| REMINDER: ORLive Presents: Minimally Invasive Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass -- the Gold Standard of Weight-Loss Surgery
Weight-loss surgery is the first surgery PinnacleHealth is scheduled to host on the Internet over the next year. On Wednesday, November 7 at 6 pm, Luciano DiMarco, DO, FACOS, medical director of bariatric surgery at PinnacleHealth, will perform the gold standard of weight-loss surgery, Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass, at the PinnacleHealth Community Campus, on www.OR-Live.com. Since 1998, Luciano DiMarco, DO, FACOS, and his partners, Doctors Scot A. Currie and Matthew Davidson, have performed this surgery laparoscopically, reducing chance of infection, shortening hospital stay and improving recovery time. .
Weight loss surgery program at RGH running again
"My job is to build this program and make sure that the standards are the highest possible," says Dr. Anthony DiBenedetto, the new medical director of Rochester General Hospital’s bariatric surgery program. The weight loss surgery program at RGH has been in jeopardy since Spring 2007 when the husband-wife team who began the program left. Dr. Flavia Gusmano and Dr. Daniel Galvin left the hospital on good terms according to RGH administration, however, the hospital would not comment further as to why the couple chose to leave Rochester. Since their departure, the program lost more than half of its enrolled patients. Many who were about to undergo surgery at the time of the team’s departure were transferred to Unity Hospital for their surgeries. Dr.
ORLive Presents: Minimally Invasive Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass -- the Gold Standard of Weight-Loss Surgery
Weight-loss surgery is the first surgery PinnacleHealth is scheduled to host on the Internet over the next year. On Wednesday, November 7 at 6 pm, Luciano DiMarco, DO, FACOS, medical director of bariatric surgery at PinnacleHealth, will perform the gold standard of weight-loss surgery, Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass, at the PinnacleHealth Community Campus, on www.OR-Live.com. Since 1998, Luciano DiMarco, DO, FACOS, and his partners, Doctors Scot A. Currie and Matthew Davidson, have performed this surgery laparoscopically, reducing chance of infection, shortening hospital stay and improving recovery time. .
Expanding market
The rising number of obese people and the health problems their weight problems generate have turned baratric surgery into a growth business, both locally and nationally. Baton Rouge General Medical Center recently established a bariatric services division, staffed by three doctors. Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center’s live Web cast of a weight-loss surgery procedure drew more than 800 online viewers, most of them local. Vista Surgical Hospital, the biggest player in the market, does more than 500 bariatric surgeries a year. "We wanted to move into the weight-management program, the weight-management realm for a couple of reasons," said Kurt Bennett, the General’s bariatrics coordinator. "One, obesity is growing, not only in this country, but specifically in southern Louisiana." The Baton Rouge area’s population is growing, in large part because of people moving from New Orleans, Bennett said.
More political games with our health care
HB 849 is a bill that would require health insurance companies to pay for bariatric surgery for type II diabetics. I put this bill in at the request of doctors at the Portsmouth Hospital. There are different procedures, but bariatric surgery is basically stomach reduction. The bill, after being amended and undergoing about six subcommittee meetings, was carefully crafted to meet the needs of type II diabetics who cannot lose excess weight by traditional methods of dieting and exercise and need this type of surgery to stop the downward spiral of failing health. The testimony on this bill was absolutely compelling that in about 80 percent of those who met the criteria to be operated on, the surgery "cured" type II diabetes, high blood pressure, reduces heart attacks and a number of other expensive health care issues.
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