students also participate in a spin class with the instructor at 5:30 on Wednesday morning. At the beginning of...

Story of Obesity Surgery

Weight loss (bariatric) surgery is a unique field, in that with one operation, a person can be potentially cured of numerous medical diseases including diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, sleep apnea, chronic headaches, venous stasis disease, urinary incontinence, liver disease, and arthritis. Bariatric surgery is the only proven method that results in durable weight loss. This proven surgical approach, combined with the dismal failure of dieting, the marked improvement in quality of life and the quick recovery with minimally invasive techniques, has fueled the surge in the number of bariatric procedures performed annually over the last 10 years....

Rationale for Surgical Treatment

There is considerable misinformation concerning the validity of bariatric surgery in the management of morbid obesity. The following “Rationale for Surgery” covers the field in general. References are provided to allow the interested reader to obtain more detailed information along with the opportunity to examine the original data on which these statements are based....