Doctors

At our support group meetings, we always end up talking about doctors. Mostly about how some people are stuck at a dead-end because they have an unsupportive doctor. So we share about who is good, who is supportive when it comes to weight loss surgery and who the top docs are in our area.

It's funny because I give out my name and phone number on flyers so inevitably I get calls from people about surgery. It's the negative part of running a support group because of course, it can be great to tell someone information to help them but also that your name and number can be given out too much.

Take one local doctor (well in Belle River, Ontario) which is close enough. He must be very supportive when it comes to wls surgery because he's actually giving my name out too much! First of all, either he or his secretary is passing around information that people can call me and I'll actually book their surgery! ha! ha! Okay, while I consider myself fairly knowledgable when it comes to the ins and outs of surgery and OHIP approval, I'm not actually knowledgable to perform the surgery itself! To top it off, both the ladies who have called me saying that they want to book surgery with me seem to be ESL and so communication is well, let's say, challenging to get them to understand that no I'm not a hospital, no - I'm not a doctor...blah blah... Although I find it amusing let's just say that hubby does not!

Today's phone call took the cake however. The lady is calling because she wants to have the surgery because she needs to lose 50 lbs. Okay, huh? Her doctor is telling her to have bariatric surgery to lose 50 lbs? I had her on the phone and we computed her bmi which was basically 30. Not even in the remotest way a candidate for surgery by any means. Not for out of country or in country for that matter. She's barely meeting obese criteria, never mind being morbidly obese. So she asks me what she should do. The only thing I could say was to talk to her doctor about methods that might be appropriate for her and that OHIP mentions in their bariatric report that Weight Watchers has one of the highest success rates.

I can't believe the doctor though would even put her in contact with me. It's unbelievable. I'm hoping to send this doctor a letter or find someone that has this doctor to let the office know the criteria and information about wls. While it's great that he's ready to refer patients he needs to know that I do not actually perform the surgery and that there are indeed criteria.

Dawn